It isn’t looking good for Chinese billionaire Wang Jing and his planned $50 billion Nicaragua canal project. New financial, social and environmental concerns have cast doubt on the feasibility of the proposed interoceanic canal, and construction has now been delayed until March.
Nicaragua’s proposed $50 billion interoceanic canal – the biggest earthmoving project in world history – will cut poverty in half, double the country’s GDP growth and energize Central American integration by servicing a boom in global shipping that will quickly outgrow even the newly enlarged Panama Canal. So claims Paul Oquist, a key adviser to President Daniel Ortega.
"What's going to happen if along the [canal] route it will require land expropriation, and how are they [the Sandinista government] going to do it?" U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua Phyllis Powers asked in an interview published Monday in the Nicaraguan news magazine Confidencial. "Because we have U.S. citizens who have property along the route."
Organizers of Saturday’s march said they hope to send a message to outside investors that the 373,000 people estimated to be affected by the mega-project will not roll over without a fight.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Opponents of Nicaragua’s dubious plans to build a $50 billion interoceanic canal are trying to rally U.S. help in fighting the controversial project. But it’s not clear if official Washington is listening.
Manuel González: “Nicaragua has been buying heavy military equipment from Russia. They just publicized the purchase of MiG-29s, supposedly to fight drug trafficking. Well, we’ve been very effective in fighting drug trafficking, and we don’t need MiGs to do that.”
The group of environmentalists and human rights organizers plan to present an open letter to the Costa Rican Foreign Ministry to present to CELAC leaders decrying a lack of transparency, and threats to indigenous land rights and Lake Nicaragua.
