Q24N (EFE) The National Assembly of Nicaragua approved this Wednesday articles of a reform to the Political Constitution that authorizes the State to grant concessions for the construction of an interoceanic canal through Nicaragua.
The constitutional amendment, proposed by the Nicaragua’s regime and approved unanimously in the second and final vote, establishes that “the State may grant concessions for the construction and exploitation of an interoceanic canal,” and that the laws of the matter will regulate the conditions.
For the approval, reform or repeal of a canal project, a 60% vote of the total of 91 deputies that make up the Nicaraguan Parliament, currently controlled in an absolute way by Sandinistas, will be required, according to the constitutional norm.
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The reform also establishes that “natural resources are national heritage and objectives of sovereign security, preservation and conservation of the environment,” and that “the development and exploitation of natural resources correspond to the State, which may enter into contracts for rational exploitation of natural resources.”
In addition, it indicates that the State will promote and facilitate national and foreign investments “without detriment to national sovereignty and the rights of workers.”
Ortega offered the canal project to China
On November 18, Daniel Ortega offered China the project to build an interoceanic canal through the Central American country, this time with a new route in which, instead of crossing the Great Lake or Lake Cocibolca, it would pass through Lake Xolotlán or Managua.
The new route would start from a port to be built in Bluefields, the main city of the South Caribbean Autonomous Region, pass through the central part of Nicaragua, Lake Xolotlán, and exit through the port of Corinto, on the Pacific.
According to Ortega, the new project would have a longer route than the one previously presented and would cover some 445 kilometers in length, with a width of between 290 and 540 meters and a depth of 27 meters.
For its operation, the construction of two locks would be required, one in the Caribbean and another in the Pacific, as well as the creation of an artificial lake that would be called El Escondido.
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Ortega presented the new route of this project on the same day that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) condemned the State of Nicaragua for violating various rights of indigenous peoples within the framework of the interoceanic canal project that would be developed by a Chinese company, for which it did not carry out prior consultation with the communities or environmental studies.
In May 2024, after 12 years, the Sandinista government, with the approval of Parliament, revoked the concession to build a canal through the country to the company Hong Kong Nicaragua Canal Development (HKND) Group, of the controversial Chinese investor Wang Jing, which would include two ports, including Bluefields.
Ortega, who has acknowledged that it was not the Sandinistas who had the idea of this wet route, but rather the Americans and the British since the mid-19th century, has not given up on that old dream, whose viability continues to be questioned by environmentalists, opponents and by the numbers.
Editor’s note: Ortega tends to go to building the canal or the retaking of Guanacaste from Costa Rica whenever he faces political troubles at home
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