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By Karla Jacobs, 23rd January 2011
There have been two significant developments this month in the ongoing dispute provoked by Costa Rica over Nicaragua’s project to dredge the last 30 kilometres of River San Juan. Firstly, on January 10th the preliminary hearing of the case brought against Nicaragua by Costa Rica at the International Court of Justice took place. Secondly, representatives of both countries took part in a meeting in Mexico on January 17th aimed at facilitating a diplomatic solution to the dispute.
During the preliminary hearing at the International Court of Justice in the Hague between January 10th and 13th both countries presented their arguments as part of the case brought against Nicaragua in November 2010. Costa Rica accuses its northern neighbour of occupying Costa Rican territory in October as part of the ongoing dredging operation of the Nicaraguan River San Juan. Costa Rica also claims that Nicaragua has provoked environmental damage to Costa Rican territory as a result of the dredging operation.
According to Nicaragua’s representative at the world court, Carlos Arguello, however, the results of the preliminary hearing were “formidable” from Nicaragua’s perspective, demonstrating his remarks with the fact that Costa Rica was forced to modify its request for the court to approve “provisional measures” following the solid counter arguments presented by the Nicaraguan defence on January 11th:
While Costa Rica’s argument to back up its territorial claim to the 2.7 kilometres of swamp under scrutiny are based on historical maps which clearly stated that they had not been verified on the ground, Nicaragua’s claims to the area are based on the Alexander Arbitral Awards of 1896 and the Cleveland Award of 1888 which the International Court of Justice upheld as the valid interpretation of this area of the Costa Rican Nicaraguan border in a ruling in 2009.
During an interview with a Nicaraguan TV news program Arguello said he and his colleagues feel confident that the International Court will not grant the provisional measures requested by Costa Rica (among other things that Nicaragua does not allow its soldiers to enter the area Costa Rica claims is part of its territory again) due to the weakness of the Costa Rican delegates’ legal arguments.
The Nicaraguan representative went on to say that he does not expect a ruling to be issued on the matter for at least a month and a half commenting that the fact the court is taking its time on the case in hand suggests that, contrary to the impression the Costa Rican government is trying to create, the World Court does not view the case as “urgent.”
One interesting detail to come out of the preliminary hearing was the Costa Rican team’s claim that Managua is planning to build some sort of “major channel” in the border area, a construction which Costa Rica says could provoke significant environmental damage.
Arguello dismissed this claim as ridiculous describing what the Costa Ricans insist is “a channel” as a canal that has existed for centuries if not millennia and forms part of the river’s natural course. Again the Nicaraguan team’s argument is backed up by the Alexander Arbitral Award which clearly determines the existence of the canal in 1886.
As part of the current Nicaragua dredging operation, Arguello went on, the canal, which had closed up over time, has been cleared – an undertaking which involved the felling of approximately 180 trees so as to encourage the river’s water to flow into the last stretch of the river in Nicaraguan territory. According to the Nicaraguan defence, that part of the operation has now been completed and the government has no plans to carry out any further work on the canal apart from reforesting the area with 10 new trees for each one cut down.
Subsequently on January 17th representatives of the governments of both Central American nations took part in a meeting in the Mexican city of Cuernavaca which was facilitated by the governments of Mexico and Guatemala and which was hoped would be the first step in bringing about a diplomatic solution to the ongoing dispute between Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
Back in December Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom met with his Nicaraguan counterpart Daniel Ortega in Managua to discuss, among other things, the possibility of the Guatemalan government’s support in pursuing the possibility of unconditional dialogue between Nicaragua and Costa Rica as a means of promoting a diplomatic solution to the dispute. Both men agreed to work together towards this possibility.
At the Central American Integration System (SICA) summit in Belize later the same month President Colom succeeded in encouraging support for the initiative of unconditional dialogue including an agreement from the Costa Rican government to take part in such an endeavour and a commitment from the Mexican government to help facilitate and host the first meeting.
Nicaragua was represented at the subsequent January 17th meeting by the country’s ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Denis Moncada, the legal advisor to the Foreign Ministry, Cesar Vega, the Nicaraguan Ambassador to Mexico, Horacio Brenes, and the Nicaraguan Army’s legal advisor, Walter Molina.
Costa Rica was represented by its Foreign Ministry’s Central America Coordinator, Melvin Saenz, Director of Foreign Policy at the Foreign Ministry, Estela Blanca Solis, Foreign Ministry legal advisor, Carlos Vargas Pizarro, and the Costa Rican Ambassador in Mexico Gabriela Jimenez.
The Guatemalan and Mexican delegations, meanwhile, were both led by their respective foreign ministers.
During her speech at the opening session Mexican Foreign Minister, Patricia Espinoza, said “a disagreement between Central American [nations] that generates tension and polarizes political positions harms [the entire region]. [This] border dispute between neighbouring countries affects the progress of the Central American integration process at the very moment, after half a century’s efforts, that the process finds itself in a phase of concrete achievements and progress.”
Espinoza went on to describe the role of what is being referred to as the “Mexican and Guatemalan facilitation exercise with Nicaragua and Costa Rica” as being “to contribute to … an environment of respect and harmony between [Nicaragua and Costa Rica] within which the ongoing case at the International Court of Justice can be carried out.”
In a very real sense, the realization of the meeting on January 17th was a diplomatic victory for the Ortega government given that, previously, the Costa Rican government had insisted it would only consider diplomatic dialogue with Nicaragua after Nicaraguan soldiers were withdrawn from the border area in dispute.
The fact that the delegations representing either country did not actually meet face to face in Cuernavaca but held separate, parallel meetings with representatives of the facilitating governments (Guatemala and Mexico), does not take away from the significance of the meeting in terms of bringing closer the possibility of eventually reaching a diplomatic solution to the dispute.
Indeed the joint statement signed by all four participating countries read at the end of the meeting said the day had been characterized by “broad, frank and friendly dialogue” between the parties in dispute and the facilitating delegations. The joint statement went on to say both the Nicaraguan and the Costa Rican delegations agree that this mechanism of dialogue facilitated by Guatemala and Mexico is “a useful and important mechanism.” Finally it was confirmed that all delegations agreed to the continuation of the process of dialogue with the second meeting planned to take place in Guatemala.
In trying to understand the scope and significance of the Costa Rican government’s false territorial claims and the subsequent provocation of the current dispute with Nicaragua, the concluding paragraphs of Prensa Latina journalist Alfredo Pierat’s January 18th article “Who is benefited by the conflict invented by Costa Rica over the River San Juan?” are significant:
“[Costa Rica and Nicaragua] have a common history and enjoy bilateral relations which, though not always straight forward, are characterized by intense commercial and economic links.
“The conflict over the dredging of the River San Juan doesn’t just affect every aspect of relations between the two nations, but also takes its toll on the complex Central American Integration Process and the unity of Latin America and the Caribbean as a whole.
Without doubt, [this conflict] does not benefit Nicaragua, nor does it benefit Costa Rica or any other Latin American or Caribbean nation. It does, however, benefit those who prefer to maintain the countries to the South of the Rio Grande divided and in permanent conflict.”
Pierat’s suggestion that imperialist forces are behind the Costa Rican government’s policy in this dispute – a dispute that does not favour Costa Rican’s own economic or other interests – helps locate the ongoing conflict within a wider regional context in which US allies in the region engage in attempts to undermine and destabilize ALBA country governments, often choosing critical moments in those countries’ electoral calendars to carry out such attempts.
The recent developments described in this article, however, appear to play in Nicaragua’s favour not least because they represent a move away from any perceived need for the dispute to be dealt with at the pro-imperialist OAS.
At this stage, though, it is impossible to predict the outcome of current efforts to ease tension between the two countries given that, as yet, it is unclear how far the Costa Rican governments is willing to defend and act on its spurious and irrational claim of a Nicaraguan invasion. The Chinchilla government’s reaction to the ongoing legal procedure at the World Court and the eventual ruling on the case will be determining factors.