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Nicaragua unveils canal project to rival Panama Canal Environmental fears for Lake Nicaragua add to skepticism over 'biggest engineering project in human history'
(about 4 hours later)
Nicaragua's government and Hong Kong-based HKND Group on Monday unveiled the route of a proposed $40 billion inter-ocean canal to compete with the Panama Canal that Sandinista officials hope will lift the Central American country out of poverty. With a blast of fanfare loud enough to drown out a background buzz of deep scepticism, Nicaragua has declared that it is moving forward with plans to build a waterway linking the Pacific to the Caribbean. The finished project would compete with the Panama Canal, which itself is undergoing a grand expansion.
While the canal has the support of President Daniel Ortega and most Nicaraguans, many legal experts charge that the deal violates the country's national sovereignty. Environmental experts warn that construction could cause profound ecological damage by damming rivers, splitting ecosystems and moving untold tons of earth. Others fear the project is not economically feasible. Billed as the biggest engineering project in human history, the new canal would stretch 173 miles: starting at the mouth of the river Brito on the Pacific side, bisecting Lake Nicaragua near the border with Costa Rica and heading eastwards via the Tule and Punta Gordas rivers as far as Bluefields Bay on the Caribbean.
Representatives of HKND, which is owned by Chinese businessman Wang Jing, said Monday that the canal will stretch 173 miles (278 kilometers), 65 miles (105 kilometers) of which are across Lake Nicaragua. With a $40 billion price tag, the project is the brainchild of President Daniel Ortega, the one-time Marxist guerrilla turned laissez-faire leader, who says it will lift his people out of poverty, and Wang Jing - described by the New Yorker magazine as “an obscure Chinese tycoon” - who is a lawyer, not an engineer.
Junsong Dong, chief of engineers for HKND, said that after studying six possible routes for the mega-project they decided on one that starts on the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of river Brito, heads south through the city of Rivas and crosses Lake Nicaragua. From Lake Nicaragua, it goes by the Tule and Punta Gordas rivers until it reaches the southern Caribbean by Bluefields Bay. A special canal committee created by Mr Ortega said on Monday that it had settled on the route for the canal after considering six different options. Members said they expected ground to be broken this December with a highly ambitious 2019 completion date. (It took 10 years to build the existing Panama Canal, which is one third of the length of the Nicaraguan route.)
Opposition liberal deputy Eliseo Nunez called the announcement “a propaganda game, a media show to continue generating false hopes of future prosperity among Nicaraguans.” However obstacles remain. There is growing concern that by essentially handing over huge swathes of his country to an untested Chinese entrepreneur, Mr Ortega may have violated sovereignty clauses in the constitution.
But HKND officials said the canal project will employ about 50,000 people directly and indirectly benefit another 200,000. Opposition may also intensify from environmentalists who fear for the future of Lake Nicaragua and all of the territory that would be torn up to make way for the sea lane.
“This project is going to be the biggest built in the history of humanity. It will be an enormous help to the Nicaraguan people and for the world in general, because world trade will require it, we are sure of this,” Wang told students at the Managua University of Engineering. Congressman Eliseo Nunez of the opposition Independent Liberal Party called this week’s announcement part of “a propaganda game” by Mr Ortega. “A media show to continue generating false hopes of future prosperity among Nicaraguans”.
Junsong Dong said the canal project consists of six sub-projects, including the channel itself, construction of two deep-water ports, a free-trade area, tourism projects in San Lorenzo and an airport in the city of Rivas. But Mr Ortega dominates the political scene in his country and there has been little mistaking his determination to get the canal project under way, regardless of the questions about his choice of partner in Mr Wang.
Construction is expected to begin in December 2014 and take five years. “This is a project that will bring well-being, prosperity, and happiness to the Nicaraguan people,” he said at a ceremony unveiling his dream in Managua just over a year ago.
AP Nicaragua Canal Development Investment chairman Wang Jing speaks during a discussion group with students from the National Engineering University in Managua The somewhat reclusive Mr Wang is said to have built his fortune in the Chinese telecoms market. To further his courtship of Mr Ortega, he founded a company in Hong Kong and called it the HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Co Ltd (HKND Group).
Officials of the company have claimed that the project would give employment to about 50,000 in Nicaragua. In addition to the canal itself, ports and a new airport would be built.
"This project is going to be the biggest built in the history of humanity. It will be an enormous help to the Nicaraguan people and for the world in general, because world trade will require it, we are sure of this," Wang told students at the Managua University of Engineering.