Caribbean Crisis: Can Nicaragua Navigate Waters It Won from Colombia?

Caribbean Crisis: Can Nicaragua Navigate Waters It Won from Colombia?
By Tim Rogers / ManaguaNov. 28, 2012

With pen and gavel, the U.N.’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague last week redrew the maritime map between Colombia and Nicaragua—doubling Nicaragua’s exclusive economic zone in the Caribbean Sea by 100,000 sq km (38,600 sq mi). But the ICJ may have doubled Nicaragua’s trouble as well, not just because Colombia heatedly rejects the ruling—this week Colombian warships defiantly continue to ply Nicaragua’s newly acquired maritime territory—but because the decision hands the small, impoverished Central American nation more water than it can likely swallow, creating potential new tensions in the pond of the Americas.

The government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega is celebrating its “recovery of sovereignty.” For starters, it can now grant broader and more lucrative concessions for fishing and oil-exploration. Problem is, not everyone will be seeking government permission to exploit the area. For northbound drug-runners supplying the hemisphere’s $40 billion illegal narcotics trade, the court-ordered changing of the guard from Colombia, Latin America’s largest navy, to Nicaragua, one of the region’s smallest, might look like an open invitation to literally test the waters. “The narcos will undoubtedly probe the Nicaraguan capabilities to patrol their expanded territorial waters,” says Bruce Bagley, a drug-war expert at the University of Miami. “If they prove inadequate or incapable, then the drug traffickers will certainly press their advantage.” The ICJ’s decision, Bagley predicts, “could easily and rapidly become a major boon for traffickers from Colombia, Mexico and Central America.”

Despite its size, Nicaragua has long prided itself on establishing a “firewall” in the drug war, which has soaked other Central American nations in narco-bloodshed. Nicaragua’s top military brass, Gen. Julio César Aviles, insists Nicaragua does have the “professional capacity as mariners to carry out this task” of expanding its permanent patrol. Others are less convinced. With limited resources, personnel, air support and only three go-fast patrol boats capable of remaining out at sea for more than a day, the country’s ability to protect such an expansive sea tract—which now reaches 200 nautical miles from its shoreline—is dubious at best. “Our victory in the Hague was a bitter fruit,” says Nicaraguan security and defense expert Roberto Cajina, “because Nicaragua does not have the capacity to guarantee permanent security of its newly acquired maritime zone.”

Colombia is also concerned about security issues. The drug-war argument was a linchpin of Colombia’s defense during the 11-year-long ICJ litigation, which focused on Nicaragua’s claim that Colombia unlawfully grabbed Nicaraguan territory back in the 1920s. But the ICJ ruled that maritime security is not a valid argument in cases to determine sovereignty.

More:
http://world.time.com/2012/11/28/caribbean-crisis-can-nicaragua-navigate-waters-it-won-from-colombia/#ixzz2DYDurha9