When travelling around Nica, we have naturally focused on what we can see and experience. Yet, as we have immersed ourselves in this beautiful little country, we have also thought about what we have not seen. One vivid example is that we have not seen ocean liners floating elegantly up Lago de Cocibolca (Lake Nicaragua). Hmmmm.....
We all learn a bit about the Panama Canal history-yet most do not remember that Nicaragua was at one time the logical place to build this aquatic passageway and was favored for such a canal during the bulk of the processes that ultimately led to the choice of the Isthmus of Panama. (I did not remember.)
There are many good histories on the Panama Canal--I am a big fan of David McCullough's writing style and his book The Path Between the Seas is a good read. With respect to Nicaragua, the canal was logical for several reasons. First, the Nicaragua route would save 500 miles in transport (a full two days) compared to the Panama Canal. Lago Cocicobilo is an inland lake that is 16 miles from the Pacific Ocean and it flows into the Rio San Juan on the Nicaraguan-Costa Rica border, which then flows into the Atlantic Ocean. In the 1850s, during the throes of the California gold rush, U.S. businessman Cornelius Vanderbilt provided passage from New York to San Francisco (via Nicaragua) for $145. (Note: JetBlu has a one-way fare for $218 and it takes 5:15 with no winds, compared with Vanderbilt's 45-day trip.) He ran a steamship from the Atlantic up the Rio San Juan (with help by railway for certain sections involving rapids) to Lago Cocicobola, where he had wagons transport passengers to the Pacific where another ship was waiting for the journey to San Francisco. It was also important at the time that Nicaragua was not known as a deathtrap like Panama with malaria, yellow fever etc. Yet, we all know the Panama site was chosen for various reasons and Nicaragua.......well...
In considering what this means for Nicaragua today, there are several interesting ways to think about the canal and the hangover that still exists in Nicaragua. First, and most obvious, Nicaragua does not have the aquatic passageway, which--you can guess, is either good or bad depending on perspectives within Nicaragua.
Second, and more psychologically, the debates surrounding the aquatic passageway are still close to the heart of nationalism that dominates the political landscape in Nicaragua and other Latin American countries today. It appears that anti-U.S. sentiment began to fester when the so-called [Theodore] Roosevelt Corollary expanded the U.S. Monroe Doctrine and exerted greater U.S. dominion over Latin America, which was manifested in the policies leading to the completion of the Panama Canal. These policies continued with President Taft and his dollar diplomacy. In Nicaragua, as the Panama Canal was being completed in 1914, the Bryan-Chamorro treaty between Nicaragua and the U.S. gave the U.S. the exclusive right for 99 years to build the Nicaraguan canal, thus precluding competition for the new U.S. investment in the Panama Canal. In return, the U.S. relieved certain Nicaraguan debts that had accumulated.
This treaty (and the imbedded U.S. domination) is still cited today as a source of Nicaraguan nationalism and the attendant anti-U.S. sentiments that still pervade the political landscape in Nicaragua (Yes, this was exacerbated by the Contra support in the 1980s).
In thinking about this, I recalled a discussion with former President Carter in Merced last year where he indicated that one of his proudest moments as President was signing the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which essentially returned the canal to the people of Panama in 2000, while the U.S. reserves a right to defend the use of the canal. Like Nicaragua, the people of Panama, within hours of the ink drying on the 1903 Hay- Bunau Varilla Treaty, were basking in their new independence from Colombia and wanted the canal zone back as part of their new country. Panama's independence finally happened 97 years later......
Posted by David
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