Costa Rica-Nicaragua Border Dispute
by COHA Staff
To Our Readers:
A number of you have emailed to express your surprise over COHA’s silence on the recent eruption of the longstanding
border dispute between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Rest assured, the COHA staff has been following this issue closely;
Director Larry Birns recently conducted a 20-minute interview with BBC on the subject, and a more in-depth analysis of
the situation along the Rio San Juan will be published on the COHA website within a matter of days.
It is clear that the dispute has become a prominent campaign vehicle designed to fortify Nicaraguan President Daniel
Ortega’s shifting popularity at home. The opportunity to rally the Nicaraguan people around a nationalist cause rather
than regional harmony may have been too much for the Sandinista leader to resist. At this point, Nicaragua remains
obdurate that the status quo is more advantageous to its national interest than the principles of conciliation and
mediation. For her part, Costa Rica’s President Laura Chinchilla is under pressure to use the dispute to prove herself
as decisive a leader as her cagey and always ambitious predecessor Óscar Arias. Given each leader’s personal stake in
the conflict, the prospects for a speedy resolution appear meager. Costa Rica has looked to the OAS to resolve the
dispute, a move that has Ortega threatening to pull out of the organization altogether. In fact, one long-lasting
consequence of the border dispute may be that it marks a definitive downward trend with respect to the scope of OAS
influence.
Check back for a full analysis of the origins and implications of this conflict as part of an upcoming COHA study of
border disputes throughout Latin America.
Share and Enjoy:
ENDS