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      HOMEPAGE
      Worldvertical orientation badge

      China’s Nicaragua Canal Could Spark a New Central America Revolution

      IT’S A DITCH

      Many critics thought construction of a canal across Nicaragua never would begin. Now that it’s about to, they ask how it will end—and some are asking for guns to stop it.

      Nina Lakhani

      Nina Lakhani

      Updated Aug. 11, 2019 6:05AM EDT / Published Nov. 30, 2014 6:45AM EST 

      Emil Lendof/The Daily Beast

      TOLESMAIDA, Nicaragua—A hundred or so people have gathered under the intense midday sun at the main crossroads in this village on the south-westerly edge of majestic Lake Nicaragua.

      Many of those who’ve come together here to protest have been loyal supporters of President Daniel Ortega since he was part of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) junta that overthrew the Somoza dynasty in 1979. They backed him when the Sandinistas tried to establish their own Cuban-inspired dictatorship. They backed him in his war against the CIA-trained Contra rebels in the 1980s. And when the country started holding legitimate elections in the 1990s, they backed him in his bid to build the FSLN into a powerful political party that eventually returned him to the presidency—a position he does not look like he’ll give up any time soon. But right now these Sandinistas are absolutely enraged by plans to evict them from their lands to make way for his latest and by far most grandiose project: the Interoceanic Canal.

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      “It’s all over between us and Daniel,” yelled María Duarte, a 72-year-old former Sandinista combatant who fought in the revolution and then against the US-backed Contra counterinsurgents. “He was like a son to us but he’s betrayed us, sold us out to the Chinese! Que barbaridad!” It’s outrageous!

      Nina Lakhani

      Nina Lakhani

      @ninalakhani

      Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.

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