Caribbean & Central America - August 2012 (ISSN 1741-4458)

Nicaragua’s relationship with Colombia has come under increasing scrutiny in recent weeks for various reasons. Against the backdrop of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague preparing to issue a ruling on Colombia’s maritime and territorial dispute with Nicaragua later this year, last month a Colombian journalist, Luis Felipe Ríos Castaño, became the first foreigner ever to be convicted of spying in Nicaragua.

On 12 July Ríos was sentenced to 16 years for spying on behalf of the Colombian armed forces. Ríos, who was charged on 14 June, pleaded guilty to seeking “restricted and reserved information” about Nicaragua’s “national defence” and “national security”, on orders from the “Colombian intelligence forces”. The commander-in-chief of Nicaragua's national army, General Julio César Aviles, told reporters that Castaño entered Nicaragua in late 2010, posing as a Spanish journalist working for a military and defence magazine. He made contact with a Nicaraguan army lieutenant, Amaru Vicente Álvarez Granera, and a captain, Leonidas Rubén Castillo Ruiz, from whom he gathered information that he sent to Colombia. Both Nicaraguan army officials were sentenced by a military tribunal on 20 June to 16-and-a-half year prison sentences for espionage and revealing military secrets.

With the Colombian government of President Juan Manuel Santos keeping a measured distance from the case, bilateral tensions were further heightened last month by Colombia’s decision to send the military to San Andrés, for a parade on 20 July to mark Colombia’s Independence Day. Along with Providencia and Santa Catalina, San Andrés is one of the islands located in waters which are being disputed before the ICJ: while the international court ruled in December 2007 that the three islands Nicaragua claimed as its own were Colombian under a 1928 treaty, according to the ICJ verdict, the maritime boundary set by that treaty (the 82nd meridian) referred only to the archipelago and was not, as claimed by Colombia, an overall maritime boundary. The court also said that it would continue to study the case in order to set a definitive boundary. Hearings took place between 23 April and 4 May and a final ruling is expected in coming months.