Caribbean & Central America - June 2014 (ISSN 1741-4458)

Relations between Nicaragua and Russia have strengthened under the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) government led by President Daniel Ortega, since it took office for a second time in 2007. A high level Nicaraguan delegation headed up by the country’s finance and trade ministers, Iván Acosta and Orlando Solorzano Delgadillo respectively, recently attended the 22-24 May St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), while in April Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, visited Managua where he and President Ortega reaffirmed bilateral ties.

The Ortega government, which also sent Ortega’s son, Laureano Ortega Murillo, an advisor to the state investment promotion agency, ProNicaragua, to St Petersburg, continues to trumpet efforts to strengthen bilateral trade. This reached US$109.9m in 2013 (of Nicaragua’s total trade of US$7.9bn), up from US$94.5m in 2012 (of total trade of US$8.7bn), on latest figures from the Central American Economic Integration System (Sieca). Co-operation has also remained strong; according to the most recent report on foreign co-operation (dated April 2014) from Nicaragua’s central bank, Russia was Nicaragua’s second biggest single overall donor after Venezuela in 2013, accounting for US$35.1m of a total of US$1.29bn received in foreign cooperation.

Amidst the recent flurry of diplomatic activity, top officials from both countries announced that Nicaragua is set to be one of the first countries to host land installations for GLONASS, the Russian satellite-based global navigation system (see sidebar). Russia has also expressed an interest in collaborating in the US$40bn plan, led by the Hong Kong-based company HKND, to build and operate an inter-oceanic canal (‘Gran Canal’) in Nicaragua. In an interview with the Russian news agency RIA Novosti published on 6 May, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said that Russia was considering participating in the project. These remarks were reiterated by Russia’s ambassador to Managua, Nikolay Vladimir, who told the national daily La Prensa on 17 May that Russia has an interest in the project.

Security cooperation is also intensifying, prompting some international attention from the likes of the US. Signs of this closer collaboration were evident last year, with the construction of a new Russian-built training centre for anti-drugs officials and joint anti-drugs operations [RC-13-04]. The prospect of military cooperation has drawn suspicion from Costa Rica, with which Nicaragua has a territorial dispute before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague. In an interview with the Costa Rican daily Nación published on 4 May, four days before the Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN) government of President Laura Chinchilla left office, Costa Rica’s departing foreign minister, Enrique Castillo, expressed concern that Nicaragua is building up its military with the help of Russia. This followed remarks by Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, back in February (which were seized on by international media), that Russia is planning to expand its permanent military presence outside its borders by placing military bases in a number of foreign countries – including Nicaragua.

These claims since have been contradicted by Russian officials, however. In March, Ambassador Vladimir denied that Russia was planning to build military bases in Latin America, claiming that Moscow was discussing with Managua a possible agreement for Russian military planes and ships to use Nicaraguan facilities for maintenance purposes only. Similarly, in an interview with “Russian media” published by the FSLN-aligned publication, el19digital, on 17 May, Foreign Minister Lavrov echoed these remarks, insisting that the two sides were discussing “technical maintenance bases” to assist the Russian navy.

• GLONASS

On 11 May, Nicaragua’s state-aligned media, el19digital, reported that Nicaragua would host “land installations” for GLONASS, the Russian satellite-based global navigation system. The GLONASS system, which performs a localization service for land- and sea-based targets comparable to the one provided by the US-managed Global Positioning System (GPS), is set to expand its coverage with new installations in 36 countries, including Nicaragua. According to the opposition newspaper La Prensa, some high-end mobile phones in Nicaragua already rely on the GLONASS system.