Former Contra militants unite with old Sandinista enemies to stop construction of Nicaragua’s Grand Interoceanic Canal, which would consume their land

La Uniòn is a 2,000-person farming community in Nicaragua. It is slated, along with other communities, to be sacrificed to industrial progress at the hands of the Hong Kong-funded Grand Canal, the largest construction project in the history of the world.

Some of the farmers living there fought against President Daniel Ortega in the war that tore through Nicaragua in the 1980s. During that war, Ortega called himself a fighter “against the domination [by] the capitalists of our country”.

I went to La Uniòn to hear the stories of these farmers, and to photograph a community on the edge of disappearance. People were willing to unite with Sandinista farmers, their former enemies, in the struggle against the Canal. This struggle pits Ortega’s government, the canal’s profiteers, and most of the urban population against the farmers.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘We can barely survive here’, says Leonardo Escobar Escamoro. Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the western hemisphere, and corporate monopolization of farmland has crushed small farmers. Half of the countryside lives on less than a dollar a day.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Isabel Día Talavera: ‘It is not fair to go to a different place that you do not know, or how you are going to live.’ Her husband Miguel shakes his head: ‘We are not acting against the government. He [Ortega] is acting against his own people.’

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Miguel Antonio Lopez Alvarez: ‘We feel failed…they could evacuate us or send the army to hurt or kill us at any moment.’

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Two of Alvarez’s granddaughters. Without consultation with the public, the canal concession was ratified in three days.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Serapio Telles shares his frustration at the lack of countrywide solidarity: ‘We farmers are the only ones who have been unified and rise against the project.’ Advocacy lawyer Mónica López Baltodano says that because the government is so tied to the media and private sector: ‘People are afraid to oppose this because they could lose their jobs.’

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lake Nicaragua is the largest source of potable fresh water in Central America. Among major environmental concerns posed by the project are pollution, deforestation and huge water consumption. Scientific American reported that Ortega’s government did not solicit any environmental impact studies. Jorge Huete-Pèrez’s, vice-president of Nicaragua’s Academy of Science, wrote in his editorial in Science magazine: ‘Something is clear, which is the interest in building the canal without interest in the consequences.’

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A farmer’s wife in a kitchen. Bismarck Alvarado, a Sandinista farmer: ‘It is important to join them [the Contras] because...this affects us equally, regardless of our politics.’

Facebook Twitter Pinterest When José Inez Gonzalez Ojela was 16, in 1981, he took up arms against the Sandinistas and lost his younger brother in the war. José’s friend and local activist leader Don Celestino said: ‘There are Sandinistas who do not believe in the intentions of this dictatorial government. We have come together.’

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A farmer on a horse. Ortega’s Nicaragua is ranked eighth in the world for non-intervention in the private sector.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jaime Obando: ‘[Canal Spokesman] Telèmaco Talavera said in his speech that they are going to pay us good prices [for our land].’ The concession requires the government to only pay the state-assessed (cadastral) values, widely known to be far lower than market prices.