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November 19, 2010, 8:40 am The Google Maps War That Wasn’t
By ROBERT MACKEY
Esteban Felix/Associated Press
Nicaraguan Troops Remain in Costa Rica, but Why? Nicaraguan troops are still hunkered down on an island across the country’s border with Costa Rica.
Heard the one about Nicaragua accidentally invading Costa Rica because of a Google Maps error?
Two weeks ago, the story was hard to miss, as the tale of the accidental invasion was repeated on thousands of Web sites. The frenzy began after a Costa Rican newspaper asked Edén Pastora, a former Sandinista commander now in charge of dredging the river that divides the two countries, why 50 Nicaraguan soldiers had crossed the international frontier and taken up positions on a Costa Rican island. The ex-guerrilla invoked the Google Maps defense: pointing out that anyone Googling the border could see that the island in the river delta was clearly on Nicaragua’s side.
The idea that Nicaragua had relied on Google Maps for a military deployment, and stumbled across a frontier because of a mistake by the search giant, set off peals of laughter worldwide, sent Google scrambling to explain and fix the error, and led journalists to discover another mistaken Google Map that could provoke an international incident.
What few people outside Central America seemed to notice was that there was a problem with the punchline: in the weeks since Google acknowledged that its map was in error, Nicaragua has refused to remove its troops.
For reasons that are not entirely clear, but that strongly suggest Mr. Pastora’s remarks might have been more tongue-in-cheek than most casual observers understood, the force remains in place on the Isla Calero, which is located in the delta of the San Juan River that marks the eastern third of the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The river itself belongs to Nicaragua, but Costa Rica begins at its southern bank.
Accidental invasions happen, but they generally last no more than a few minutes or hours — just long enough for someone to turn the map the right way round and sheepishly withdraw to their own side of the imaginary lines that keep the world at peace, more or less. But Nicaragua’s troops have now for three weeks been in what most of the world recognizes as Costa Rican territory.
In fact, far from withdrawing the troops, Nicaragua has ignored a request from the Organization of American States to do so, and instead dispatched a delegation of top military officers and legislators to visit them on the disputed frontier.
Why? Well, in an interview with The Tico Times, an English-language Costa Rican newspaper, President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua argued that the island should belong to his country, since Nicaragua owns the river along the border and the island is made up of silt from the river. “In the 1600s and 1700s, the river covered an enormous amount of territory at its delta,” Mr. Ortega told the newspaper this month. “And as the zone has dried, the river has moved and (Costa Rica) has continued to advance and take possession of terrain that doesn’t belong to it.”
Mr. Ortega also told the newspaper that Nicaragua interpreted a ruling on the river by the International Court of Justice at The Hague last year to mean that, “Nicaragua has the right to dredge the San Juan River to recover the flow of waters that existed in 1858.”
That would seem to explain why the troops arrived on the island at the same time as a dredging operation led by Mr. Pastora, which is seen in video shot by The Tico Times last week:
Video showing Nicaragua’s dredging operation on the San Juan River, along its border with Costa Rica.
In other words, as Stefan Geens pointed out in an informative post about the episode on his blog Ogle Earth, “Given all this information, we can conclude that the narrative currently dominating the Internet is wrong: Nicaragua did not mistakenly enter Costa Rican territory because it relied on Google Maps. Ortega’s justification for Nicaragua’s actions appeal to documents from the 19th century; Pastora’s mention of Google Maps is just a taunt.”
Mr. Geens, who explains in great detail the long history of the disputed border between the two countries, also helpfully posted this map of the disputed island, from the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa:
Either way, the presence of the troops, and the dredging of the river without regard for the environmental impact on the Costa Rican bank, has enraged President Laura Chinchilla of Costa Rica, who told journalists, around the time that the world was still laughing about the idea that Google Maps could start a war, “this is not a border dispute.” She added, “We’ve had a lack of respect for the sovereignty of Costa Rica, primarily by the dredging of the river, affecting the Costa Rican bank, and secondly, with the entry of troops that remain.”
Ms. Chinchilla is somewhat constrained in her latitude to act by the fact that her nation has no army but, in addition to continuing to press the Organization of American States to demand that Nicaragua withdraw its troops, and sending 70 police officers to the region, Costa Rica issued an arrest warrant for Edén Pastora on Wednesday, charging him with “irreversible” damage to the environment, by “cutting down of trees, disruption of area wetlands and distribution of river sediment into Costa Rican territory,” as a result of the dredging of the San Juan River.
On Thursday, Costa Rica also filed suit against Nicaragua at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, “for alleged environmental damage and violation of sovereignty,” Nicaragua’s La Prensa reported.
Given this level of international pressure, what explains Nicaragua’s refusal to remove a small number of troops from an apparently insignificant pile of silt?
In an article on the crisis headlined “Dredging Up Votes,” The Economist pointed out that the stand-off seems to be a political boon to Nicaragua’s president, who is looking for a way to dodge his nation’s constitution and run for a third term in office. Since the conflict began, the magazine noted, “Mr. Ortega has enjoyed a wave of nationalist support at home. On November 3rd he won the first unanimous vote in the National Assembly of his four years in office. All this coincides with the start of the election campaign.”
More conspiracy-minded readers might prefer the explanation offered by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz last week, under the headline, “Iran, Venezuela plan to build rival to Panama Canal.” The newspaper reported:
November 19, 2010, 8:40 am The Google Maps War That Wasn’t
By ROBERT MACKEY
Esteban Felix/Associated Press
Nicaraguan Troops Remain in Costa Rica, but Why? Nicaraguan troops are still hunkered down on an island across the country’s border with Costa Rica.
Heard the one about Nicaragua accidentally invading Costa Rica because of a Google Maps error?
Two weeks ago, the story was hard to miss, as the tale of the accidental invasion was repeated on thousands of Web sites. The frenzy began after a Costa Rican newspaper asked Edén Pastora, a former Sandinista commander now in charge of dredging the river that divides the two countries, why 50 Nicaraguan soldiers had crossed the international frontier and taken up positions on a Costa Rican island. The ex-guerrilla invoked the Google Maps defense: pointing out that anyone Googling the border could see that the island in the river delta was clearly on Nicaragua’s side.
The idea that Nicaragua had relied on Google Maps for a military deployment, and stumbled across a frontier because of a mistake by the search giant, set off peals of laughter worldwide, sent Google scrambling to explain and fix the error, and led journalists to discover another mistaken Google Map that could provoke an international incident.
What few people outside Central America seemed to notice was that there was a problem with the punchline: in the weeks since Google acknowledged that its map was in error, Nicaragua has refused to remove its troops.
For reasons that are not entirely clear, but that strongly suggest Mr. Pastora’s remarks might have been more tongue-in-cheek than most casual observers understood, the force remains in place on the Isla Calero, which is located in the delta of the San Juan River that marks the eastern third of the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The river itself belongs to Nicaragua, but Costa Rica begins at its southern bank.
Accidental invasions happen, but they generally last no more than a few minutes or hours — just long enough for someone to turn the map the right way round and sheepishly withdraw to their own side of the imaginary lines that keep the world at peace, more or less. But Nicaragua’s troops have now for three weeks been in what most of the world recognizes as Costa Rican territory.
In fact, far from withdrawing the troops, Nicaragua has ignored a request from the Organization of American States to do so, and instead dispatched a delegation of top military officers and legislators to visit them on the disputed frontier.
Why? Well, in an interview with The Tico Times, an English-language Costa Rican newspaper, President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua argued that the island should belong to his country, since Nicaragua owns the river along the border and the island is made up of silt from the river. “In the 1600s and 1700s, the river covered an enormous amount of territory at its delta,” Mr. Ortega told the newspaper this month. “And as the zone has dried, the river has moved and (Costa Rica) has continued to advance and take possession of terrain that doesn’t belong to it.”
Mr. Ortega also told the newspaper that Nicaragua interpreted a ruling on the river by the International Court of Justice at The Hague last year to mean that, “Nicaragua has the right to dredge the San Juan River to recover the flow of waters that existed in 1858.”
That would seem to explain why the troops arrived on the island at the same time as a dredging operation led by Mr. Pastora, which is seen in video shot by The Tico Times last week:
Video showing Nicaragua’s dredging operation on the San Juan River, along its border with Costa Rica.
In other words, as Stefan Geens pointed out in an informative post about the episode on his blog Ogle Earth, “Given all this information, we can conclude that the narrative currently dominating the Internet is wrong: Nicaragua did not mistakenly enter Costa Rican territory because it relied on Google Maps. Ortega’s justification for Nicaragua’s actions appeal to documents from the 19th century; Pastora’s mention of Google Maps is just a taunt.”
Mr. Geens, who explains in great detail the long history of the disputed border between the two countries, also helpfully posted this map of the disputed island, from the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa:
Either way, the presence of the troops, and the dredging of the river without regard for the environmental impact on the Costa Rican bank, has enraged President Laura Chinchilla of Costa Rica, who told journalists, around the time that the world was still laughing about the idea that Google Maps could start a war, “this is not a border dispute.” She added, “We’ve had a lack of respect for the sovereignty of Costa Rica, primarily by the dredging of the river, affecting the Costa Rican bank, and secondly, with the entry of troops that remain.”
Ms. Chinchilla is somewhat constrained in her latitude to act by the fact that her nation has no army but, in addition to continuing to press the Organization of American States to demand that Nicaragua withdraw its troops, and sending 70 police officers to the region, Costa Rica issued an arrest warrant for Edén Pastora on Wednesday, charging him with “irreversible” damage to the environment, by “cutting down of trees, disruption of area wetlands and distribution of river sediment into Costa Rican territory,” as a result of the dredging of the San Juan River.
On Thursday, Costa Rica also filed suit against Nicaragua at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, “for alleged environmental damage and violation of sovereignty,” Nicaragua’s La Prensa reported.
Given this level of international pressure, what explains Nicaragua’s refusal to remove a small number of troops from an apparently insignificant pile of silt?
In an article on the crisis headlined “Dredging Up Votes,” The Economist pointed out that the stand-off seems to be a political boon to Nicaragua’s president, who is looking for a way to dodge his nation’s constitution and run for a third term in office. Since the conflict began, the magazine noted, “Mr. Ortega has enjoyed a wave of nationalist support at home. On November 3rd he won the first unanimous vote in the National Assembly of his four years in office. All this coincides with the start of the election campaign.”
More conspiracy-minded readers might prefer the explanation offered by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz last week, under the headline, “Iran, Venezuela plan to build rival to Panama Canal.” The newspaper reported:
The recent border dispute between Costa Rica and Nicaragua is a sign of an ambitious plan by Venezuela, Iran and Nicaragua to create a “Nicaragua Canal” linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans that would rival the existing Panama Canal.
Costa Rica says that last week Nicaraguan troops entered its territory along the San Juan River – the border between the two nations. Nicaragua had been conducting channel deepening work on the river when the incident occurred.
Sources in Latin America have told Haaretz that the border incident and the military pressure on Costa Rica, a country without an army, are the first step in a plan formulated by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, with funding and assistance from Iran, to create a substitute for the strategically and economically important Panama Canal.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/201...that-wasnt/?hp
Costa Rica says that last week Nicaraguan troops entered its territory along the San Juan River – the border between the two nations. Nicaragua had been conducting channel deepening work on the river when the incident occurred.
Sources in Latin America have told Haaretz that the border incident and the military pressure on Costa Rica, a country without an army, are the first step in a plan formulated by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, with funding and assistance from Iran, to create a substitute for the strategically and economically important Panama Canal.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/201...that-wasnt/?hp