Actually, if we go by the last 40-odd years, the economics in Nicaragua have a nasty way of not working themselves out for upwards of a couple million people. It’s for this very reason that a bold super-project like a canal appeals to me, when it otherwise wouldn’t. Nothing else has worked, and the consequences have been misery and even starvation.

So no way to agree that the environment is the “most important aspect.” To my mind, the people are the most important aspect.

Now, I’m one who generally believes that there isn’t necessarily a a huge conflict between protecting the environment and economic development, so I would really like to see this canal (if it is built) have as minimal a deleterious impact on the environment as possible. However, I’m not naive enough to believe that it won’t have any deleterious impact, even under the best of circumstances. Some environmental degradation probably goes with the territory. Heck, you can’t build a sidewalk without that, and a canal will be a hell of a lot more destructive than a sidewalk. I’m also fairly certain that mistakes will be made. They always are. I think that the best we can hope for (and lobby for) is a minimal environmental impact, all things considered.

However, when the issue comes down to a trade-off between protecting the environment versus protecting the people (who last I looked are part of the environment) I side with protecting the people.

What we don’t know at this point is how much of the environmentalists’ opposition to the canal is (a) sensitive to the trade-offs between protecting the environment and protecting people and simply trying to do the right thing, versus how much of it is just (b) hatred of Ortega and/or the Chinese using feigned concerns over the environment as a pretext, or (c) people who don’t give a shit about poor people and would rather preserve swamps than people. I consider myself in the (a) group but have zero use for (b) or (c).

The main issues in Nicaragua are the scale of the necessary expropriations, the involvement of the Chinese in the canal, and the fear that the compensation for the properties expropriated won’t be fair.

Of these issues, only that of fair compensation has merit. The authorities have not been clear about how expropriated property will be valued–or rather they have been clear by saying that they alone will determine the value and there will be no right to appeal. Not a good start.

However, we need to wait to see how this shakes out before we become all riled about it. If the authorities have an ounce of sense, which I think they do (and this article suggests they do), they will be scrupulously fair and most people will be satisified with their compensation and/or relocation.

Also, just because the owner of four rural shacks and a bar demands $400,000 for property worth maybe a tenth that doesn’t mean that the rest of us should get out our violins and scream dictatorship. Some people are so bent on screwing the government that nothing short of, well, a $360,000 windfall will satisfy them.

Let’s see how it shakes out for the majority before we become hot-headed anti-canal crusaders.

Meanwhile, we could all do with a little less anti-Chinese prejudice while remembering the magnitude of the project. If I have my history right, the construction of the good old capitalist Panama Canal required nothing less than a blasted US-backed political revolution as well as the importation of thousands of Chinese and African laborers.

Things can be a lot worse in this canal-building business than they are in Nicaragua now.

Our job, as I see it, is to dog this issue of fair compensation for expropriated private property and raise a stink the moment that compensation is less than fair. However, that moment hasn’t yet arrived, and may never arrive. At this point all we have are grumblings about what might happen among the usual Ortega-haters and a smattering of rural folk with dollar signs for eyeballs.