HONDURAS-NICARAGUA: OAS Envoy Tries Diplomacy in Border Dispute

By Thelma Mejía Reprint | | Print |

Thelma Mejía

TEGUCIGALPA, Dec 17 1999 (IPS) - The Organisation of American States (OAS) sent Luigi Einaudi to Honduras and Nicaragua to find a diplomatic solution for the maritime border conflict between the two, which intensified Friday after Managua announced a new border policy.

The Nicaraguan government has decided to prohibit Honduran boats from travelling or fishing in its territorial waters, a retaliatory move in response to Tegucigalpa’s ratification of a maritime treaty with Colombia.

Einaudi, nominated by the OAS’s Permanent Council to conduct an on-site evaluation of the diplomatic conflict, made his first stop Thursday in Nicaragua where he met with president Arnoldo Alemán to listen to his side of the conflict.

The maritime treaty establishes that the maritime border between Honduras and Colombia begins at the 15th parallel north, coinciding with a series of agreements and historic documents that have recognised this border since early this century.

But Nicaragua rejects the treaty’s maritime border. The constitutional reforms of the 1980s, under the Sandinista government, establish Nicaraguan sovereignty over the Caribbean Sea extending to the 17th parallel north.

This parallel allows Nicaragua to maintain its claims on the San Andrés archipelago and Providencia island, which the agreement ratified by Honduras grants to Colombia.

Nicaragua argues that the 1928 agreements, in which it ceded possession of the islands to Colombia, are not valid because they were signed under pressure from the United States, which occupied Nicaragua at the time.

In his initial response to the ratification of the Honduran- Colombian treaty, which according to Managua strips the nation of some 130,000 square km of maritime territory, the Alemán government implemented a tariff of 35 percent on all Colombian and Honduran products coming into the country.

Now it has announced the decision to prohibit boats flying the Honduran or Colombian flag from travelling or fishing in the open seas of its territorial waters.

Despite such decisions, Alemán had told Einaudi he is willing to accept the intervention of the International Court at The Hague, to support any OAS initiatives on the matter, and “anything that prevents the spilling of blood between two countries.”

The OAS envoy, in his first statements Thursday in Managua, advocated for both nations to meet and discuss possible solutions in order to maintain peace in Central America.

Following his short visit to Nicaragua, Einaudi arrived Friday in Tegucigalpa, where he met in private with president Carlos Flores and foreign affairs minister Roberto Flores Bermúdez.

The Honduran minister told the press that the Nicaraguan resolution to ban fishing by Honduran boats is “a diplomatic blunder that contrasts with the language of open dialogue and consent to resolving the problems in international forums.”

“We want to emphasise that Honduras does not fear going before an international court to look for solutions to problems, and that we will exhaust the option of dialogue and respect integration agreements, which not only consolidate peace in the region, but also guarantee the launching of the economy and of human development,” said the foreign minister.

The OAS envoy, meanwhile, maintained that the problems between Honduras and Nicaragua are serious, and emphasised that the solution depends on the “will for peace” of both parties.

Einaudi’s designation to work on the Honduran-Nicaraguan dispute was well received by both Flores and Alemán because the OAS envoy played a leading role in resolving the 1995 border conflict between Peru and Ecuador.