By Becca Renk Foster and John Perry on October 27, 2026
Raizal fisherfolk visit their counterparts in Nicaragua in 2014. Photo: The Archipielago Press.
When Abelardo de la Espriella was declared the winner of Colombia’s presidential elections, he announced his plan to sever diplomatic relations with Nicaragua, saying, “In my government there will be no ties whatsoever with tyrannies.”
In October, he followed this by reviving a longstanding maritime dispute with Nicaragua relating to the San Andrés archipelago in the Caribbean, which had been resolved by the International Court of Justice in 2012 in a judgment repeated just three years ago.
“The 2012 ruling seeks to tear apart the archipelago – which is an inseparable whole – and leave our islands as enclaves separated by a foreign sea,” wrote Interior Minister Rodrigo Lara in a post on X on 20 October.
Caribbean communities with a shared history
The two main islands at the heart of this issue – San Andrés and the smaller Providencia – are considered Colombian territory but are over 400 miles from its mainland. They are, however, just 120 miles from the Nicaraguan coast, and only 95 miles from its closest territory, the Corn Islands.
This whole part of the Caribbean has a shared history and culture. Both on the Nicaraguan mainland and across the different islands, the original language is English-based Caribbean Creole, a result of their shared histories of British settlement and enslavement. Protestantism, particularly through Baptist and Moravian churches, is another important influence. The communities share strong Afro-Caribbean food traditions, music and cultural practices.
The Raizal people in the San Andrés islands and Nicaragua’s Creole people have each struggled to maintain their Indigenous identities. In the case of Nicaragua, Indigenous identities were recognized by its revolutionary government via its system of autonomous assemblies for the Caribbean regions. However, many Raizals are reported to believe their traditional relationship with the sea has been neglected by the Colombian state and that they were not properly consulted about a dispute that directly affects their livelihoods.
The history: a disputed outcome of independence from Spain
By the time both Nicaragua and Colombia gained independence from Spain in 1821, the region’s ties to Britain lay in the past, but strong cultural influences remained. Both countries claimed San Andrés and Providencia and other small islands – in Nicaragua’s case because of their proximity, and in Colombia’s because under Spanish rule they had been assigned to New Granada, Colombia’s colonial predecessor. A 1928 treaty appeared to resolve the disputed claims in Colombia’s favor, but the issue has come up many times in the intervening years.
It was first reopened after Nicaragua’s 1979 revolution, on the grounds that the treaty had been signed and the islands conceded when Nicaragua was under occupation by the US military. While the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled in 2007 that the islands belonged to Colombia, in 2012 it went on to award substantial maritime rights to Nicaragua (see map). The Court denied Nicaragua’s claim to a wider continental shelf and reiterated this judgment in 2023 when Nicaragua challenged the 2012 ruling. In 2022 the ICJ ruled that Colombia had violated Nicaragua’s sovereign rights and jurisdiction in the maritime zone by “interfering” with fishing, research, and naval vessels.
Source: International Court of Justice via Wikipedia Commons.
The 2012 maritime boundary remains the final ICJ judgment binding on both states, and the Court has acknowledged Nicaragua’s willingness to agree fishing rights for the islanders in seas it now controls.
The new threat from Colombia’s president
It is those wider maritime rights that are now being challenged by President de la Espriella. He dismissed the 2012 ruling during his recent visit and announced plans to redraw Colombia’s nautical map.
There is important context to his action. Under de la Espriella’s far-right government, Colombia is now part of the “Shield of the Americas,” a group of countries subservient to the United States, organized to push the “Donroe Doctrine” of complete U.S. dominance in the region. While it has broken diplomatic relations with Nicaragua and Cuba, it has restored ties to Israel. In August, De la Espriella’s government was rewarded by a new, $1 billion security-assistance package from the U.S. State Department.
De la Espriella’s threats are particularly dangerous given that the Trump administration has equated narcotrafficking with terrorism, undertaking over 70 attacks on vessels in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific since September 2025 under its so-called “Operation Southern Spear.” Many of the attacks, which have so far killed at least 238 people, are against fishing boats or vessels with no proven connection with drug trafficking.
While Washington terms its actions “non-international armed conflict” with non-specified gangs and drug cartels, international law specialists disagree. They argue that the U.S. is not in an armed conflict with any criminal gang and point out that international human rights law prohibits lethal strikes outside of armed conflict, making these illegal, extrajudicial killings.
Clearly there is concern that attacks on fishing boats in Nicaragua’s nearby maritime waters, now claimed by Colombia, could be “justified” on a similar basis.
El Salvador in the “Shield of the Americas”
Nicaragua’s fears are augmented by criticisms from another member of the “Shield of the Americas,” El Salvador. Over the past year, El Salvador’s attorney general has posted on social media at least five times about shipments of cocaine intercepted by Salvadoran authorities that allegedly originate in Nicaraguan territory.
Each time, Nicaragua’s military responded with press releases categorically rejecting the accusations. Finally, on 8 October, Nicaragua’s Foreign Ministry sent an official communiqué to San Salvador requesting its government share all evidence of these allegations through the proper channels.
“Having this information will allow us to assess what occurred responsibly and to provide the appropriate response, with due legal and diplomatic rigor,” the statement read. “The Government of Nicaragua considers that allegations of this nature should be addressed through the timely exchange of information between the competent authorities and established diplomatic channels.”
The repetition of these unfounded allegations by Salvadoran authorities suggests an effort by Nicaragua’s northern neighbor to allege a pattern of drug trafficking which could be used to justify actions against Nicaragua, perhaps by both El Salvador and Colombia.
Escalation of conflict
But what happens if Colombia unilaterally redraws its maritime boundaries and attacks Nicaraguan fishing boats or a navy vessel in waters that the World Court considers belong to Nicaragua?
If Colombia or the U.S. were to carry out military operations in Nicaragua’s territorial waters without its consent, an international armed conflict could be triggered. This would be a bizarrely unequal contest. Whilst Nicaragua spends less on defense than almost every other Latin American country, Colombia has invested in a sizeable navy, with almost ten times as many vessels as Nicaragua’s. Especially if Colombia were to receive US military support, it’s obvious that Nicaraguans at sea would be at severe risk, whether they were undertaking naval patrols or were simply fishing in territorial waters.
During his visit to San Andrés , de la Espriella seemed to relish the thought of such a conflict. “Anyone who wants to break the law in Colombia’s waters will find the national navy ready to defend our sovereignty,” he threatened.
“Good Living” endangered
Fisherfolk from both Nicaragua and Colombia depend on access to these waters not only for their families’ survival but also as an integral part of their cultural identity. Raizal fishermen, in particular, have called for closer relations between the two countries. After the 2012 ruling, a delegation from San Andrés visited Nicaragua to strengthen Indigenous ties.
“Intercultural coexistence, combined with physical infrastructure, is what helps us transform the Caribbean Coast into the paradise it is meant to be—a place where Indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants, and mestizos can live, love, and dance together in intercultural harmony,” said Nicaraguan National Assemblyman Johnny Hodgson in an address at the Bluefields Indian and Caribbean University this past April. “That is what El Buen Vivir, ‘Good Living,’ is all about.”
For Caribbean families of both countries, however, Colombia’s challenge to Nicaragua’s established maritime boundaries could easily put El Buen Vivir in jeopardy.
Becca Renk Foster is originally from Idaho, USA and has lived in Nicaragua for 25 years. She coordinates the work of Casa Ben Linder in Managua. John Perry is a Nicaragua-based writer, published in the London Review of Books, The Grayzone and elsewhere. Both authors are active members of the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – English