The Nicaraguan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation (Rosatom) signed a roadmap for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy during the 12th International Atomexpo Forum, an event of the global nuclear industry in the Russian city of Sochi.
“Nicaragua does not have the technical and economic resources, nor is it sufficiently prepared to develop this type of energy,” said María Elvira Cuadra, sociologist and associate researcher at the Center for Communication Research and the Institute for Strategic Studies and Public Policy of Nicaragua.
“From 2018 to now, the brain drain has increased significantly and many of the country’s best professionals have had to go to other countries due to the socio-political crisis and the authoritarian regimes of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo,” she adds.
The roadmap is part of agreements Nicaragua has signed with Russia for technical and productive scientific cooperation.
“It outlines the guidelines to advance in the field of cooperation in non-energy applications of nuclear and radiological technologies and to strengthen the capacities of professionals, especially in the fields of medicine, hydraulics, geothermal energy and wind energy,” reported the Nicaraguan newspaper El 19 Digital“.
This memorandum is the first document in the field of peaceful uses of nuclear energy between Russia and Nicaragua. The document lays the foundation for cooperation in a wide range of areas, in particular raising public awareness of nuclear technologies, developing nuclear infrastructure and non-energy uses of nuclear energy in industry, agriculture and medicine.
“What is considered particularly dangerous are two main factors. The first is the establishment of a real Russian military base in the heart of Central America with extensive operational capabilities in an area of high strategic sensitivity,” Luis Guillermo Solís, former President of Costa Rica and director of the Center for Latin American Studies at Florida International University, told the independent Nicaraguan news site Confidencial.
The former president pointed to the dangers of Russia’s contribution to the renewal of the Ortega-Murillo regime’s armed forces and the construction of high-tech military facilities and the development of nuclear power plants.
Considering that Nicaragua does not have the technical conditions, laboratories or other suitable facilities for the development of this type of industry, the sociologist Cuadra puts forward the following two hypotheses: “One is that it is a discourse , which is being promoted by Russia in Nicaragua in order to maintain the atmosphere of confrontation with the United States in order to create greater friction and use Nicaragua as an excuse. The other thing is that Russia is bringing the necessary resources to Nicaragua for this, technical, material and human resources. Then […] we would have to see what kind of involvement Nicaragua would have and what Russia’s real goal is in developing that kind of energy in the country.”
“In order to develop nuclear energy, a nuclear reactor would have to be installed. We already know what happens when a nuclear reactor fails and the area that could be affected by its radiation,” Erick Mora, a professor at the University of Costa Rica’s Faculty of Physics, told Costa Rican newspaper La Teja. “Imagine there was a reactor in Nicaragua and it failed, then that would not only be a risk for us, but for all of Central America, Mexico, Panama, i.e. for the entire region.”
With information from latinapress