Plan for Iran-funded dam draws U.S. concern (Miami Herald)

Opponents of Iran's deepening ties to Latin America are suspicious of its plans to build Nicaragua a new dam.

Posted on Sat, Jun. 28, 2008 - BY BLAKE SCHMIDT - Special to The Miami Herald

RIO BLANCO, Nicaragua -- Iran's plan to build a $200 million hydroelectric dam in this energy-starved country is raising concerns here and in Washington about its mounting influence in Latin America.

The plant proposal is part of a push to wean this oil-addicted country -- 80 percent of electricity is supplied by fuel-burning plants -- off increasingly expensive crude and help stem an energy crisis that has created electricity rationing blackouts.

The dam is the latest among a handful of projects that Iran plans to build in Central America's most impoverished nation. Others include the construction of 10,000 homes for the poor, providing 4,000 farming tractors, and a joint effort with Venezuela to link deep-water container ports on the Caribbean and Pacific coasts. In turn, Nicaragua is to export coffee and other products to Iran.

But the hydroelectric dam, for which construction is to begin in 2011, faces staunch opposition from a group of cattle ranchers who say the dam would flood their pastures.

Local opposition to the dam is consolidating as U.S. officials and international observers voice concerns over how Iran might capitalize on the influence it is gaining through diplomatic efforts in leftist Latin American countries like Nicaragua, where President Daniel Ortega took office in 2007.

SKEPTICISM ABOUNDS

Thomas Shannon, U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, said at a June 10 conference in Coral Gables that the United States is watching Iran ''with great interest and concern'' as it ``reaches into the hemisphere.''

Experts say Iran's deepening ties in the region are more than just friendly gestures.

'Iran's increasing relations with `leftist' governments in Latin America are not ad hoc,'' said former Oxford professor and Iran expert Arshin Adib-Moghaddam. 'They evolved out of Iran's changed strategic preferences after the revolution, i.e. the effort to position the country more firmly within the `third world.' ''

University of Miami Cuban studies professor Joe Azel said Iran and its left-leaning Latin American allies -- including Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua -- are making concerted efforts to ''undermine Western-styled democracies'' and U.S. influence.

Ortega has been criticized for circumventing the Nicaraguan congress when using Venezuelan and Iranian funds for public-works projects. More recently, opponents say he used influence as the Sandinista party head to disqualify minority parties from upcoming elections.

THREAT TO FLATLANDS

The dam would destroy the fertile flatlands where the cattle graze, forcing one of Nicaragua's most productive ranching communities to relocate to nearby mountains while inundating sacred burial grounds, activists say.

''We'd be living on islands of highland,'' said Agosto Artola, a leader of the Commission Against the Dam, which represents about 30,000 ranchers.

For the complete article and reader comments, go to: http://www.miamiherald.com/top_stories/story/587088.html