Nicaragua: Anti-Canal Leader Dies under Police Harassment
Octavio Ortega Arana was persecuted until his final day
The peasant leader led protests against the proposed expropriation of their lands to build the proposed interoceanic canal.
By Ivan Olivares (Confidencial)
HAVANA TIMES – Octavio Ortega Arana, a campesino leader and longtime opponent of the proposed interoceanic canal in Nicaragua, died on Friday, June 20, 2025, at his home in the southern city of Rivas, while under “conditional release,” according to the Nicaraguan Campesino Movement.
The rural leader rose to prominence after choosing to confront the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, which had approved Law 840. Also known as the “Canal Law,” it granted a Chinese businessman with a murky background the concession to build an interoceanic canal across Nicaraguan territory.
Aside from clearing a dirt road in December 2014 and conducting studies—many studies—the supposed construction project never actually began. What did begin was a campesino protest movement, sparked when families living along the canal’s proposed route saw Chinese technicians, escorted by Nicaraguan Police, arrive to measure their land for forced purchases.
The growing unrest first materialized in the formation of the National Council in Defense of Our Land, Lake, and Sovereignty, led by Octavio Ortega Arana. That organization later became the Campesino Movement, which went on to organize 99 protest marches against the dictatorship and its effort to build the canal across campesino land… and Ortega Arana was there through it all.
Even on his deathbed, they didn’t leave Octavio Ortega alone
While expressing condolences to the family, the Campesino Movement also denounced that “Octavio spent his final days harassed by the dictatorship and forced to appear at the Sandinista Police’s departmental delegation to sign in daily.” Police agents would even come to the home of the ailing activist to have him sign a check-in sheet.
Octavio Ortega was imprisoned in December 2014 while protesting the announced start of the canal construction and was transferred to the infamous El Chipote prison in Managua.
Press reports indicate that in his final days, Ortega Arana suffered from diabetes, which led to the amputation of a leg, as well as kidney disease, making his last days even more painful. Despite his declining health, the regime harassed him until virtually his final breath.
The Campesino Movement denounced that “the regime ordered the family to bury him as quickly as possible, taking him straight to the municipal cemetery. We denounce these abuses and the disrespect for the dignity of Nicaraguan opposition members who are forced to check in with the Sandinista police every day and die as opponents,” they stated, adding that families are forced to bury them immediately.
Mobilized to Defend Their Land
In a December 2015 interview with Confidencial during a meeting with campesino leaders in El Tule (Río San Juan), Octavio Ortega Arana spoke out against the decision by Hong Kong Nicaragua Development (HKND—the company granted the canal concession) to delay the project another year. In theory, construction was supposed to begin at the end of 2016.
“Our council concluded this is due to the 2016 election year. That’s one of our thoughts on why the government doesn’t want more protest marches,” said the coordinator of the Campesino Movement. “Strategically, they say the construction is delayed, and those of us on the pilgrimage in El Tule believe the government wants to demobilize us to stop the marches,” he explained.
But that didn’t happen.
Confidencial’s records show that on January 9, 2016, hundreds of campesinos marched in the community of La Fonseca, in Nueva Guinea, reiterating their demand to repeal Law 840. That was the 56th march organized by producers affiliated with the National Council in Defense of the Land, Lake, and Sovereignty, who had also begun collecting signatures to petition Parliament to annul the law.
At the time, Octavio Ortega Arana explained that the campesinos had collected two thousand signatures, most of them gathered in El Tule, Río San Juan, and La Fonseca—the stronghold of the anti-canal protest. Two days later, the signature-gathering campaign would head deep into the South Caribbean region, specifically to the town of Punta Gorda.
First published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.