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Chávez to fund billionaire irrigation project in Nicaragua

“Comrade Hugo Chávez told me that we could count on Venezuela’s support to start the first phase of the project. Therefore, we can announce that we will start the first stage of the Pacific Irrigation Project,” President Ortega said

Politics
Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez offered support to his Nicaraguan counterpart Daniel Ortega to build an irrigation megaproject based on hydroelectric power, the Nicaraguan ruler reported.

Speaking Tuesday night to a group of political supporters in Managua, Ortega said that Chávez agreed to finance the first phase of the Irrigation Project of the Plains on the Pacific Coast of Nicaragua, whose total investment is higher than USD 2.15 billion.

"Comrade Hugo Chávez told me that we could count on Venezuela's support to start the first phase of the project. Therefore, we can announce that we will start the first stage of the Pacific Irrigation Project," Ortega said.

The project envisages the construction of a gravity irrigation system to use the waters of Lake Cocibolca (southern Nicaragua) to irrigate thousands of hectares of crops in times of drought, using hydroelectric power plants.

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IISS: The FARC financed Chávez before 1999

10:07 AM. DIPLOMACY. Admired by the Colombian guerrilla after his coup attempt in 1992, the then lieutenant colonel Hugo Chávez Frías received financial support by the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) for his projects after his capture that year. This mostly explains the relationship and "debt" between the parties, as revealed by a paper of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) of the United Kingdom.