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Nicaragua Raids Costa Rica, Blames Google Maps
Garabito writes "An error on Google Maps has caused an international conflict in Central America. A Nicaraguan military commander, relying on Google Maps, moved troops into an area near San Juan Lake along the border between his country and Costa Rica (Google translation of Spanish original). The troops are accused of setting up camp there, taking down a Costa Rican flag and raising the Nicaraguan flag, doing work to clean up a nearby river, and dumping the sediment in Costa Rican territory."
This is how google takes over the world! Soon there will be a very small dot somewhere in google maps called "googleland", and then over time the borders will expand. But nobody will question it, because it must be right.
we can't have nice things.
We stole countries with the cunning use of flags. Just sail around the world and stick a flag in. "I claim India for Britain!" They're going "You can't claim us, we live here! Five hundred million of us!" "Do you have a flag ? "What? We don't need a flag, this is our home, you bastards" "No flag, No Country, You can't have one! Those are the rules... that I just made up!...and I'm backing it up with this gun, that was lent to me from the National Rifle Association." --Eddie Izzard
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
"(Google translation of Spanish original)."
How can I trust it now?
"taking down a Costa Rican flag", should have been another big clue
The clueless summary gets it wrong. I live in Costa Rica - the problem isn't dredging the river, it's that Nicaragua is dumping all the gunk on the Costa Rican side of the river and destroying protected forests.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
For instance, in 2002, the UK Royal Marines accidentally invaded Spain, because of a map reading error.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1827554.stm
Hence the old joke: "What's the most dangerous thing in the British Army? -- An officer with a map."
The first incident was apparently due to the local Indonesian authorities persisting in the use of 1933 Dutch maps and the Australians using more recent Indonesian maps. The Dutch map indicated that the Mota Bicu river formed the border. However, the 1992 Indonesian map used by the Australians showed the border as being 500 metres to the west of that position. Apparently, the Indonesian map reflects a post-1975 decision to make the border a fixed provincial border not dependent on the river as a landmark, with the result that as the river changed course over time and as the villagers moved with it, the village of Motaain would shift its location from East to West Timor and vice versa....
http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/57JQZ2
Which suggests that the "Google Maps" explanation is probably a BS excuse for accidentally-on-purpose dumping stuff in Costa Rica.
I am officially gone from