Nicaragua
Second Autonomy Symposium: A Big Push Forward
Envío team
Nicaragua's second international autonomy symposium, held November 4-7, was not a typical conference, drowning in academic papers, with insufficient debate time in the auditorium and all the interesting exchanges taking place in the corridors. It was a sleeves-rolled-up working meeting, with a number of clear and pressing practical objectives.
The most ambitious of those was to finally have a constructive dialogue with the central government about moving forward the autonomy process on Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast. That effort failed, and dramatically. The most elemental was to get through the conference without certain Managua government officials "mashing it up," to use the term of one costeño interviewed. That was accomplished, but not without some close calls. Other objectives, including sharing experiences with invited guests from other countries, coming to a joint assessment of the first year and a half of autonomy on the coast and, in particular, strengthening unity to defend the process, were quite successful.
Oh, We've Come a Long WayThere was little resemblance between this symposium and the first one, held July 16-19, 1986, the seventh anniversary of the Sandinista revolution. At that time, international interest in the development of an autonomy law for the multiethnic Atlantic Coast population brought over a hundred indigenous leaders, anthropologists and Indian rights lawyers from all over the Americas and several European countries. These experts related the history of struggle in their own countries, outlined the legal fight for indigenous rights in international forums such as the United Nations and debated the first draft of Nicaragua's autonomy bill from their own perspectives and experiences.
With the Atlantic Coast then still engulfed in a traumatizing war and suspicions running high about Sandinista motives in promoting autonomy, few on the coast had yet taken the project on board. While most could tell you that they wanted the "Spanish" from the Pacific to let them run their own lives, there had never been the political space before to develop that idea much further. A popular consultation had been going on in fits and starts for nearly a year, but the largely uneducated populations outside of the coast's few urban centers had trouble getting a grip on the abstract philosophical and legalistic concepts being discussed for purposes of shaping a bill. For the most part, then, the coast people present at that first symposium listened quietly to the international delegates, but seldom spoke.
Now, five years later, the autonomy law is on the books and its essence is woven into the Constitution; the coast's first autonomous Regional Councils have been in office for 18 months; and the revolutionary central government that promoted it all has been replaced by a traditional capitalist one that sees nothing but lumber, lobster and gold when it looks at the coast. Coast people are thus no longer dealing in abstracts; and they now have a lot to say. Furthermore, the earlier international interest has been diverted by other, more pressing concerns. It’s a safe bet that, during the three days of the symposium, nearly as many foreigners were in Nicaragua trying to cut a deal for a slice of the coast's natural resources as were participating in the symposium.
The character of this event, then, was much more internal than international; a goodly bit more political than legal; and infinitely more pragmatic than academic. The issues that brought hundreds of costeños to it are serious enough to have left the two autonomous governments and the coast as a whole virtually dysfunctional.
A Process in Crisis The problems just within the coast itself would be enough to cope with if they were the only ones. To begin with, even the central government now admits that unemployment in the South Atlantic Autonomous Region has reached 70% of the economically active population, and a staggering 90% in the North Atlantic. In addition, the bulk of the regional councilors elected to the two majority benches (UNO in the South Atlantic and Yatama in the North) are completely untrained for their new responsibilities. That, together with their lingering political mistrust of the minority FSLN bench in both regions, has created an accountability vacuum in which their respective regional coordinators are largely free to act at will. There is evidence of corruption in the coordinators' administration, particularly in the South Atlantic, but there hasn’t been enough unity within the Council to curb it. There are also political tensions within the two majority organizations. Those in the UNO coalition are nowhere near as acrimonious in the South Atlantic as they are in the Pacific; but in the North Atlantic, where Yatama dominates, they are perhaps more so.
In the style of classic coast politics, however, most of these tensions can be overridden by provocations from the central government. And in the last year and a half of UNO government, provocations have battered the coast with the pounding insistence of waves from an offshore squall.
The first storm warning came on April 25, 1990: in her inaugural speech, President Chamorro announced her government's unilateral creation of the Institute for Development of the Autonomous Regions (INDERA) and the naming of Yatama leader Brooklyn Rivera to the Cabinet-level director's post, a direct violation of the Autonomy Statute. That was followed by five months in which the new autonomous governments received no operating funds from Managua. When the 1991 national budget was finally approved, INDERA was allotted nearly as much financing as the two regional governments put together. The first trilateral meetings between delegates of the central government and the two regional ones did not take place until February of this year, and they were also the last. In them, the Managua government ignored a unanimous petition by the regional delegates to dissolve INDERA, and countered their equally unanimous, and reasonable, proposal regarding control of and profit-sharing from the exploitation of natural resources with an unofficial position paper that nearly all the delegates considered too insulting to even merit negotiation. (See envío, July 1990, for a detailed analysis of the first year of autonomous-central government relations.)
More recently, the central government signed a letter of intent with a Taiwanese firm angling for a 20-year contract to cut pine from a 375,000-hectare stretch of Miskito and Sumu lands in the north, without even consulting the autonomous government there. And circulating within the symposium itself was a copy of an October 25 letter to the National Assembly secretary from UNO Assembly representatives, proposing reforms to the Constitution. One of the reforms would cut from the Constitution the very concept that forms the philosophical justification for autonomy. "With the reforms to articles 8, 9 and 10," explains the letter, "innocuous concepts [emphasis ours]. such as the 'multiethnic nature' of our people would be eliminated, the aspiration for Central American integration and Hispano-American unity would be concretized, and the principle of 'Uti Possidetis' would be reaffirmed as the foundation for the extension of national territory"
North Atlantic Meets South AtlanticThe 45 members of each Regional Council flew into Managua on November 2, courtesy of the Foundation for Atlantic Coast Autonomy and Development (FADCANIC), the symposium's nongovernmental host organization. It was the first time that most councilors from the two regions had ever met each other. (Most councilors in the north are either mestizo or Miskito, and in the south mestizo or Creole, in conformity with both the demographics and the political weight of the majority benches in each region.) That afternoon and the following day they got a mini-training session on such issues as the "organization, responsibility and functions of the autonomous Regional Council" and "natural resource administration in the Autonomous Regions." They also discussed possible means of coordination between the two Regional Councils, the delimitation of functions between the central and regional governments and, last but not least, a strategy for negotiating with Managua.
Out of that closed meeting came six important resolutions. Among them was a reiteration of the consistent demand that INDERA be dissolved, this time expressly agreed to by all members of both Regional Councils present. They demanded that all of INDERA's functions, goods, programs and projects be transferred to the regional authorities, and that the central government establish and maintain direct relations with those directly elected authorities. The other four resolutions regarded natural resources, coordination between the North and South Atlantic Regions, the drawing up of rules and regulations for the still ambiguous Autonomy Statute, and the promotion of popular participation in the defense of autonomy. In the resolution on natural resources, both regional governments condemned the central government's unilateral efforts, particularly the agreement with Taiwan, and resolved not to recognize any of them. They also declared a moratorium on all such unilateral practices until a regional commission could draw up a policy and regulations based on which projects would be negotiated with the central government. They also resolved to create mixed commissions to deal with the other three issues. The remaining resolution promoted the creation of a specialized university on the coast, and pledged to seek technical, material and financial support for its creation.
The two days of meetings forged unprecedented levels of mutual understanding and unity between the two regions, and between the majority and minority benches of both regional governments, particularly with regard to the central government. The first clue that this unity was making central government authorities nervous, one FSLN councilor later related, was that they kept the hotel rooms of the UNO and YATAMA councilors stocked with an unending supply of free beer. If that gambit was aimed at making them more acquiescent to subsequent central government maneuvers, it did not succeed.
INDERA Steps into The Line of Fire All National Assembly commission heads had been sent invitations to the symposium, as had all central government ministers except Brooklyn Rivera; he was invited as a Yatama leader rather than as director of an institute the two regional governments consider illegitimate. Yet only Minister of Health Ernesto Salmerón and Vice Minister of the Presidency Antonio Ibarra attended the inaugural session, the latter representing his boss, Antonio Lacayo, who had been expressly invited to dialogue with the assembled audience.
Ray Hooker, FSLN National Assembly member and a regional councilor from the South Atlantic, gave the opening address in his capacity as director of FADCANIC. It was a passionate speech on autonomy from a man who was national director of the Autonomy Commission from its inception in late 1984 to its dissolution after the 1990 elections. Hooker also indicted what he called the central government's "discredited integrationist policy of cultural assimilation." His most stinging words were reserved for the creation of INDERA, which he called a "cynical maneuver, a diabolical attempt by this government to keep us weak, divided and crippled."
With that, Ibarra marched out of the hall, but no one followed him. Had he stayed, he would have heard Hooker end by stressing that "the central government must be made to understand that the autonomy law, with all its imperfections, has become a virtual legal scripture to the peoples of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua. It would be wise to learn from the tragic experiences of other countries, where erroneous and insensitive policies toward ethnic minorities are causing grief, bloodshed and national disintegration." It would soon become clear that Ibarra was not interested in such lessons.
A delegation headed by the two regional coordinators went off to persuade him to return in the afternoon for the dialogue, but he arrived late and insisted on interrupting the session because he had another appointment in 45 minutes. With tempers in the audience already simmering, Ibarra delivered a brief tirade against the former Sandinista government—"it wasn't our government that burned down your churches!"—then turned the podium over to Rivera to speak for the President. He could not have committed a more erroneous and insensitive political gaffe. Pandemonium erupted in the plenary hall.
Rivera gripped the podium for over five minutes as a crowd gathered round to pry him from it physically if necessary. Rivera only left the stage after Hooker calmly but firmly explained into the microphone the distinct character of Rivera's and Ibarra's invitations, lamented the central government's failure to comprehend the original request for a dialogue and assured Rivera that he would be free to express his personal views later, like any other participant. Barricada reported that Ibarra, who stood back watching it all with his arms folded, admitted upon leaving that he had not prepared anything, since he never dealt closely with the coast problem, much less autonomy.
For its part, La Prensa did not mention the incident, or even the symposium itself until the closing day, when there was another, less convulsive disruption, this time centered on the closing presentation by FSLN National Directorate member Tomás Borge, president of the Autonomy Commission during its five years of existence. La Prensa otherwise limited its coast coverage during the days of the symposium to long op-ed pieces on the fishing industry and ecotourism by Rivera and his deputy director Owyn Hodgson.
Wounded pride or paid provocation? When Borge entered the hall to a standing ovation that last afternoon and took his seat at the presiding table, his warmest handshake was for Uriel Vanegas, former Yatama commander and current president of the North Atlantic Regional Council's executive board. Their relationship dates back to October 1987, when Vanegas led 400 troops into Puerto Cabezas to demobilize. Borge had considered that event major enough to fly out and sign the agreement personally, and photographs of the two walking down the street arm in arm were in all the national media. Yet when Borge's speech was announced, Vanegas shouted, "That isn't what was agreed to." On cue, all but two of the Yatama councilors stood up and silently followed him out of the hall (both the regional coordinator and the executive secretary remained seated, as did all members of the UNO bench in the south).
From the audience, another former Yatama commander immediately grabbed a microphone and exhorted Vanegas in Miskito to come back and dialogue, and not fall into the central government's trap. A genuinely nonplussed Borge also urged him to return and expressed his willingness to respond to questions, but to no avail. In his prepared speech, Borge acknowledged the Sandinista government's errors in not correctly interpreting the coastal peoples' aspirations at the outset, and in the name of the FSLN supported the Regional Councils' pre-symposium resolutions and vowed to work for autonomy. The differences in comportment and content between Borge and Ibarra were not lost on the audience.
Interpretations of Vanegas' motives varied. Some said later that poor communication had sparked the walkout, or at least provided a pretext. Details were reportedly left unresolved regarding Vanegas' proposal, accepted by the symposium organizers, that Borge dialogue with the audience as it had been hoped the central government representative would do. Many councilors, however, said Vanegas had been openly threatening the walkout all day. At least one said he saw a minister give Vanegas money at the hotel the previous night, and presumed it was a bribe.
Will New Unity Hold In Daily Practice? Coming at the end of the conference, the unfortunate moment detracted somewhat from the euphoric unity and fighting spirit so palpable during the preceding days. But, looked at in a more realistic light, it was perhaps a necessary reminder of how fragile that unity still is and how carefully it must be nurtured if the coast is to make any headway with the central government.
The coming months will determine if the four commissions proposed for each region in the pre-symposium encounter and whose members were chosen during the symposium have internalized enough of that unity and energy to be able to move the process forward. By December 15, the four commissions must draft: 1) a natural resources policy, 2) a system of coordination between the two autonomous regions, 3) rules and regulations for the Autonomy Statute, and 4) a concrete plan for the defense of autonomy. The commissions are bipartisan, and their members are primarily regional councilors supported by interested professionals such as environmentalists and constitutional lawyers. By the last morning of the conference, they were already holding their first joint meetings in the corridors. A measure of the new unity was to see Stedman Fagoth, former head of the Miskito contra organization Misura, and Lumberto Campbell, the Atlantic Coast's only FSLN commander, intently discussing plans even at the social get-together that last evening. The two are the respective heavyweights in the commissions for the defense of autonomy in the north and the south.
These commissions are understood as the organizing bodies for a broad new movement of all interested sectors, in both the Atlantic and the Pacific, which was enthusiastically endorsed at the symposium. The two-dozen foreign delegates also pledged to create a network to defend the process when they return to their respective countries.
The political importance of this movement was clearly illustrated by the outspoken clamor of those coast sectors not included on its small organizing commission for direct representation. This was all the more positive in that the members of these same organizations—Kisan por la Paz, formed by the first Miskito fighters to demobilize; the Sumu organization Sukawala; the Rama community—were the very ones who had sat through the 1986 symposium in humble and bewildered silence.
Looking down at the equally silent UNO and Yatama councilors, who had front-row seats of honor in this conference, one could only wonder what they were feeling and thinking. Were these people—many seemingly picked at random from the communities by campaign organizers who never believed they would beat the FSLN—just as bewildered now? How did they interpret the central government's behavior, or that of the FSLN? Was this merely a formal exercise for them, in which, as usual, they were only attentive to directives from their bench leaders? Or had this trip to Managua finally made them aware of their historic responsibility as members of the first autonomous governments on the coast? As Ray Hooker mused at the closing party that night, an unusually broad smile slipping past his normal reserve, "Only time will tell."
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