Nicaragua
Autonomy for the Coast: A New Principle of the Revolution
Envío team
On December 5, 1984, Nicaragua’s newly elected government announced its recognition of the historic claim of the Caribbean Coast for greater autonomy and inaugurated a national commission to study and implement this process. The National Commission on Autonomy is headed by Luis Carrión, a member of the FSLN National Directorate. Carrión also heads the team currently engaged in negotiations with Brooklyn Rivera, leader of the armed Miskito group MISURASATA, which has been carrying out attacks in Zelaya for more than two years. Other members of the commission are the sociologist Orlando Núñez, director of MIDINRA’s Center for Economic and Agrarian Reform Study; Galio Gurdián, an anthropologist who directs the Center for Research and Documentation of the Atlantic Coast; Manuel Ortega Hegg, an anthropologist with expertise on the Coast and the deputy director of information and analysis for the central government; Ray Hooker, a Creole from Bluefields; and Hazel Law, a Miskita from Puerto Cabezas. Both of the latter are educators, and both were recently elected to represent their respective regions in the National Assembly.
At the same time, regional commissions to discuss the autonomy question were established in Northern and Southern Zelaya. Following broad consultations with the coastal peoples to be carried out by these regional commissions, the national commission will be mandated to draft a special statute for incorporation into the country’s new constitution. For the first time in Nicaragua’s history, the word autonomy is making headlines in a positive way.
A long learning process and deep-rooted skepticismThe paradox of this major step in resolving the acute problems on the Coast is that it reflects a culmination of the revolution’s positive efforts to understand and respond to the historical developments in the region, as well as a recognition that these efforts have not been adequate responses to the historic demands and aspirations of the majority of the coastal peoples.
William Ramírez, until recently the head of the regional government in Northern Zelaya, offered three facts that led the revolution to contemplate this solution, and that reflect this paradox.
“First is knowledge of the situation…. We have gone from what was a total lack of familiarity initially to what is a more or less serious understanding we have today of the Coast’s problems.
“Second, obviously, we think we have matured a little… In 1981, we were afraid to speak of autonomy because we didn’t understand, none of us understood, the Coast. Now we speak of it naturally.
“Third, I think the very struggle of the indigenous people has served to make us question ourselves and ask ourselves why they have this attitude, which at times we consider irrational, but which has brought us nonetheless to the conclusion that we have to study them, not close our eyes to reality. We realized that there are real interests and demands we have to learn about.” (Barricada, December 8, 1984)
As could be expected, the announcement has been greeted with a myriad of reactions on both sides of the country. “To a great extent, phantoms have been created around the concept of autonomy,” said Ray Hooker, National Assembly Deputy for Southern Zelaya and a member of the National Commission. “Some groups interpret it as meaning that the Coast is going to be an independent country, others as meaning the imposition of one ethnic group over the others.”
On the Coast, the announcement has been slow to reach communities with no communications ties to the rest of the country. For those already consulted by the Commission, enthusiasm has mingled with a deep-rooted skepticism regarding the possibility that any Managua government would really meet the historic demands of the Coast. “How nice it sounds,” said one Moravian pastor, “but we’ll see, starting today.”
Public participationThe multiethnic coastal population, historically unaccustomed to participatory involvement with Managua, has been slow to recognize that it will have a major say in the outcome of this process. One Creole farmer called it “a new invention of the revolution.” Another Creole from Bluefields mirrored the experience of most people on the Coast when he explained: “We have always felt marginalized. The governments imposed ideas, projects, leaders. So what happened? People either coped with it or left.”
With this alienating experience, there should be little wonder that people are waiting for the government to answer the question “What is this autonomy?” However, the answer will come in large measure from the people themselves. “The process has barely begun,” said one member of the National Commission. “It will be discussed community by community until all aspects have been exhausted and the contribution of each sector has been received.”
One of the first steps in this process has been the formation of regional commissions in Northern and Southern Zelaya. These commissions, with 39 members in the north and 27 in the south, reflect the ethnic balance in each of the regions. While teachers, lawyers, and other professional people at first predominated in the two commissions, representatives of the outlying communities have been increasingly incorporated. The commissions also cover a full range of opinions and aspirations.
The Miskito organization MISATAN, formed in June 1984, is participating in the Northern Zelaya Regional Commission. Mary Bushey, Secretary of Finances for MISATAN, noted that the regional commissions “have a huge task because there are no precedents for such a thing.” With pride in her new organization, she added, “Because we are the best organized, we are going to have a position on autonomy in an organized way.” MISATAN included the topic as priority in its six-month evaluative assembly held at the end of January.
The tasks of the regional commissions include identifying issues that need deeper study and, together with the National Commission, developing a series of questions on which their consultation with the communities will be based. The results of this work will be carefully tabulated and analyzed to provide input for the first draft of the statute. This draft will in turn be used for further discussion at the community level. Once the final draft of the statute is approved on the Coast, it will be submitted to the National Assembly for ratification together with the rest of Nicaragua’s new constitution. It is expected that this work could take as much as a year.
In its direct participatory quality, this process is very reminiscent of the base-level national consultation on education carried out in 1981. The results of that consultation guided the development of Nicaragua’s new education system.
Setting limitsThe democratic nature of the process does not mean that the National Commission has not developed guidelines. As Ray Hooker explained, “One of the difficult jobs in any autonomy project is to establish limits—to decide which decisions correspond to the national government and which to the regional government structures.”
Well before the commission’s formal constitution, its members initiated a series of discussions with other anthropologists and experts on autonomy and began to examine relations between ethnic minorities and national governments in other countries of the world. Several members of the regional commissions in Northern and Southern Zelaya have just completed a tour of various countries with autonomous governments.
But as one commission member pointed out, “Our goal is not to imitate but to use what is positive and helpful for us. The way we visualize autonomy, it’s going to be different from practically any other such project in the rest of the world.” In particular, it should have important repercussions in the rest of Latin America, which has never been noted for its flexible or creative solutions to the ethnicity/nation-state contradiction.
In Nicaragua’s case, national defense, the constitution of the armed forces, and foreign relations will continue to be prerogatives of the national government. It will also have final responsibility for overall economic planning, although it will doubtless involve full consultation with the local governments of the Coast. Another fundamental limit that commission representatives are quick to stress is that autonomy does not mean separation. While autonomy for the Coast has become a principle of the revolution, “there must also be respect for the principle that the Republic of Nicaragua is one and cannot be dismembered,” explained Carrión.
Creating challengesAlthough the process is barely three months old, a careful reading of it to date permits some initial conclusions. First, although the term autonomy is being used to cover a wide range of issues, they can be broken down into two fundamental categories: guarantees of special cultural rights and development of local self-management. Second, what is being contemplated is regional rather than ethnic autonomy. While some of the six ethnic groups on the Coast are much larger than others, there is a recognition that the Coast does not belong only to one group and a strong commitment on the part of the government to guarantee equal rights and participation to all.
In meetings held in Puerto Cabezas and Bluefields in December between the National Commission and the two regional commissions, ten minimum points for further discussion were identified. In the category of cultural rights were issues such as education in native languages, the promotion and preservation of distinct cultural manifestations, the free exercise of religious beliefs, and equality of rights for each group. In the second category were issues regarding land tenure and access to the natural resources of each region, the election of regional government structures, and the promotion of development for the Coast. The other two discussion points concerned ways in which autonomy could help strengthen national unity and the fact that autonomy does not mean independence—a point over which a consensus has been reached.)
Regional vs. autonomous governmentIn September 1982, the government took a major step to break the old model of government developed during the previous regime. Basically, that model could be characterized as “all roads lead to Somoza.” At a national level, the new model was based on a re-division of the political-administrative regions, the development of separate budgets, and greater regional decision making within national guidelines. One result of this new system was the re-division of the huge department of Zelaya (56% of national territory) into two new regions called Special Zones I (the north) and II (the south). The western boundaries of the regions were also redefined, which lowered the proportion of mestizos in each region.
Thus, another way of answering the question “what is this autonomy?” is by contrasting it with the existing regional system.
In the first place, the new statute contemplates a number of substantial structural changes. The principal aspect of this will be the creation of democratically elected governments in Special Zones I and II in a way that will assure the most direct representation of the interests of the different ethnic groups. The suggestion under discussion involves the election of representatives to a regional assembly on a proportional basis from each community. This assembly would be the highest political body in each region. Its representatives would in turn elect an executive body of several members to be in charge of implementing the assembly’s plans.
The new government structure would take over a series of responsibilities that currently fall under the central government. It would (1) create the political-administrative demarcations within the autonomous regions; (2) preserve public order; (3) establish a culturally appropriate justice system to regulate the internal affairs of the region; (4) develop a policy for social services in accordance with national norms and administer those services (education, health, etc.); and (5) provide for the right of all citizens in the autonomous regions to carry out civil, political, or legal proceedings in their own language.
At the same time, it is expected that the new autonomy will encourage both greater local participation and effectiveness in carrying through the revolutionary projects already contemplated or developed for the coastal regions. Among these are (1) development and administration of the bilingual-bicultural education program; (2) establishment and administration of a special fund for social development and promotion; and (3) participation in and support for the defense of national sovereignty.
Finally, there is the potential for greater input into decisions taken at the national level. Examples of such areas include (1) more extensive cooperation and cultural relations with other nations, particularly with countries such as those of the Caribbean, which have a similar cultural identity and history; (2) the economic strategy within the regions and preparation of regional budgets; and (3) the application of national norms for the domestic market.
Ray Hooker, in a recent interview, defined autonomy both as a liberation process and as a profound challenge for the peoples of the Coast:
“To a certain extent, one of the important aspects of autonomy is the democratization of the revolution. Basically, what we’re saying to the people of the region is, look, from the political point of view, you’re going to elect your own leaders; in large measure, you’re going to govern yourselves. When you feel they aren’t doing a good job, remove them and put new people in. It’s democracy being practiced from the very lowest level to the highest, and for all the ethnic groups, not only one.
“From an economic point of view, there have been complaints about how the natural resources of the region have been used; now you’re going to handle your own natural resources. You’re going to handle the different ministries that operate on the Coast. The central government will help, but you’re going to be basically responsible.
“From a cultural point of view, we’re saying that your different cultural manifestations are all going to be respected, encouraged, and promoted. Everything possible will be done to enhance and promote your cultural traditions and see that they flourish. The educational process will be carried out in your native language, justice will be dealt with in your native language, the different systems will be transmitted in your native language.
“But we aren’t saying that we want you to stay where you are because life is change; it doesn’t mean stagnation. We’re not going to force you to go ahead, but the conditions are going to be created so that, if you want to, you can; and we will encourage you to step forward into the future.”
Wresting a new history from the oldAutonomy for the Coast cannot possibly provide an instant cure for the historic wounds left by more than three centuries of conflicting colonial powers—Spain and England—each of which dominated half of Nicaragua according to its own needs and style. In the past hundred years, the United States has replaced the complex domination established by these powers.
Although US neo-colonial domination was less direct than Spain’s and more so than England’s, it fit neatly into the different social formations left by both colonizers. In the Pacific, the US truncated internal political conflict and protected its own interests with frequent marine occupations. Having exhausted that option, it installed the Somoza regime, which for almost half a century oversaw the development of agro-export capitalism and created a repressive apparatus to assure that the people would not rebel against the profound inequalities or resume Sandino’s anti-imperialist struggle. While US capital found its best rewards in financial and commercial investments in the Pacific, US companies installed themselves in the Caribbean to remove the wealth of natural resources there. Instead of being repressed, the population was mollified by the paternalistic religious teachings of US Moravian missionaries. English-speaking Creoles tended to be hired for the better jobs in the mines, lumber and fishing companies, and in the commercial activities that developed in the port towns of Bluefields and Puerto Cabezas. However, Miskitos too gravitated to wage labor in order to satisfy their cash needs and their new found taste for the US products in company commissaries.
As natural resources were depleted, the companies pulled out, leaving the region in the same condition as any other abandoned enclave economy: no investment in domestic economic infrastructure, no ties to the domestic market, few if any links to the rest of the country, the worst education and health conditions, and an ethnically mixed population with little internal cohesion, except for a shared desire to return to “the golden days.”
Among the main internal problems, then, are a seriously unequal development between the two coasts, a structural backwardness that will require transformation and heavy investments if the Coast is to be expected to provide for its own needs and expectations, a historic legacy of mistrust and hostility between the Pacific and Caribbean, including an abundance of ethnic stereotyping, an equally historic lack of regional cohesiveness or initiative, and a class structure that in many respects reflects an ethnic hierarchy.
Potentials and problemsAs Luis Carrión pointed out, autonomy is no longer taboo. Neither is it magic. Perhaps it can best be described as a key that could unlock many new doors, but what will lie beyond those doors is far from predictable.
It will be the task of the autonomy process to reflect on these intra-regional and inter-regional problems in a much more serious way than has ever been done before. The solutions will necessarily involve structural changes, as well as a process of reeducation. The ethnic understanding of the problem revealed by many Miskitos will have to be confronted with the concerns of the majority of Mayangnas, for example, who fear renewed domination by the Miskitos and would prefer to keep things the way they are if such domination were to be one of the products of autonomy. Creoles in the south, whose primary concerns are much more economic than cultural, will have the responsibility to come up with viable new solutions once the regional ministries are no longer dominated from Managua. Rising expectations at all levels will have to be placed in the framework of both the country’s and the region’s economic reality. For example, these expectations will be confronted with the myth, believed by many people from the Coast, that the wealth of the Coast continues to subsidize Managua. Those who want the benefits of economic development yet do not want to change their living patterns will have to resolve their own contradictions.
Furthermore, it is not a key that can lock out the difficult realities that all Nicaraguans are facing: a terrible aggression sponsored by the giant to the north that has turned Nicaragua’s war-torn economy into a full-blown crisis and displaced tens of thousands of people. As long as the United States refuses to consider political solutions, such as the Contadora process, which Nicaragua has endorsed, the revolution’s possibilities of providing concrete answers to the population’s deeply felt needs will become ever more limited. Autonomy will not end the dislocations of people from their traditional homes, now the target of contra attacks; it cannot stop the anguish of families torn apart by the fighting, with some members taking refuge in other countries and others defending their own country against the attacks; it cannot prevent the rising death toll. Furthermore, the solutions that autonomy does hope to provide will be limited by the war. As long as Nicaragua is not given breathing space so that its economy can recover, the special financial needs of the Coast cannot be given the consideration they deserve. As long as sawmills are being burned down, fishing boats menaced, and crops devastated or not planted, the growing demands of the Coast for refugee housing and an end to food shortages can only be partially satisfied. As long as the contras steal scarce medicines, destroy clinics as soon as they are built, and kidnap or threaten health workers, the historically bad health conditions on the Coast cannot be satisfactorily improved.
The first priority, therefore, is peace. Autonomy offers new possibilities for the Caribbean Coast and will perhaps encourage some Miskitos currently fighting with the counterrevolution to return. There are also hopes that the negotiations with Brooklyn Rivera, which began last December, will result in his recognition of the far-reaching importance of this process and that his organization, MISURASATA, will be persuaded to call a cease-fire and participate in developing the Coast.
However, whatever the outcome of those negotiations, the autonomy project has a life of its own. It has become a principle of the revolution and will go forward no matter what. Undertaken in conditions that are far from propitious, this profound endeavor will nonetheless require tremendous patience, wisdom, and trust from all participants. While the development of autonomy may help bring peace to the region, in the final analysis, peace is a prerequisite for the effective development of autonomy. The groups that claim to be fighting for their people will have to come to terms with this reality.
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