Nicaragua
The Atlantic Coast: War or Peace?
Envío team
Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast stands poised on the razor’s edge. On one side beckons a negotiated settlement of the three-year-old war, an autonomous regional government, and a peaceful return to the Miskitos’ beloved Río Coco. On the other lies a senseless continuation of hostilities, urged on by Miskito hardliners based outside the country who are influenced by their Washington contacts and the money that flows therefrom.
Hostilities have been lower on the Coast since late spring when a tense and tenuous peace was reached in separate talks between the Nicaraguan government and representatives of the two armed indigenous groups, Misura and Misurasata. As is to be expected, the major threat to this delicate balance comes now from the US government. It has just sweetened the pot of the hardline faction with a starting figure of $300,000 in exchange for unifying the indigenous forces, continuing the war and taking a seat in the United Nicaraguan Opposition, an umbrella contra organization which will dispense the $47 billion in “humanitarian” aid approved by Congress in June. In an assembly held in Rus Rus, Honduras at the end of August, dominated by Misura adherents, the vote was taken to fulfill this quid pro quo for receiving the money, and to reject dialogue with the Nicaraguan government. Misura and Misurasata were reportedly to “dissolve” into a new united organization called KISAN, a Miskito acronym for Kos Indianka Aslasa Nicaragwara (Nicaragua Coast Indian Union). Top Misurasata leader Brooklyn Rivera, who broke off talks with the Nicaraguan government in May, was barred by Honduran officials from entering the country during the four-day assembly.
It is too soon to know the effects of this recent event on the complex process underway on the Coast itself. However, the following analysis of that process itself can provide a useful context for interpreting the effects as they become known.
Three years of warExactly a year ago this October, Brooklyn Rivera toured Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast with an entourage of international observers and journalists. The open visit, at the invitation of then government coordinator Daniel Ortega, was Rivera’s first since following Steadman Fagoth out of Nicaragua in September 1981. The intervening three years have been costly years of war.
Fagoth, who left four months before Rivera, had already allied with the September 15 Legion, a Nicaraguan band of former National Guard, and was putting together Misura, his own group of young Miskitos. Honduran and Argentine army officers and former National Guardsmen trained and equipped them, with CIA assistance.
Rivera tried to work with Fagoth in Honduras, but for reasons that Rivera calls jealousy, Fagoth had the Honduran military arrest him on three different occasions. By the third time, in late 1982, he was expelled.
Rivera went to Costa Rica and there formed his own armed Miskito group. He astutely appropriated the name Misurasata from the dynamic civil organization of Miskitos, Mayangnas and Ramas formed with Sandinista support just after the overthrow of Somoza. By Rivera’s own account, his new organization was composed mainly of Miskitos who had left Misura because of rampant abuses by the power-hungry Fagoth.
Whole communities have been taken to Honduras by Misura. Between those who fled the forced evacuation of the Río Coco in January 1982, and those who have been taken out of the country over the past three years, there are now an estimated 20,000 Miskito and 4,000 Mayangna refugees in Honduras and perhaps a thousand more in Costa Rica. The youth are natural recruits, whether by choice or by pressure against their families. It is frequently reported that Fagoth tortures or kills those who refuse to fight, and has impeded families from returning to Nicaragua.
Be early 1983, Misurasata had some 300-500 troops and began to attack targets in southern Zelaya. Allied with the Democratic Revolutionary Alliance (ARDE), Rivera was able to get training and equipment. By fall, the group had spread northward to its current area of concentration—the coastal Miskito communities south of Puerto Cabezas down to the Río Grande de Matagalpa, the river dividing northern and southern Zelaya province. Misura, with several thousand troops, dominates the littoral north of Puerto Cabezas and a wide swath westward to the mines. They travel easily back and forth to base camps in Honduras.
The extension of fighting throughout the vast province, in which both ARDE and FDN now carry out their own independent attacks as well, had virtually paralyzed economic and social activity in the region by last year. Construction and food supply trucks were frequently blown up by mines planted by Misura along the few roads, sawmills were burned down, health centers robbed of their medicines and many closed, fishing boats attacked when they went out, mobile teachers and heath care brigade menaced or killed, along with road workers, house builders and telephone and electricity installers. Commerce within the region had nearly halted and the suffering of the population was acute.
The question of why the indigenous groups are fighting is not a simple one to answer. Some have been convinced that it is a holy/political war to defeat the “sandino-communist atheist devils.” Others are motivated by revenge for what they view as government abuses, such as the relocation of the Río Coco communities to Tasba Pri. Still other have no confidence in any Managua government and believe they can only win their indigenous rights through force. Some, on the other hand, fight simply because it assures them US boots, rifle, belt and perhaps a few dollars, while for others the US connection is more symbolic—proof that they must be right, and that they can win. By last year the question became a more insistent one, and the answers carried less conviction.
Throughout last year, a series of third-party communications tested the possibilities of dialogue between Rivera and the government. The basis of the possibility resided in the fact that Rivera claimed to be fighting only for indigenous rights, not to overthrow the revolutionary government. In early October Senator Edward Kennedy, who had taken increased interest in the issue after a meeting with Rivera, arranged a private meeting in New York between Rivera and Daniel Ortega, there to address the United Nations General Assembly. On the basis of this meeting, Ortega invited Rivera to come to Nicaragua, tour the Coast and meet with other government leaders. This in turn led to negotiations in which the main topics were a cease fire, land rights and autonomy.
Shifts in Sandinista policy: Outside forces or internal growth?The errors of the Sandinistas’ early approach to the populations of the Atlantic Coast have often been admitted by the Sandinistas themselves—a well meaning but oversimplified understanding of the Coast reality, which led to the erroneous conclusion that little more was needed than to bring the area out of its economic and social underdevelopment. This view, which did not contemplate ethnic oppression as such, clashed violently with a latent cultural nationalism, among the Miskitos in particular, which was radicalizing rapidly as a result of the opening provided by the revolution itself. The objective manifestations of this took place at many levels—from the failure on the part of the Sandinistas to recognize what a profound cultural imposition it was to assume the indigenous communities would adopt revolutionary structures and attitudes developed out of the Pacific experience, to personal insults by FSLN activists insensitive to their own ethnocentric stereotyping of the coastal populations.
A parallel conflict, less theoretical even at its base, existed between the excessive fears of separatism that made up part of the matrix of Pacific thinking and the very real manipulations of some Miskito leaders, particularly Steadman Fagoth, at that time undisputed head of Misurasata. Fagoth’s sinister abilities as a charismatic leader, combined with a tendency of Miskitos to give a great deal of power to leaders they trust, meant that Misurasata’s base was inadvertently caught in the net of Sandinista overreaction to the actions of Fagoth and a few others.
With the departure of most of Misurasata’s top leaders, the government withdrew its recognition of the indigenous organization; the FSLN criticized its former reliance on Misurasata as an intermediary which had prevented direct interchange with the communities. The next two years were basically spent dealing with the war and trying to get to know the peoples of the Atlantic Coast, particularly after the implementation of a decentralized regional government system in September 1982. By this time, however, historic distrust had added a new layer of fear and anger, and many people were simply disoriented by events.
Some working in the region have criticized the fact that the only defined policy was a military one. However, the fruit of these two years of experience was a greater maturity on both sides and a growing willingness to begin again on a firmer footing. At the beginning of December 1983, the government decreed a pardon for all Miskitos convicted of counterrevolutionary activities since “Red Christmas,” as well as amnesty for those who had left Nicaragua, with the exception of counterrevolutionary leaders.
Rivera’s organization responded to the amnesty law in a press statement issued under the name Misurasata-SICC (SICC stands for Southern Indigenous Creole Council). Written in the excessively inflammatory language calculated to motivate his “Indian warriors,” Rivera nonetheless acknowledged the positive move and demanded other similar steps to demonstrate the FSLN’s political will to resolve the situation. Among the six initial steps proposed in the document were: “recognition of Misurasata-SICC as the legitimate and only indigenous representative” and a “decision to dialogue with the authentic indigenous leaders in relation to territory and autonomy.”
Six months later Dr. Mirna Cunningham, a Miskito, was named the President’s Ministerial Delegate for northern Zelaya, the highest civilian government post; a few months later, Thomas Gordon, a Creole, was named to the same post in southern Zelaya (renamed Special Zones I and II, respectively, when the regional government system went into effect in 1982). Over the past two years, costeños have replaced people from the Pacific in many high-level posts.
In July 1984, discussions about the creation of a new indigenous organization, begun in Tasba Pri the previous December, led to the formation of Misatan, the Organization of Miskitos in Nicaragua. Misatan, a child of its time, combines revolutionary consciousness and indigenous consciousness into a new analytical framework. Misatan would remain the only civil indigenous organization until March 1985, when Sukawala, a Mayangna organization founded in 1974, reinitiated activities. Among all these changes, however, the most important was that by October 1984, to the shock of many Nicaraguans on both sides of the country, the word autonomy began appearing in a favorable context in the national press for the first time in Nicaraguan history.
Autonomy and negotiations: A dynamic duoBetween October 1984 and May 1985 a dual process unfolded. On the one hand were negotiations with Brooklyn Rivera and on the other the internal development of the decision taken by the Nicaraguan government to recognize the coastal peoples’ aspirations for greater autonomy. There have been many points of contact—theme, rhythm, personalities, objectives—between these two currents but they remain parallel and distinct, each with its own dynamics and its own possibilities of success or failure.
Throughout the second half of last year, a small group of people began to intensely study autonomous systems and other forms of relations between central governments and minority populations in different parts of the world. In early December, this group was formalized into the National Autonomy Commission. Presided over by Deputy Interior Minister Luis Carrión, the FSLN National Directorate member in charge of overseeing Atlantic Coast affairs, the commission included Galio Gurdián, anthropologist and director of the Center for Research and Documentation of the Atlantic Coast (CIDCA); Ray Hooker, by then deputy to the National Assembly for Special Zone II; Hazel Lau, a founding member of Misurasata and National Assembly depute for Special Zone I; Orlando Núñez, director of the Center for the Study of the Economy and Agrarian Reform (CIERA); and Manuel Ortega Hegg, deputy director of research and analysis for the central government, an anthropologist with experience on the Coast.
At the same time, groups from northern and southern Zelaya that had informally come together to reflect on the subject were ratified as regional commissions. The plan was that, after a period of study and consultation with all the communities of the Coast, a special statute on autonomy would be written, submitted to the National Assembly for further discussion and ratification, and finally included as part of Nicaragua’s new Constitution.
Meanwhile, the second current, negotiations with Rivera, got underway on December 8, in Bogota, Colombia under the auspices of the Betancur government. Unfortunately, the inauguration of the autonomy commissions had occurred only three days earlier, which Rivera fastened onto as proof that the entire autonomy process was one-sided and run by the government.
Rivera arrived at the talks with a four-page base document for the “Process of Negotiations toward a Treaty of Peace and Recognition of Indigenous Territory and Autonomy Among the Miskito, Mayangna and Rama Native Peoples of the State of Nicaragua.” It quickly became clear that he conditioned a cease fire on the fulfillment of the points contained in the document.
The government team, also headed by Comandante Luis Carrión, had come to the table with an agenda that was the inverse of Rivera’s. It was willing to discuss all aspects of autonomy with Misurasata, as part of the larger grassroots consultation, but saw a cessation of hostilities as the necessary precondition to this process. In exchange for a cease fire in place, Carrión offered Rivera a seat on the autonomy commission, and freedom of movement for a Misurasata delegation to organize in the indigenous communities around its vision of autonomy.
Rivera clung to his cynicism about the national autonomy commission despite evidence to the contrary—the existence of two regional commissions, plans for a door-to-door grassroots consultation, and participation in the national commission by Hazel Lau, whom Rivera had invited to participate in the negotiations on the Misurasata side of the table. Repeating his charge that the commission would impose a unilateral solution, Rivera insisted that the autonomy process could only be legitimized through bilateral negotiations with Misurasata.
The government in turn rejected this approach. First, it argued that the issues were not purely ethnic ones but also political evidenced by the existence of three different indigenous organizations—Misurasata, Misura and Misatan. Second, if Misurasata did not speak for all indigenous people or even all Miskitos, it could not pretend to speak for the other ethnic groups on the Coast, which together make up two-thirds of the region’s population. This is an important conceptual issue since the autonomy commissions are contemplating autonomy for the region, not for one ethnic group. This initial impasse regarding the fundamental purpose of the negotiations would continue until the third session.
Rivera’s conception: Indigenous autonomy, Misurasata hegemonyMisurasata’s initial document contained five sections, of which the first three addressed the various demands that would open the way for implementation of a cease fire (section four). The organization’s contradictory self-definition as the sole legitimate representative of the Coast is apparent in the first section of the document, titled “Official Recognition of Ethnic Identity and the Aboriginal Rights of the Indigenous and Creole Peoples of the Region.” Point 1 demands recognition of the “Miskito, Mayangna and Rama populations as sovereign people of the Atlantic region of the country, with their own ethnic identity and with the natural right to freely determine their own political, economic, social and cultural development, in accord with their values and traditions.” Of the four points in this section, only point 2 mentions the Creoles, and then within a concept of indigenous autonomy: “The Government of the Republic of Nicaragua recognizes the inalienable right to an indigenous territory (land, river, lagoon and sea), with its natural resources, for the Miskito, Mayangna, Rama and Creole peoples…” The document includes no reference to the demographically dominant mestizo population or to the black Carib Indians (Garifonos). While indigenous autonomy is clearly a legitimate position, it is incompatible with the stance of being the exclusive representative of a complex, multiethnic region.
Of the 18 points comprising the other two sections of preconditions, only four were seriously conflictive: government recognition of Misurasata as the legitimate organization of the indigenous peoples; withdrawal of Sandinista troops to strategic points and the disarming of the civil militias created by Mayangnas and Miskitos in their own communities as defense against attacks by the armed groups; the replacement of these by Misurasata troops; and “suspension of forced recruitment of indigenous and Creole youth into the military.” (This last point appears under the section referring to “Institutionalized Repression against Indigenous People”; a less charged formulation would have been the demand for exemption from the national draft.) Rivera also spelled out his own view of the purpose of a grassroots consultation on autonomy: a process to ratify an already signed treaty between the government and himself. The final section of the document—on the composition of a commission to oversee fulfillment of the accords—would also become conflictive at a later point.
On the other hand, several key points favored the negotiations. On Misurasata’s side, recognition of the sovereignty of the Nicaraguan state, the territorial integrity of the country and the legitimacy of the government of the Republic; on the government’s side, recognition that autonomy is a principled issue that, once ratified, should have constitutional status.
By the second session, in mid-March again in Bogota, there were noticeable shifts in the new Misurasata document. First, much of the contradiction regarding Misurasata’s role as representative had disappeared: there was now no reference even to Creoles. Second, the demand that the indigenous peoples be recognized as sovereign was gone, and the concept of inalienable aboriginal rights had been replaced by historic rights. Third, the 18 detailed preconditions were replace by softer, more general and more cooperative language referring, for example, to the mutual promotion of humanitarian assistance to the indigenous communities, and to the government’s facilitation of the resettlement of internally displaced people and the repatriation of refugees. While this was an important show of good will, there were no shifts in the more difficult points, and neither side changed the order of priorities for negotiation: cease fire vs. autonomy.
Internal realignments and surprise movesBetween the two sessions, a series of seemingly unrelated events occurred, which in fact represented the first signs of realignments within both Misura and Misurasata. First, Rivera clandestinely returned to the Atlantic Coast in late December, reportedly to meet with his own five top commanders, and eight Misura counterparts. Several said they would support a cease fire, but only as long as any agreement was based on the wishes of the people. In the first days of January Rivera sent word that he had been wounded in a Sandinista attack and was being returned to Costa Rica.
No more was heard for two weeks, until just before the second scheduled negotiating session, when Rivera announced that he would not participate as long as government troops continued “aerial bombing” of Miskito communities. Carrión denied the charge, said the government would neither accept nor impose preconditions on the meetings, and went to Bogota to await Rivera, who indeed did not appear.
That gesture was buried under headlines that Rivera, who some say was never injured at all, had been expelled from Misurasata by three dissidents who set themselves up as the new leaders. According to a very sophisticated document signed by the three, Rivera had negotiated “behind the backs of our allies.” Reaffirming their alliance with ARDE and “our brothers who are fighting in the north,” the last page changes tone suddenly, in a pledge to continue fighting “until the tyrannical, assassin and communist government of Managua is overthrown.”
Within a few more days, Rivera in turn announced that he had expelled the three, who he claimed were “victims of the interests of ARDE and FDN.” When the talks first started, Rivera had admitted that these two organizations, as well as Misura and US Embassy officials, had all been opposed to any negotiations. One observer remarked, “Brooklyn has gotten himself into a difficult situation. If he moves toward negotiations with the Sandinistas he loses a few of his hardline commanders to Misura. If the takes up a more warlike posture, he loses troops to Misatan.”
Meanwhile, in Honduras on January 5, the day following news that Rivera had been wounded, Foreign Minister Edgardo Paz Barnica announced that Steadman Fagoth would be deported. Paz Barnica was reportedly angered by the Misura leader’s public statement to reporters the previous week that he had given his forces orders to execute 23 Sandinista soldiers they had captured in Tasbapauni (the same community Rivera had charged was bombed). Honduras officially denies any contra presence on its soil, as long as they keep a low profile. Fagoth, as one US newspaper put it at the time, had “apparently violated the Honduras’ sense of discretion.”
Fagoth would quietly return the following month, after raising $30,000 in a Cuban exile radiothon in Miami. But one journalist who visited the Misura camps in his absence said other commanders were relieved by his departure and were taking the opportunity to improve their treatment of Miskito troops and refugees. His ranks, too, were showing signs of dissension.
Negotiations: One step forward, two backMisurasata-government talks resumed in March with the help of international intermediaries, including Colombian President Belisario Betancur. Days before the meeting, Rivera stated in a press conference in Costa Rica that his organization had no further contact with ARDE, and that ARDE members were misrepresenting the negotiations to his base inside the Coast. He also stated that “The popular triumph in Nicaragua opens up hope that the revolution can understand the just aspirations of the indigenous sector, not only in Nicaragua, but in Latin America and beyond.” By this time several European and Latin American governments had sent observers, and Rivera had some 20 indigenous observers from both continents. Though the impasse remained through this session, both sides called the talks positive.
In the third round held in late April, this time in Mexico, minimal accords were reached. Breaking the previous stalemate, they also belied a very pessimistic remark by Rivera before the session. The accords included the government’s agreement to facilitate the provision of food and medicines to communities in the war zone, as well as to help them reinitiate farming and fishing activities. The government also agreed to release all remaining indigenous prisoners involved with either group. The key breakthrough was that both sides agreed to “avoid offensive armed actions.”
Carrión’s team, at least, was heartened by the breakthrough and went to the next meeting a month later prepared to discuss Rivera’s more substantive concerns. One of the issues the government was at that time unwilling to be flexible on, however, was the demand that the army withdraw, leaving defense of the communities to Misurasata. Not only did the demand rankle the Sandinistas’ sense of national sovereignty, but as Carrión phrased it, “They are suggesting that the government be defenseless against other armed groups they know are operating in the region.” In fact, field commanders of both Misura and Misurasata had been coordinating their actions since at least October 1983 when both groups carried out series of attacks that inflicted major economic damage to communities near Puerto Cabezas.
To put this issue to rest, Carrión presented a list of fifteen attacks since April 1, eleven of which had occurred after the April 22 agreement. Reported damage included 21 killed between civilians and soldiers, 15 wounded, 23 kidnapped and 13 vehicles destroyed—many of them attempting to fulfill the agreement to deliver provisions to the community in the war zone. The document did not assign responsibility for most of the attacks, but was seen by Carrión as a basis for discussing mechanisms to monitor violations of the accords, and demonstrate that the army could not withdraw until all groups had agreed to a cease fire.
Rivera, angry, recognized the trap. In his own evaluation, hastily prepared with the help of his US advisers, he opted to take credit for four of the showier actions and disparage the accords as unimportant, rather than concede the issue. Regarding an attack on Bluefields, actually carried out by the FDN, Rivera’s document declared, “On that day the indigenous people advanced inside the city, which was a tactic directed by the Ministry of the Interior in order to annihilate them and for the political publicity.” Carrión, undoubtedly imagining the sort of political publicity the Sandinistas would get for “annihilating” indigenous people, called the description “absurd and puerile.”
It was the discussion about an oversight commission which ended the talks, however. Rivera pushed his proposal for a tripartite commission: two members each from Misurasata and the government, plus one each from the Organization of American State, the World Council of Indigenous Peoples and the Nicaraguan Catholic Bishops’ Conference. Carrión argued that since it was an internal matter, monitors should be people from the Coast mutually agreed on by both parties. He did not add that at least two of the three suggested outsiders could not be called non-partisan. Rivera, who had proposed that this body also mediate the talks themselves, reportedly walked out at this point.
In a press interview on his return to Nicaragua, Carrión was asked to speculate on what he called Rivera’s “intransigence.” “He refused to recognize the desire for peace,” Carrión responded, “both within his troops and in the communities. The pressure for peace is strong, followed by peoples’ desire to return to their original places. Brooklyn is on a plane that doesn’t correspond to reality.”
Other evaluations were more extreme on either side. “Brooklyn doesn’t trust the government for anything,” said a young Mayangna. “Most Indians don’t; he had a right to want international mediators.” A Miskito from Puerto Cabezas now working in a refugee camp in Costa Rica said, “All these guys start out fighting for their people. But then they get a taste of money and power and from then on they only fight for themselves. That’s what happened to Brooklyn.”
Rivera blamed the government for the failure, accusing it of shifting to a new hardline position. He blamed this shift on Tomás Borge, who in April took over responsibility for the Coast from Carrión, himself assigned to the conflictive Regions I and VI.
Carrión, who as author of the government position led the negotiations even after the shift, refused the bait. “We have maintained a coherent and consistent policy toward the ethnic problem,” he said simply, “which has not been modified since the conversations started.” Asked who would head future negotiations, Carrión replied, “They have to resume first.”
Other events taking place at that very moment, made public the following month, would demonstrate the falsity of Misurasata’s charge.
Negotiations without fanfare in Nicaragua: Fanfare without unity in the exterior
On June 22, Misura high command member Eduardo Panting (better known on the Coast by his Miskito guerrilla name Layan Pauni or “Red Lion”) was killed in the Miskito community of Yuly, in Nicaragua. Some Misura commanders who claimed to have witnessed the event explained that he was shot when his pistol fell from his holster, but there are reasons to suspect that top Misura leader Steadman Fagoth had ordered Panting’s assassination. (This suspicion grew when Orlando Mcklean, known as Matsiksa or “Monkey Snake,” Panting’s second in command, was missing and reported imprisoned by the Honduran army in August.)
At the point the government announced that a tacit cease fire had been quietly negotiated between Panting and regional commanders of the Interior Ministry and the army, and that other Misura commanders had been about to meet to consider whether to join the agreement. On the basis of the accord with Panting, the government had concluded that a return to the river could be safely carried out. (The agreement had been assigned on May 17, a week before the final session with Rivera.)
Days before Panting’s death, representatives of Misura, Misurasata, and a faction which still called itself Misurasata-SICC met in Miami under the auspices of the US Moravian Church. Couched again in the old rhetoric, the document that came out of this meeting announced the formation of a provisional commission called Asla (Miskito for unity), which would coordinate initial work to reunify the armed organizations, develop an indigenous autonomy commission, and prepare for an indigenous assembly within 60 days to concretize the reunification “of the indigenous family and movement.” The only reference to peace was somewhat ambiguous: “Development of coordinated political-diplomatic forces for the continuation of the matter of a peaceful solution with justice to the indigenous conflict, in order thus to continue the legitimate resistance against the warlike and racist solution of the Sandinista Front.” Signers of the document were Brooklyn Rivera for Misurasata, Jannelee Hodgson for Misurasata-SICC and Wycliffe Diego for Misura. Steadman Fagoth, who has never denied that his aim is the overthrow of the Sandinista government, was present though not one of the singers.
Rivera then flew off to tour Canada and Europe for the next two months, in anticipation of the upcoming assembly, in which he had reason to believe he might be chosen the unity leader. This possibility seemed even more likely in early August, when Fagoth was expelled from Misura for having kidnapped several members of the organization’s Council of Elders in an internal coup attempt.
There are a large number of sincere field commanders in both organizations who are tired of the fighting, feel the peoples’ desire for peace, and recognize that the new government efforts have rendered armed struggle meaningless. The rapid succession of recent events has left them without a spokesperson or line of command. With the exception of Yakal Siksa or “Black Eagle,” a hardline Miskito leader from Misura in the north, and several hardliners from both organizations in the south, the general cessation of fighting between government and indigenous troops has held throughout the Coast since May. Members of both groups move openly through the Miskito communities, discussing the autonomy issue with the population without government or military interference.
Furthermore, Sandinista military leaders have continued discussions with local Miskito commanders on what appears to be a case by case basis. Some have reportedly agreed to receive weapons, ammunition and supplies from the Sandinista military rather than maintain their supply lines with Honduras. In several cases, a commitment by the indigenous groups that they will defend the posts against incursions by US-supported counterrevolutionary forces has led to joint guard duty by government and indigenous troops. In a few cases, such as the strategic Sisin Bridge, the Wawa River ferry or the communities of Sandy Bay, the withdrawal of government troops has been negotiated in recent weeks on the basis of such commitments. In short, Rivera’s demand is becoming a reality, because the reality permits it. “If the indigenous groups agree to defend the security of the area,” said army regional commander Antenor Rosales, “we don’t need to keep our forces there.” The Sisin Bridge crosses a deep gorge on the one road to the Río Coco, and Misura forces have failed in several attempts to destroy it over the past several years. Now that the return to the river is underway, defense of the bridge will be a good test of sincerity.
Autonomy: Proceed with all deliberate speedOn May 29, two days after the failed talks with Misurasata, President Ortega issued a statement for the Coast with several key points. First, he expressed the government’s willingness to renew discussions the moment they are solicited by either Misurasata or “all those groups of indigenous people in north and south Zelaya who want to converse, to arrive at cease fire accords, and to assure support in the provisions of supplies and health services to the communities.” Second, the document agreed to the “slow, ordered and planned return to their place of origin” of the Río Coco communities. The President also suspended the use of identity cards and travel permission for residents of the Coast. (These were imposed several years ago to help the military distinguish between civilians and combatants, but have seriously rankled the indigenous people’s sense of freedom). Finally, the statement called on the national and regional autonomy commissions to go forward with the project so that it can be “opportunely known by the National Assembly for its approval.” Borge, in Puerto Cabezas on the same day, read the statement and delivered his entire speech in Miskito.
The autonomy project had moved sluggishly, in anticipation of a favorable outcome to the negotiations; with that prospect frustrated, the commission moved into gear. In late June, the three commissions met in a weeklong seminar. There they debated, redrafted and ultimately approved by consensus a document called “Principles and Policies for the Exercise of the Rights of Autonomy of the Indigenous Peoples and Communities of the Atlantic Coast.” At the same time, the three commissions merged into one, composed of some 80 people, the vast majority selected by their communities on the Coast. What had been the national commission retired to backstage, offering logistic and methodological help where needed.
Autonomy is defined as “the effective exercise of the historical rights of the indigenous peoples and communities of the Atlantic Coast, within the framework of national unity and the principles and policies of the Sandinista Popular Revolution.” Although the grassroots consultation is not yet completed, and the draft will undoubtedly undergo changes, this and other basic principles are expected to remain intact. (See envío, April 1984).
By September some 600 costeños had been trained in workshops to carry out the consultation, a process that is expected to last several more months. In an assembly in northern Zelaya in mid-August, Miskitos set a precedent by electing a local commission, representing 45 communities, to discuss the issue. Soon other local or ethnic groups in the region had done the same. A Misatan leader called the assembly discussion a breakthrough. “Given the military situation since 1981,” said Rufino Lucas, Misatan representative to the autonomy commission, “people have been afraid. This was the first time they have put out such ideas publicly.”
There are other reasons, too, why opinions are coming slowly. For one, the “aspiration” for autonomy is not to be confused with a sophisticated conception, worked out through years of struggle. Very few, in fact, have such a conception, and of those, some have developed their views more from contact with the international indigenous movement than from an analysis of the Nicaraguan reality, or from activism on behalf of such a demand on the Coast. (There was not even a word for autonomy in either Mayangna or Miskito until this process began.) Second, given the historical lack of educational opportunities, most Miskitos are very impatient with abstractions. Asked what autonomy means to them, many will say “no more war,” or “the return to the river,” or “that we can ask for more things from the government.” Third, Miskitos, and most others trained in the Moravian church, pride themselves on their disdain of what they call “politics” and are reluctant to play an active role in political debate. And finally, the war the people have been suffering from is no abstraction, and an end to it is the only thing in the minds of many. (A future envío article will focus more on autonomy, once the consultation results are available for analysis.)
The return: Amid difficulties, the dream come trueThe return to the 37 communities of the Río Coco is moving forward, but not fast enough for some. In June the call for volunteers to go hack down three years’ worth of jungle growth, clear out the snakes and wildcats and do what could be done with the hordes of mosquitoes that had bred along the rainy riverbanks, topped the 1,200 anticipated. From Krasa, the uppermost evacuated river community, to Living Creek, the one furthest down river, cleanup was estimated to take roughly 20 days; they did it in 10.
The experience was not without its tragedies, pains and joys. Six people were killed when they accidentally activated a land mine left by Misura; 42 were carried off by the Honduran military to a refugee camp, only to be rejected by the refugee workers there; some who had nursed memories of their beloved communities were shocked by the empty jungle that awaited them; Nicaraguan Miskitos, who earlier had fled, crossed over in canoes looking for friends, relatives, confirmation or refutation of the horror stories they had heard on the Honduran side. They often stayed to help. Some stayed the night in the pitched tents, then stole back across the river, saying many would return if things really went okay.
Despite a constant bombardment of terrifying propaganda about the Sandinistas, many Miskitos and Mayangnas in Honduras would like to come home. “Family reunification,” which has more than one level of meaning, is a major slogan started by Misatan and picked up by Misurasata. Several thousand are estimated to have returned in a steady trickle beginning with the amnesty. Some have returned clandestinely, others officially under UN High Commission for Refugees auspices. In the last month people have been coming back at the rate of 50 to 100 a week.
The return to the river is a mammoth job. The Return Commission began by carrying out a census of the number of families, family members and possessions that can be found for each original community, now spread from Puerto Cabezas to Tasba Pri to Bluefields. With a caravan of six rented private trucks, and twelve state trucks—when they can be spared from food delivery and the like—the commission then tries to plan transportation. It has already sent back 1,143 families (7,190 people) to 12 communities.
The first towns relocated were accessible by road, on the way up to or along either side of the river capital of Waspán. The remaining communities are on the river proper, and both boats and fuel are problems. The last to be resettled will be the upriver villages, where people also have to battle the current. Part of the agreement with Misura was that the caravans not be escorted by the military, and both sides have kept to the bargain. The Return Commission, in which Misatan members are very active, estimates that the 25,000 anticipated returnees will be “back where their umbilical cords are buried” by mid-November, barring major problems.
Some 905 of the houses were intact in the community of Saupuka. Houses were also still standing in Francis Sirpi and one or two other villages, all minus their roofs. But many houses had been destroyed. Families from the resettlement of Tasba Pri can take their animals and everything but the wood from their government-supplied houses, including 30 sheets of tin metal roofing. People from Waspán were not evacuated, and when they left, the majority transported their houses to Puerto Cabezas. Now the houses are not worth moving again. Two sawmills in the region have been destroyed by contra attacks, making rebuilding a slow process.
Indigenous unity and increased role of the baseAlmost everybody these days is arguing for indigenous unity. The United States is willing to pay for it, as long as it is with the contras and in favor of continued war. Brooklyn Rivera was for it in the exterior when it looked as though he might be chosen as its top leader; now he is making new overtures to return to the negotiating table. Hazel Lau, one of 19 Miskitos elected to a Peace Committee mandated to seek meaningful dialogue with Misura and Misurasata, says Rivera must come back inside Nicaragua, and meet not only with the government but with other groups like Misura and Sukawala. She says the Miskitos must unite because the grassroots are demanding it: “Ever since 1981 when we became divided,” she insists, “the people have known we must reunify.” Asked what the people want their leaders to unite around, she answers, “They leave that to us.”
Misatan has just made one of the most daring calls for unity. In a press conference on October 2, the Misatan national leadership called on the Nicaraguan government to give official recognition to Misura and Misurasata, and to permit members of Kisan, the new “united” organization in Honduras, to come to Puerto Cabezas for an assembly called by Misatan with national government leaders on problems of the Coast, to be held in mid-October. Misatan says its goal is to unite all the groups based on a legitimate struggle for indigenous rights. “It’s very difficult,” one of them said, “but it’s less so when those who are armed are inside.”
Misura representatives and those few from Misurasata who attended the Kisan assembly a month ago from Nicaragua are now returning. Whether they are convinced, or can be convincing to others, that the US proposal to keep on fighting makes any sense at all to a Miskito population desperately desirous of peace remains to be seen. As for Rivera, a “Western pilot” who just happened to attend the Kisan assembly offered the opinion that Rivera “was finished” for having negotiated with the Sandinistas. Fagoth’s right-hand man, Wycliffe Diego, who emerged from the Kisan conference as the new “united” leader, denounced the “personality cult” leadership Rivera had exercised. Another thing that remains to be seen, then, is whether Rivera, who has only been playing his foreign cards the past few months, is also “finished” with his base in the Coast, which has been wondering where he was when it needed him.
With the magnets of US dollars pulling one way and Miskito popular opinion pulling the other, the jockeying for political power within the armed organizations is rancorous, and at least temporarily destabilizing for the organizations. Of much more lasting import is the fact that political negotiation between the Miskitos and the government has replaced military confrontation. Misatan, which has overcome the charges that it is nothing but a government invention flung against it by Misura and Misurasata at its birth, continues to work with the grassroots and to do political work with those still in arms. If this dynamic holds, and the forces for unity prevail, there is a chance that the Miskitos will be able to coalesce around realistic criteria for an autonomy project. Those criteria will in turn have to be somehow meshed with those of the other groups on the Coast. Sukawala, for example, is developing positions on autonomy with its Mayangna base, which has always had much better relations with the Sandinistas. One of the reasons for Sukawala’s resurgence was precisely to avoid being dominated by the Miskitos again, as they were during the British colonial period.
In a sense the Coast is experiencing the maturing of its own liberation struggle, perhaps not contemplated at the beginning, in which future relations with the central government are being decided. The Sandinista approach at this point is to acknowledge and respect this struggle, negotiate for political solutions, and encourage the greater participation of the people within the principles and framework of the revolution. It is experimentation with more mature trust in the people of the Coast, based on greater respect for differences. In fact, it is experimentation with autonomy.
There is a lot of mistrust to overcome on both sides, particularly on the part of the coastal peoples, who have accumulated several hundred years’ worth. Depending on what moves the populations of the Coast, the Sandinistas, the FDN and the US itself make, it is just possible that the peoples of the two coasts will come to share, for the first time in that same several hundred year period, a sense of who their friends are, who their enemies, and what they are defending.
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