Preventive Action for Refugee Producing Situations

108 Chapter 3
almost extinct; Garifondas (so-called Black Caribs); English-speaking
Creoles, mainly in the South; and, in the second half of this century, mestizo
(Hispanic) peasant migrants from the Pacific side of the country. 237
This indigenous rural population, which has been living in stable village
communities concentrated in the Mosquitia, is striving to preserve its
threatened traditions and vanishing culture. Like lowland ethnic groups in
many other countries, these indigenous people do not demand development
and progress. Their struggles are not against unemployment or for Socialism.
The native people of the Mosquitia rather struggle for the survival of their
collective ethnic identity, their common language, a mythological geography
and history, and collective land ownership, as well as the memory of an
economy based on gift exchange, which was suppressed by the Protestant
mission of Moravian priests in the recent history. 238
After the Sandinista government came to power in 1979, it believed that
the Indians should be "integrated into the national revolutionary mainstream
through the mass organizations designed to promote class consciousness, and
minimize the Indian's nationalist disposition. " 239 The new authorities
prepared a national plan to implement their social and economic reforms,
which the indigenous populations rejected. Having suffered forceful
integration into the state of Nicaragua a century before, the Indian groups
could not identify with the policies propagated by the new Nicaraguan
government after 1979. 240 Both ALPROMISU (Alianza
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237 Martin Diskin, "The Manipulation of Indigenous Struggles," in Thomas Walker, ed.,
Reagan versus the Sandinistas: The Undeclared War on Nicaragua, [hereinafter
cited as "The Manipulation of Indigenous Struggles]," Westview Press, 1987, p. 83.
238 Klaudine Ohland and Robin Schneider, "National Revolution and Indigenous
Identity: The Conflict between Sandinistas and Miskito Indians on the Atlantic
Coast" [hereinafter cited as National Revolution and Indigenous Identity], IW-GIA,
No. 47, (Copenhagen, 1983), p. 9.
239 Glenn T. Morris, "Between a Rock and a Hard Place - Left-Wing Revolution, Right-
Wing Reaction and Destruction of Indigenous People, The Case of Mosquitia."
Cultural Survival Quarterly, 11, No. 3 (1987), p. 19.
240 It is worthwhile to note that the Mosquitia had its own history before 1860 as a part
of the British Empire. With the Treaty of Managua of 1860 between Nicaragua and
Great Britain, the British recognized for the first time Nicaragua's sovereignty over
the Atlantic Coast In 1894 Nicaragua occupied the Mosquitia militarily and
incorporated it into its national territory as one of the departments. In a similar
treaty, Honduras was given a small pan of the Mosquitia. This resulted in the
division of the Mosquitia and produced a 100-year-long border dispute, which was
resolved only in 1960 by the International Court of Justice which defined the
Analytical Discussion 109
de Progreso de los Miskitos y Sumos, or Alliance [for the Progress of]
Miskito and Sumo Development) and SUKUWALA (Asociacion Nacio-nal
de Comunidades Sumu) were established in the early 1970s to expand
activities for Indian self-determination. In November 1979, hardly four
months after the Nicaraguan revolution, Daniel Ortega met with representatives
of all the indigenous groups of the Atlantic Coast, who were
adamant about being recognized as ethnically distinct. MISURASATA
(Miskito Sumo Rama Sandinista Asia Ta Kanka, or Miskito, Sumo, Rama,
and Sandinistas Working Together) was established on the spot as a
result. 241 Of these three organizations MISURASATA was to play a major
role in further developments.
By 1980 and 1981, MISURASATA members, by participating in a
governmental literacy campaign and educational training, had raised Miskito
consciousness and enhanced both the leadership abilities and militant
aspects of the organization. When MISURASATA's leadership started to
freely advocate self-determination and autonomy for Atlantic Coast peoples,
the Sandinista leadership was unprepared to cooperate any longer.
Increasing tensions on both sides led to the incident of Prinza-polka in
which four Miskitos and four governmental soldiers were killed. 242 Shortly
afterwards, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights found that
irregular forces crossing from Honduras had killed six Nicaraguan soldiers
in San Carlos, and that Nicaraguan army forces "illegally killed a
considerable number of Miskitos in Leimus in retaliation for the killings in
San Carlos, in violation of Article 4 of the American Convention on Human
Rights." 243 This violent season became known as "Red Christmas."
Steadman Fagoth Muller, a influential orator and MISURASATA leader,
was jailed in 1981 and only released on the agreement that he would study
abroad. He escaped to Honduras, luring large groups of the Miskito
population to come with him and join one of the earliest contra
Coco River as the border between the Nicaraguan and Honduran Mosquitia.
Lioba Rossbach y Volker Wunderlich, "Derechos Indígenas y Estado Nacional
en Nicaragua: La Convención Mosquitia de 1844," Encuentro: Revista de la
Universidad Centra Americana en Nicaragua, Nos. 24-25, (April-September
1985), pp. 30-35.
241 Martin Diskin, "The Manipulation of Indigenous Struggles," p. 84.
242 Martin Diskin, "The Manipulation of Indigenous Struggles," p. 85.
243 Organization of American States, Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights, Report on the Situation of Human Rights of a Segment of the
Nicaraguan Population of Miskito Origin, OEA/Ser. L.V./II.62, doc. 10
November 1983, Washington: General Secretariat, OAS, May 16,1984
[Original in Spanish, November 29, 1983], p. 129.