Preventive Action for Refugee Producing Situations

112 Chapter 3
World Relief staff as well, through life-threatening harassments, kidnapping,
and forced recruitment. 251
Military construction and U.S. armed attacks continued to advance, and
several human rights violations were committed by both Nicaraguan
governmental forces and armed indigenous groups. 252 The events of early
1986 that led to the last major influx of Nicaraguan Indians into Honduras
may be seen to some extent as a culmination of abuses of the indigenous
Nicaraguan population. The three principal factors that led to that last large
flow were "induced" asylum, forced recruitment, and prevention of
voluntary repatriation, each of which we will consider in turn below.
UNHCR in the Mosquitia
Refugee-producing situations such as that in the Mosquitia, which seem to
be increasing in countries of the developing world, pose new challenges to
UNHCR's function of international protection. In these new situa-
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251 Molieri, [El Desafio Indígena], p.274. Molieri stales that in reality Mocoron, and
thereafter the refugee camps in Tapamlaya, Rio Patuca, Cocobila, Usibila y
Srumlaya that were attended by UNHCR and the Noithamerican Protestant organization
World Relief, were transformed in places of recruitment by the followers
of Steadman Fagotti. For their recruitment they used various mechanisms, money,
coercion and threat to the families, to kidnapping of the young men, and secret
training camps for making them to attack Nicaraguan positions. This work was facilitated
by the Moravian pastors, who originally had belonged to the MISURA-S
ATA (translated by the author).
252 Americas Watch has prepared key documents on the Human Rights situation in
the Atlantic Coast. See especially Human Rights in Nicaragua: Reagan, Rhetoric,
and Reality (1985), which notes that of the two most serious incidents attributed
to the Nicaraguan governmental forces, "There is no evidence that they were
directed or condoned by the central government ...There has never been any
evidence of radically motivated or widespread killings of Miskitos." See also
Violations of the Laws of War by Both Sides in Nicaragua, 1981-1985 (1985) and
(1987), and Miskitos in Nicaragua: 1981-1984 (1984). Another important
document is Trabil Nani: Historical Background and Current Situation on the
Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua, issued by the Center for Research and
Documentation of the Atlantic Coast and the Riverside Church Disarmament
Project See also Diskin et at, "Peace and Autonomy on the Atlantic Coast of
Nicaragua: A Report of the LAS A Task Force on Human Rights and Academic
Freedom," LASA Forum 16 (Spring 1986) and LASA FORUM, 17 (Summer
1986), pp. 13-24, and Richard Fagan, Forging Peace. The Challenge of Central
America, Policy Alternatives for the Caribbean and Central America, Basil
Blackwell, New York, 1987, p. 65.
Analytical Discussion 113
tions national authorities either have lost or are losing the confidence of a
segment of their citizens, or have become unable to provide them with protection
against abuses by rebel forces.
International law clearly provides that "everyone has the right to freedom of
movement and residence within the borders of each state. Everyone has the right
to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country." 253 When
national authorities run into difficulties in enforcing those rights for their own
citizens, however, then the United Nations must do everything it can to
guarantee these rights.
UNHCR noted with unease the growing political and military unrest in the
Mosquitia and became increasingly concerned for the well-being of the
indigenous populations flowing into Honduras. Moving cautiously, UNHCR set
up a program in the Honduran Mosquitia, primarily for protection purposes. The
Office built up a small team of officials in the Mosquitia, but due to serious
protection problems it was soon forced to increase its staff there.
Protecting the displaced Nicaraguan Indians became a sensitive and delicate
mission. Refugee efforts were transformed, through the support of the Honduran
Armed Forces and the influence of the U.S. Embassy, into counterrevolutionary
activities. The wife of the American Ambassador in Tegucigalpa, Diana
Negroponte, played a conspicuously active role in refugee affairs; in 1982 she
was listed as a World Relief staff member. 254
It was almost impossible to maintain a correct count on the refugees,
because their constant migration made an accurate census difficult. People
seemed to be on the move all the time between villages, or between the
villages and the border area on the Honduran side, either of their own accord
or as a result of coercion by MISURA groups. The fluctuations in the refugee
population are reflected in the official UNHCR statistics, which, even despite
the 1986 influx, had fallen again by the end of 1986 to earlier levels. 255 This
happened largely because these "new" refugees,
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253 Article 13 of the Declaration of Human Rights. See also Article 11 of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
254 Molieri, El Desafio Indigena, pp. 276.
255 The Numbers of Nicaraguan Miskito and Sumo Indians under UNHCR care and
maintenance in Honduras have been as follows:
December 31,1983: 13,767
December 31,1984: 15,477
December 31,1985: 12,095 June 30,1986:17,731
December 31,1986: 15,857