Preventive Action for Refugee Producing Situations

118 Chapter 3
We understand from Professor Martin Diskin that there were
indications to consider integrating some 50,000 Indians from Nicaragua as
"pioneers" for the economic development of the Mosquitia, which may
have contributed to plans to rather relocate them within the Atlantic Coast
of Honduras instead of allowing them to repatriate voluntarily. 265
But one of the main problems was that the "old" refugees did not want
to be relocated, and the new arrivals were under strong pressure remain
within the reach of the border area, so as to be able to keep collecting their
food rations at the refugee locations.
UNHCR had a major problem with the diversion of food destined for
refugees to recipients outside the refugee areas. There were constant
complaints of food shortages, and the amount of rations actually needed in
the refugee locations was usually far above the amount calculated foil the
number of people counted in the official census. 266 Stricter administrative
measures, such as keeping systematic count of the actual beneficiaries,
were initiated by the new World Relief Director in June 1985; they have
helped to maintain control of these assistance problems to some extent
Analysis of the three major causes of the Miskito influx
"Induced asylum": Although the interviewees did not explicitly say that
they had been forcibly evacuated into Honduras, they confirmed that a
large group was being prepared to follow them. Information collected before,
during, and after the interviews made it clear that a large number of
people had no choice whether or not to cross the Coco River. As
predicted, approximately 8,500 Nicaraguan Indians entered Honduras
during Easter week of 1986. 267 Although William Casey, then director of
____________________
265 Interview with Martin Diskin , Professor at the M.I.T., Cambridge, USA on
14 October 1988.
266 According to interviews done by human rights workers with repatriatees in
Nicaragua in November 1986, the interviewees complained that there was
not enough food in Honduras. They also complained that KISAN was a
constant bother; although UNHCR kept the armed KISAN out of the camps,
they nevertheless came in in civilian clothes (and took their food away).
267 Martin Diskin, an authority on indigenous questions and Anthropology
Professor at MIT, interviewed a group of repatriating Miskitos in the
holding camp in Leon, Nicaragua, in July 1986. All said that they were
taken across ("led," "kidnapped," "crossed" were their words) by KISAN .
By the same token, journalists from the Philadelphia Inquirer and the
Boston Globe had found that KISAN had spread
Analytical Discussion 119
the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and Elliot Abrams, Assistant Secretary of
State for Inter-American Affairs, tried to blame this movement of Miskito people
on Sandinista atrocities, independent observers found "evidence lacking of new
Sandinista abuses that caused their flight." Rather, they found that "KISAN had
spread fear as part of a deliberate plan to evacuate the Miskitos to Honduras." 268
Interviews done by a human rights workers confirmed that KISAN had "crossed
them over." 269
This forcible relocation of 8,500 at one blow, similar to actions in other villages
such as Francia Sirpe, was undertaken solely to create a stir in international public
opinion, in gross violation of common article three of the Geneva Convention. 270
What investigators of this case found most disturbing was the callousness with
which KISAN and others exploited
fear as part of a deliberate plan to evacuate the Miskitos from Nicaragua to Hon-duras.
Diskin, "The Manipulation of Indigenous Struggles," p. 90.
268 Diskin et al., "Peace and Autonomy on the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua," September 1986,
p. 24.
269 Human rights workers visited the Coco River area in Nicaragua on 21-24 November,
1986 for a fact-finding mission, which included interviews with returnees of the "new"
refugees who had already returned from Honduras, either spontaneously or, when KISAN
had prevented it, with UNHCR's assistance. The people they talked with on the Coco River
mentioned several human rights violations that KISAN was guilty of, and none by the
Nicaraguan governmental forces. The most serious complaint was the forcible evacuation
of the Coco River communities to Honduras during the Easter week. Not only had KISAN
"crossed" them over, but all those who had already repatriated from Honduras and did not
want to return there again were forced by KISAN to do so. The human rights workers
mentioned the case of one Miskito Indian who permitted his name to be used: Franklin
Vincent, 54, from San Carlos on the Coco River. After having been forcibly evacuated to
Sumubila (in Taspa Pri) by the Nicaraguan Government in 1982, he had returned to his
village San Carlos in February 1986, where he lived quietly for two months until in April
KISAN forced him into Honduras. He said KISAN came to take them away, telling them
only that they "had" to leave, and giving no other explanation. Those who opposed this
relocation would be punished and were taken by force. In their interviews, the human rights
workers found a familiar refrain among the repatriees: "because KISAN crossed them
over", 'they came,' 'they took our food.' "They" meant "los Kisanes."
270 Additional Protocol H, June 6, 1977, Article 17, relating to non-international armedconflicts
of the four Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, prohibits the forcible
displacement of civilian populations, unless the security of the civilians concerned, or
imperative military reasons, so demand. Neither condition had been met by KISAN in the
forcible evacuation of 8,500 Indians from the Coco River into Honduras at Easter 1986.
See Francoise Bory, Origin and Development of the International Humanitarian Law
(Geneva: International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva, 1982), p. 37.