Preventive Action for Refugee Producing Situations

122 Chapter 3
which has encouraged large groups to spontaneously walk back, assisted by
UNHCR if KISAN resisted it. 278
Caught in the middle of tensions between different groups of people
needing its protection, UNHCR moved to place those who wished to repatriate,
or who were otherwise threatened by KISAN, in "protection houses"
until their actual departure from the Mosquitia. On 28 May 1985 in Mocoron,
I observed first-hand how the MISURA forces attempted to kidnap the young
males of the twelve repatriants directly out from under UNHCR protection
officers when they were accompanying them to the airplane. A mission of the
International Council for Voluntary Agencies (ICVA) concluded, "There are
[still] pressures against successful return ... . [Nongovernmental] support of a
successful repatriation of Miskitos and Sumo Indians can be the most valuable
contribution to the pacification of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua.” 279
In the fall of 1987, UNHCR initiated a more than $2 million project to help
returnees on the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua. The provision of funding by the
European Economic Community and other European countries and agencies
shows that now there is an implicit approval on the part of these donors for
improving conditions in the country of origin. With this backing and support,
the prevention of voluntary repatriation will soon finally be able to come to an
end. 280
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278 Even though the refugees are adequately cared for in Honduras (although their
presence there is used for various political and military purposes), an ICVA mis sion
pointed out that for more and more refugees, the negative evaluation of refugee life
plus the changes seen in Nicaragua over the past five years prompt them to go home.
The UNHCR list of refugees interested in repatriation is longer than can be handled
by the present staff. In addition, a representative of the Moravian Church in
Managua told the mission that repatriation reflected a general desire to return to
Nicaragua, saying that "the myth of fear has broken," that KISAN's propaganda was
false, and expressing satisfaction with the autonomy law approved on April 24 1987
in Puerta Cabeza. See Peplinski, and Diskin, "Report of the ICVA Mosquitia
Mission," May 20-30,1987, p. 10-12.
279 Peplinski and Diskin" Report of the ICVA Mosquitia Mission," 1987, p. 17.
280 The rehabilitation project is to provide assistance to returnees on the Atlantic Coast
of Nicaragua," (UNHCR Letter of Instruction of 17 September 1987) for transport
and logistics, domestic needs and shelter, agricultural tools and equipment, and
operational support through the Nicaraguan Institute of Social Security and Welfare
(INSSBI), the Ministry of Constructions (MICONS), the Ministry of Housing and
Settlement (MIDINRA), the Ministry of Health (MINSA), the Ministry of Education
(MED), under the supervision of the UNHCR Charge de Mission for Nicaragua. The
total expenditures from 1 August 1987 until 30 September 1988 are estimated at
approximately $2,300,000. See UNHCR, "Special
Analytical Discussion 123
Forced recruitment by armed groups was also a recurrent problem in most
refugee locations in the Mosquitia, both in Honduras and Nicaragua. During its
mission in May 1987, the ICVA delegation found that the "movement toward
repatriation competes with the effort to use this [refugee] population as a
recruiting base for guerrilla warfare and to support the allegations of Sandinista
repression."28i Cultural Survival also reports: "With the organization members
deserting before their eyes, the KISAN leaders resorted to stongarm tactics to
maintain themselves, including invading refugee camps, kidnapping Indian
youths and conscripting them. " 282
MIT Professor Martin Diskin has asserted that KISAN in particular has
forcibly recruited Miskitos and taken reprisals against those who wished to
remaln neutral. 283
Even more serious incidents have occurred. In February 1987, a group of
fifteen Sumos who had recently been repatriated to Nicaragua with UNHCR
assistance was seized by an Indian contra group together with thirty other
Sumos, as they were all traveling back to Musawas, their village of origin in
Nicaragua. When the Indian contras attempted to convince the Sumos to return
across the river to Honduras, thirty escaped. Another fifteen were taken armed
guard, and were forced to travel for four days up the Coco river to Rus Rus in
Honduras. Three of this group, having obtained permission to visit relatives in
the refugee camp at Tapalwas (an exclusively Sumo refugee village), did not
return to fight. The contra group set out to recapture them, with the warning: "If
[we] caught them in Nicaragua [we] would kill them. "284
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Program Of Rehabilitation Assistance to Returnees of Indian Origin (Miskito and
Sumo) on the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua," (Draft), 25 July 1988.
281 Peplinski and Diskin, "Report of the ICVA Mosquitia Mission, 1987, p. 10.
282 Glenn T. Morris, "Between a Rock and a Hard Place - Left-Wing Revolution,
Right-Wing Reaction and the Destruction of Indigenous People," Cultural Survival
Quarterly 11, No. 3, (1987), p. 22.
283 Diskin, "The Manipulation of Indigenous Struggles," p. 90.
284 Americas Watch, "The Sumos in Nicaragua and Honduras: An Endangered
People." (Washington, Septem D.C., September 1987), pp. 28 and 29. This document
reported another forced recruitment in March 1987, which ended in the murder
of three resistors: On 28 March 1987, Palacios, an Indian Contra leader took
35 Sumos from Nicaragua by force. The recruits were forced on a 23-day march
toward Ahuasbila in Honduras, when three of them, after refusing to continue,
were said to have been executed. Fourteen of the remaining abductees were found
at KISAN headquarters, and the rest managed to escape to the UNHCR refugee
camp at Tapalwas, p.30. See also Americas Watch " Violations of the Laws of