================================================= The Sandinistas and the Miskitos -- -- -- Charges and Realities ================================================= - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --> [Send the 1-line message GET FSLN MISKITOS ACTIV-L to ] [LISTSERV@UMCVMB.BITNET for a copy of this file. ] --> [Send GET ACTIV-L ARCHIVE ACTIV-L to above address for a ] [listing with brief descriptions of other files available] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [From: Central America Fact Book (see below)]: Tensions between the Sandinistas and the Miskitos worsened considerably in late 1981, when Honduras-based contras launched "Red Christmas" -- a plan designed to create a secessionist movement among the Miskitos. In November 1981, contras attacked Miskito villages along the Rio Coco border area. The CIA-funded contra radio station "September 15" sparked panic among the entire Miskito population by broadcasting that Sandinista planes were coming to bomb their villages. Steadman Fagoth and the other contras said that the Sandinistas believed all Miskitos were in revolt and were coming to punish them. Largely as a result of this misinformation, as many as 10,000 Miskitos fled to join relatives in Honduras and 2,000 went to Costa Rica. In January 1982, the Sandinistas told the Miskitos that they had to move inland, away from the Rio Coco, so the Sandinistas could protect them against contra terrorism and forced recruitment into the contra armies. [*] About 12,000 Miskitos were moved in a series of forced relocations in 1982-1983 by the Nicaraguan government. [*]: The ACTIV-L file on the contras contains, among other things, documentation of this forced recruitment. Send the 1-line message GET CONTRA TERROR ACTIV-L to LISTSERV@UMCVMB.BITNET Americas Watch concluded "that the serious attacks across the border in November and December 1981, events known as `Red Christmas,' provided reasonable grounds for the decision to evacuate the border area to be justified by military necessity." Americas Watch did criticize the manner in which the relocation was conducted -- because the Miskitos had no part in the decision and were given a very short or no notice at all. [20] The Moravian Church, to which most Miskitos belong, also recognized the need for the evacuation of approximately 35 border villages: "We lament the natural difficulties which were produced by the evacuation of the Rio Coco to the interior of the country because given the situation in the [Rio Coco] area, it is impossible to live in peace. We support our government in the work of evacuation and the efforts to normalize activities in the region as a whole." [21] Several U.S. Indian groups condemned the manipulation of the Miskitos by the contras and Washington, although others support the armed anti-Sandinista opposition. The International Indian Treaty Council stated: Although the relocation was difficult for the Miskito, the government of Nicaragua has provided health care, transport, and arable lands for farming in the new location... Our greatest concern is for those Miskitos who have been manipulated into crossing the border and are now being used by the anti-government forces. We remember clearly the minorities who were used by the CIA in Laos and Vietnam, and who later became outcasts among their own people once the CIA didn't need them anymore." [22] In 1984, the International Justice Fund, a project of the National Center for Immigrants' Rights in Los Angeles, reached the following conclusions in a report on the Miskito issue in Nicaragua: (*) The U.S. government played a principal role in creating dangerous conditions which precipitated Miskito relocations. (*) After the relocation, the United States engaged in a disinformation campaign, falsely charging the Sandinistas with violations of human rights. (*) Nicaragua acted in compliance within international legal standards in its relocation program. (*) The government is making good faith efforts to work with Miskito people and restore peace. [23] By 1985, relations between the Miskitos and the Sandinistas had begun to improve as a result of a series of government initiatives to develop the Atlantic coast and to grant limited autonomy to the Indian people. The government promoted billingual education, opened new development projects in the severely depressed region, and granted amnesty to Miskito contras. The Sandinistas began repatriating Miskitos to the Rio Coco area in June 1985. Among the features of the autonomy are: a regional assembly, two government administrations dividing Zelaya into north and south, regional government involvement in the naming of federal ministers to work in the region, and control over natural resources by regional governments.... ["No previous example is available for the autonomy of indigenous groups in Latin America," the book later notes --HB] These efforts, along with the government's willingness to meet other demands from Indian groups, softened opposition leader Brooklyn Rivera's criticisms of the Sandinistas. During a visit to Nicaragua in late 1984, he said that the Sandinista revolution made mistakes in these area, "but the situation was exploited by foreign forces to discredit the revolution and manipulate the Miskitos. We disagree with that, because we are a people of peace." [24] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: The Central America Fact Book. By Tom Barry and Deb Preusch. Published by Grove Press, Inc., 196 West Houston Street, New York, NY 10014, published 1986 in New York. Copyright 1986 by The Resource Center. "The Inter-Hemispheric Education Resource Center is a non-profit organization that produces reports, books, and slide/tape shows on Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. For more information: The Resource Center, P.O. Box 4506, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87196" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [20] Ellen Kratka, "Revolution Advances on Atlantic Coast," _Intercontinental Press_, February 18, 1985, p.85 [21] Cited in International Justice Fund, "Report on the Relocation of Miskito Indian by the Nicaraguan Government" (Los Angeles), 1984. [22] Ibid., p.27 [23] Ibid. [24] _Barricada_, November 8, 1984 ################################################################## Part 2 ################################################################## [From: Turning the Tide (see below)]: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Another major charge against the Sandinistas has to do with their treatment of the Miskitos, surely the best-known American Indian group in the hemisphere and the only one whose travail merits agonized expressions of concern. That they were treated very badly by the Sandinistas is beyond question; they are also among the better treated Indians in the hemisphere. If an Indian group to their north were to put forth the demands for autonomy now being considered in Nicaragua, they would simply be slaughtered, if ridicule did not suffice. Miskito leader Armstrong Wiggins holds that the arrangement the Miskitos are demanding "has never been granted by any other country in the world to indigenous peoples, and goes beyond [their] status under the previous government" (which largely ignored the Atlantic coast); hitherto, he states, "The Sandinista policy towards indigenous people is just like the Mexican policy, just like the United States policy, just like Chilean policy." [77] Sandinista abuses against the Miskitos were "more massive than any other human rights violations that I'm aware of in Central America," so Jeane Kirkpatrick testified before the Senate Foreign Relations committee in March 1982 -- at a time when thousands of Indians were being slaughtered in Guatemala, and some 13,000 civilians had been murdered in El Salvador by US clients in the preceding year alone, not to speak of torture, mutilation, starvation, semi-slave labor and other standard Free World amenities. The President chimed in with the news that the Sandinistas are conducting a "campaign of virtual genocide against the Miskito Indians" (June 6, 1985). In fact, some 10% of the Miskito population had been removed from war zones under a "policy [that] was clearly prompted by military considerations" and compares quite favorably with US treatment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, an Americas Watch report comments, and 21 to 24 Miskitos had been killed three years earlier by government forces along with 69 unresolved cases of "disappearance"; major atrocities, no doubt, but undetectable in the context of the behavior of the US and its clients in the region. [78] [For an overview of the atrocious human rights situation in El Salvador, send the 1-line message GET AI_REPT ELSALV ACTIV-L to LISTSERV@UMCVMB.BITNET ; for another dramatic contrast of human rights records, use GET on FSLN H-RIGHTS and to compare this record with the contras', use GET on CONTRA TERROR. For just one example of the human rights situation in Guatemala, the case of a U.S. nun raped and tortured by the security forces there, who alleges U.S. involvement and coverup, use the GET command with NUN_TORT GUATMALA] Reviewing the human rights situation in Nicaragua, the Americas Watch report finds that Nicaraguan government atrocities, which it believes it was able to review in full, are far slighter than those of the US-organized terrorist army, and have sharply declined since 1982 in contrast to those of the contras, which can only be sampled given their scale and the lack of sources. Even in the case of the Miskitos, not the prime target of the US-sponsored terrorists, Americas Watch finds that "the most serious abuses of Miskitos' rights have been committed by the contra groups," and "the contras' treatment of Miskitos and other Indians has become increasingly more violent" while that of the government has notably improved. Miskito leader Broklyn Rivera comments that the FDN "has been very hostile and aggressive toward us. They consider us an enemy because we maintain our independent position and will not become soldiers in someone else's army." He alleges further "the the Reagan Administration was blocking Miskito unity because it wanted a group it could control" under Adolfo Calero of the FDN, who the US sees "as the future leader of Nicaragua," and states that the US-controlled Honduran military kept him and other prominent Miskitos from entering Honduras to attend a Miskito conference, as part of this strategy. [79] Again, it is pointless to compare the abuse of the Miskitos with the wholesale slaughter conducted by US clients in Central America in the [Again, use GET on AI_REPT ELSALV and on FSLN H-RIGHTS] same years. So we might recall some moments of early US history, for example, the Sullivan Expedition against the Iroquois in 1779, pursuant to General Washington's orders that the towns and territories of the Iroquois were "not to be merely overrun but destroyed." The orders were "fulfilled to the hilt," Fairfax Downey records in his upbeat account of "an outstanding feat in military annals," leading to "total destruction and devastation" of "cultivated fields and well-built towns," of "the north American Indian's finest civilization north of Mexico" with richly cultivated fields and orchards, stone houses and log cabins beyond the level of most of the colonial farmers. Nothing was left but "smoking ruins and desolation"; "all this industry and plenty was doomed to be scorched earth." One column destroyed forty towns and 160,000 bushels of corn along with orchards and other crops, while a smaller one destroyed hundreds of houses and 500 acres of corn. "The towns and fields of the hostile Iroquois had been ruthlessly ravished," though one officer "sadly" observed that "The nests have been destroyed, but the birds are still on the wing." They survived in "miserable destitution" after "the wastage of their lands." [80] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [77] Interview, COHA's _Washington Report on the Hemisphere_, July 9, 1985. See Penny Lernoux, _Nation_, Sept. 28, 1985, for a reasoned discussion of the current situation. The US secured British recognition of the sovereignty of Nicaragua over the Miskitos, which the US regarded as "unquestionable," in 1895; Perkins, _Monroe Doctrine_, III 40f. [78] _Human Rights in Nicaragua: Reagan, Rhetoric and Reality_, Americas Watch, July 1985; _Violations of the Laws of War by Both Sides in Nicaragua: 1981-1985_, Americas Watch, March 1985. The former is a detailed critique of Reagan Administration lies concerning Nicaragua. On Administrations lies, see also _In Contempt of Congress_ [by the Central America Crisis Monitoring Team, Institute for Policy Studies, 1985 --HB (from another footnote)] and the bipartisan congressional report "U.S. Aid to El Salvador," discussing the record of the Administration in providing "insufficient, misleading and in some cases false information to Congress." Its lies to the public have become notorious. [79] Stephen Kinzer, NYT, Sept. 17, 1985; Shirley Christian, NYT, Oct. 8, 1985. [80] Faiffax Downey, _Indian Wars of the U.S. Army_ (Doubleday, 1963), 32f. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - A mother describes how her husband, a lay pastor, and her five children were kidnapped; when she found them the next day, "They were left all cut up. Their ears were pulled off, their throats were cut, their noses and other parts were cut off." An American parish priest reports that in this region of three towns and scattered mountain communities, contra attacks have caused "hundreds of deaths and thousands of displaced people," including many taken to Honduras. A Miskito teacher kidnapped by the contras describes the tortures to which he and eight others were subjected in Honduras, where US authorities can pretend no ignorance about their agents: In the evening, they tied me up in the water from 7PM until 1AM. The next day, at 7AM they began to make me collect garbage in the creek in my underwear, with the cold. The creek was really icey. I was in the creek for four hours... Then they threw me on the ant hill. Tied up, they put me chest-down on the ant hill. The ants bit my body. I squirmed to try to get them off my body, but there were too many... They would beat me from head to heels. They would give me an injection to calm me a little. Then they would beat me again. A French priest who trains nurses in the north testified before the World Court about a handicapped person murdered "for the fun of it," of men raped, of a body found with the eyes gouged out and a girl of 15 who had been forced into prostitution at a contra camp in Honduras. He accused the contras of creating an atmosphere of terror through kidnapping, rapes, murder and torture. [20] [20] _Boston Globe_, Sept. 18, 1985. The _Globe_ devoted 100 words to the priest's report; the _Times_, none. [For further documentation and references, use the GET command (see above) on CONTRA TERROR] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From _Turning the Tide. U.S. Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peace_ By Noam Chomsky, 1985, South End Press, Boston. South End Press, 300 Raritan Center Parkway, Edison, NJ 08818 For a free catalog: 1-800-533-8478; send the 1-line message GET SOUTH END ACTIV-L to LISTSERV@UMCVMB.BITNET for titles from South End Press. ################################################################## Part 3 ################################################################## [From: Washington's War on Nicaragua(see below)]: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ...The `Red Christmas' offensive began in November 1981 with contra attacks in the Rio Coco area... On December 20, seven government soldiers in San Carlos were tortured, killed and mutilated. Some 60 or more people, including civilians, died during the two-month offensive. [27] Mirna Cunningham, Nicaragua's only Miskito doctor, and Regina Lewis, a Miskito nurse, were kidnapped on December 28 outside the hospital in Bilwaskama by about twenty contras; the hospital was ransacked and had to be closed. Mirna Cunningham recounted multiple gang rapes beginning after they were taken to a house on the Rio Coco... Cunningham and Lewis were taken across the river to a training camp Honduras where their captors, Miskitos and former members of Somoza's elite EEBI unit, boasted of their support from the United States. They "said that... they received help from the Honduran army... They were very proud of the help that they were receiving from the U.S. Government. They offered us Camel cigarettes, for example, as a proof that they were smoking good cigarettes. And they said they were getting canned food, good clothes and things like that, as a way to tell us why they were fighting." After two or three hours at the camp, recalled Cunningham, "They told us that they were going to kill us ... on our way back we were raped again, by all the ones who were taking us to the village." Inside Nicaragua Cunningham and Lewis were released, but the contras told them to leave the Atlantic Coast because they did not want doctors there [28]. In 1984, Mirna Cunningham became government minister for Northern Zelaya. In January 1982, the Nicaraguan government responded to the military threat ... it relocated 8,500 Miskitos and Sumus from the Rio Coco region. The U.S. government seized on the relocation to accuse Nicaragua of genocide. [Secretary of State Alexander] Haig dramatically produced a photo he said showed Miskito bodies being burned by Sandinista troops. The French magazine _Le Figaro_, source of the photo, corrected him, explaining it showed the Red Cross burning corpses of people killed by [former U.S.-backed dictator --HB] Somoza's National Guard on the Pacific Coast in 1978. [The Haig (_Le Figaro_) photograph in question can be found on page 147 of George Black's _The Good Neighbor (Subtitle: How the United States Wrote the History of Central America and the Caribbean)_, Pantheon Books, New York, 1988. Pages 144-147 contain several other examples of "Lying with pictures." See the "misc" file for an example of Reagan administration distortion, using a Nicaraguan stamp, also found in Black's book --HB] The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) found only one incident of noncombatant killing by Sandinista forces. On December 23, between fourteen and seventeen Miskito prisoners were shot in Leimus in retaliation for the San Carlos killings. Americas Watch substantiated one subsequent case: in Walpa Siksa in 1982, seven Miskito youths were killed by Sandinista soldiers "who were later severely punished by their officers."[31] Over the next two years the government significantly altered the training and composition of the Atlantic Coast security forces; by 1984, 70 percent were from the Coast. [32] Americas Watch reported that Unlike several other Latin American government that have come under harsh criticism (though not from [the Reagan] administration), the [Nicaraguan government] has responded to human rights organizations with efforts to improve the situation... In early 1984, for example, the [Nicaraguan government] conducted several investigations of abuses in remote areas, which resulted in the prosecution and appropriate punishment of members of the security forces. In the most important of these cases, forty-four security agents and civilians were prosecuted for several cases of murder, rape, theft, and other abuses that had taken place in a border region of Matagalpa and Jinotega. Thirteen of them received heavy sentences... In April 1984, an Army sub-lieutenant was sentenced to eighteen years in prison for raping a Miskito woman in the village of Lapan... [35] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [27] Americas Watch, _Miskitos in Nicaragua 1981-1984_, November 1984. [28] Reed Brody, _Contra Terror in Nicaragua_ (Boston: South End Press, 1985), pp. 121-23. [31] Cynthia Brown, ed., _With Friends Like These: The Americas Watch Report on Human Rights and U.S. Policy in Latin America (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985), galleys, p. 146 [32] Bourgois, "Ethnic Minorities," p. 205 [35] Brown, ed., _With Friends Like These_, galleys, pp. 145-53 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Washington's War on Nicaragua, by Holly Sklar 1988, South End Press, Boston South End Press, 300 Raritan Center Parkway, Edison, NJ 08818 For a free catalog: 1-800-533-8478; see above for GET command. ################################################################## ============================================= T h e " N i c a r a g u a L i b r a r y " ============================================= * * ========= * Nicaragua * ========= * CONTRA TERROR Contras' origins; make-up; practices - documented FSLN H-RIGHTS Documented HRs comparison w/Somoza,Guat,ES,others FSLN MISKITOS Sandinista treatment of Miskitos;Charges & Realit FSLN NICAJEWS Debunks charges of Sandinista 'Anti-Semitism' * OXFAM84 NICARAG Oxfam America's 1984 report on Nicaragua, in full FSLN ACHIEVE Documented: achievements of the Nica. revolution * NICA-84 ELECTION Documented: Fair under Sandinistas; US subversion FAIRNESS NICA-USA Flwup:`Is Nicaragua More Democratic than the US?' NICRAGUA ELECTION Study in US subversion of '90 Nicaraguan election NOTE: ====================================== To get a file named FILE NAME from the archiver (files are two words separa- ted by a space), send the 1-line message GET FILE NAME ACTIV-L to: LISTSERV@UMCVMB.BITNET ====================================== ################################################################## Appendix... ================================= Reagan Revisionism and Guatemala: ================================= Edward S Herman writes: "In a visit to Guatemala in December 1982, President Reagan declared that the then head-of-state, General Ri'os Montt, was a devoted democrat getting a "bum rap." This was only two months after Amnesty International released a report detailing the massacre of over 2,600 Indians and peasant farmers in at least 112 separate incidents earlier in the year. In one of its most illuminating reports ever, _Guatemala Revisited: How the Reagan Administration Finds ``Improvements'' in Human Rights in Guatemala_, Americas Watch pointed out that the administration had first found General Lucas Garci'a to be a caring leader, very concerned to avoid civilian casualties, but that after his overthrow by Ri'os Montt the administration suddenly found that Garci'a had been a butcher, but _now_ Guatemala was in the hands of real reformers! After Ri'os Montt was overthrown by General Meji'a Victores, the State Department once again expressed deep anguish at the murders under Ri'os Montt, now replaced by a _true_ democrat. This report, which tells us so much about the Reagan administration's devotion to democracy and human rights, was ignored by the mass media." [From: _Nicaragua: The Threat Of A Good Example_ [title based on a report by Oxfam America by teh same name; use GET command (see bottom) with the file FSLN ACHIEVE], CovertAction Information Bulletin, number 29, Winter 1987, by Edward S. Herman, prof., Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania] ############################################################### # Harel Barzilai for Activists Mailing List (AML) # ################################################################ { For more info about ACTIV-L or PeaceNet's brochure send } { inquiries to harel@dartmouth.edu / mathrich@umcvmb.bitnet } To join AML, just send the 1-line message "SUB ACTIV-L " to: LISTSERV@UMCVMB.BITNET; you should receive a confirmation message within 2 days. Alternate address: LISTSERV@UMCVMB.MISSOURI.EDU Qs/problems: Rich Winkel, MATHRICH@UMCVMB.["MISSOURI.EDU" or "BITNET"]