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To gain autonomy was a major objective of the Miskito people's war against the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua from 1979 to 1991. Although the Miskitos did achieve a limited autonomy (a fingernail hold on the face of the Nicaraguan Constitution and the beginnings of regional, centralized self-government), the next projected stages of the development of autonomy are presently hindered by war-caused economic catastrophe, the failure of post-war political consolidation, and a virtual post-war siege on natural resources. The backbone of autonomy is not the nature of the political relationship with Managua, but rather Miskito control and management of local development of their territory and natural resources. War helped to consolidate the concept and goal of autonomy, and it provided a legal foothold; the immediate post-war period has the objective of anchoring autonomy to Miskito-controlled natural resources while at the same time recreating employment, commerce, education, and health opportunities and services.
The Miskito Nation has survived almost 500 years of attempts by foreign states to seize and annex its territory and resources. The 1981-89 armed conflict against the Nicaraguan state was the Miskitos' eleventh major war since the 1600s against would-be invaders. During the 1980s, autonomy increasingly became accepted as a solution to the war between the Sandinistas and the Miskito, Sumo, and Rama nations that make up the collective territory of Yapti Tasba. The Indians wanted an autonomy based on indigenous political and economic self-determination and control of resources and land and sea territory. Instead, the Sandinistas devised a Nicaraguan constitutional Autonomy Law (promulgated in September 1987) that decentralized some political governance and tied resource exploitation decisions to a trilateral agreement between local communities, autonomous governments, and the state government (with the state reserving the right to make unilateral resource decisions during times of "national emergency").
Though the Miskito people won their war against the Sandinistas, they did not view the Autonomy Law as a victory. In fact, the Miskito communities and fighters considered it to be a barrier to effective indigenous territorial control, due to its contradictions. Meanwhile, many members of the new Nicaraguan government that took elected power in April 1990 saw the Autonomy Law as an impediment to "national" development.
The development of autonomy in Yapti Tasba has been slowed by internal conflicts, lack of financial resources, central government opposition, and illegal activities. In the aftermath of the war and the 1990 election, five opposing groups emerged to claim and use resources in Yapti Tasba:
1) The Regional Governments: The East Coast has two autonomous regional governments, RAAN (Región Autónoma del Atlántico Norte), with offices in Puerto Cabézas, and with almost exclusively Miskito and Sumo constituent communities; and RAAS (Región Autónoma del Atlántico Sur), with offices in Bluefields, and with Rama, Creole, Garífuna, Ladino and Miskito communities. Both RAAN and RAAS governments purport to have legislative rights over the land and sea resources in the autonomous territories.
2) The Institute of Atlantic Coast Development (INDERA): Former MISURASATA and YATAMA resistance leader Brooklyn Rivera was named Minister of INDERA by the new Managua government in 1990. Strapped by lack of funds and openly trying to strengthen Coast autonomy with project proposals to revitalize the war-torn economy through natural resource exploitation for local benefit, INDERA is often at odds with the rest of the Nicaraguan government.
3)The Nicaraguan Government: Nearly paralyzed by economic and political confrontations with the Sandinistas, and the withholding of promised aid by the United States, the government of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro has been too weak to challenge the limited Coast autonomy provided for by the former government. Though the Government has accepted autonomy as a principle, overall autonomy is seen as a barrier to exploiting much-needed natural resources that would benefit the reconstruction and economic recovery of the non-indigenous West Coast.
4) The Indigenous Communities: The Rama, Sumo, and principally the Miskito communities assert that they are the ones who defended the territory during the war and that rights over resource control and decisions lie not with RAAN in Puerto Cabézas, or RAAS in Bluefields, or INDERA, or the central government in Managua, but within the communities themselves.
5) Foreign Resource Pirates and Nicaraguan Resource Traffickers: The end of the war ended surveillance of Yapti Tasba's 400-mile-long sea coast and military patrols in the forests. Protected by the eight-year-long war, many land and sea resources had become plentiful. Undefended, the valuable resources were seen by outsiders as free for the taking. In 1990, foreign boats began to strip-mine Yapti Tasba's waters for lobsters and shrimp, and Nicaraguans began to cut some Yapti Tasba forests.
The history of attempted occupations of Yapti Tasba is liberally laced with justifications: God, king, national destiny, development, revolutionary ideology, and reconstruction. Everything, however, boils down to attempts by outsiders to invade and occupy a large land and sea territory that has a strategic seacoast location and is resource rich (minerals, tropical pine and hardwood lumber, hydroelectric power potential, vast land, abundant lobster, shrimp and fishes, and proven continental shelf petroleum deposits). The resources remain unexploited, not because of isolation, but because the Miskito people have defended their territory for 500 years. The Miskito must control their own resources to have effective autonomy, but some of the resources are threatened by illegal logging, plans for toxic waste dumping, deals to sell out resource rights, and resource piracy.
The end of the war signaled the beginning of get-rich-quick plans and actions aimed at resuming business-as-usual resource exploitation that had been stopped during the 1980s Indian War. Tropical forest logging for mahogany and cedar began again in 1990, when the Sandinista military and the former Frente Sandinista governor of Bluefields allied to use Fuerza Aerea Sandinista (FAS) Soviet-built helicopters to drop chain-saw-carrying soldiers into the unbroken Río Nari forest, west of the Miskito community of Kakabila, in the RAAS region. Cut trees were flown out by the FAS helicopters and sold. Profit was great, as nothing was paid to the Miskito, nor to the RAAS, and the military helicopters, fuel, and soldiers were simply requisitioned for free. To the north, along the Wangki (Río Coco), Steadman Fagoth, the former head of the MISURA resistance force, facilitated illegal commercial logging and export of tropical trees to Honduras, similarly for personal profit, and without any proceeds going to local Miskito communities or to RAAN.
Fourth World Bulletin • February 1993
Copyright © 1996 by the Fourth World Center
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