NICARAGUA: REPRESSION OF THE MISKITO INDIANS (U)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84B00049R000802000044-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 28, 2006
• Sequence Number: 44
• Publication Date: March 1, 1982
• Content Type: REPORT

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Directorate of
Intelligence
Secret
Nicaragua:
Repression of the Miskito Indians (u)
Secret
GI 82-10056
March 1982
Copy A ? `,N
Annrnved Far Release 2006/06/2I
8 - CIA-RDP84B00049R000802000044-9
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5. Church under con-
struction at the Mocoron
refugee camp. February
1982 (u)
6. Typical thatch-roofed
huts of the Miskito refu-
gees at Mocoron. Febru-
ary 1982 (u)
o 1)
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3. The UN refugee camp
at Mocoron, Honduras,
for Miskitos from Nica-
ragua. February 1982 (u)
4. Miskito refugees at
Mocoron. February 1982
(u)
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Directorate of
Intelligence
Nicaragua:
Repression of the Miskito Indians (v)
Information available as of 12 March 1982
has been used in the preparation of this report.
This paper was prepared byl
Office of Global Issues. Comments and queries are
welcome and may be directed to the Chief, Africa-Latin
America Branch, OGI, of
This paper has been coordinated with the National
Intelligence Officer for Latin America and with the
Office of African and Latin American Analysis. (u)
Secret
GI 82-10056
March 1982
3
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Nicaragua:
Repression of the Miskito Indians
Over the past few months the Government of Nicara-
gua has carried out a harsh and systematic crackdown
against the Miskito Indians of the remote east coast
department of Zelaya. Government troops have com-
pletely destroyed many villages and have moved entire
populations from their homes along the Honduran
frontier to interior detention camps. A series of violent
border incidents and continued Miskito resistance to
the efforts of the Sandinistas to integrate the long-
neglected region with the rest of the country have led
to the current repression
The compelling motive behind the uprooting of the
Miskitos is the determination to secure the border
zone from Honduras-based anti-Sandinistas by re-
moving their potential supporters. At least 10,000 of
an estimated 55,000 Nicaraguan Miskitos have fled
to Honduras, where they now reside in UN camps or
with their 25,000 Honduran kinsmen. Government
claims that the current actions are part of a long-term
plan to improve the living conditions of the Miskitos
and protect them from "counterrevolutionaries" seem
ludicrous in tight of eyewitness accounts of the brutal
manner in which the removal operations have been
conducted]
The Miskitos are believed to have migrated to their
present habitat on the east coast of Central America
well before European exploration of the Caribbean.
Their origin is unclear, but linguistic similarities with
the Chibcha Indians of Colombia point to a South
American derivation. The group now termed Miskito
includes a large admixture of peoples of African
ancestry-descendants of Jamaican blacks and of
escaped slaves of earlier times who intermarried with
the Indians. Besides the Miskito language, many also
speak English and Spanish. In contrast to the vast
majority of the Nicaraguan population, which is
Roman Catholic, the Miskitos are mostly Protestants;
laborers in the forestry and mining industries. Expert
boatsmen, much of their existence has traditionally
been spent on and around water-either the ocean,
where they capture sea turtles, or rivers such as the
Coco, where they navigate their long dugout canoes,
the only practical means of transportation in a forest-
ed, almost roadless land
The Miskitos have given their name to the whole
stretch of Caribbean coast from Honduras's Gracias a
Dios Department southward through Nicaragua to
the border with Costa Rica. By far the largest portion
of this coast falls within the Zelaya Department of
eastern Nicaragua, and it is there that most of the
Miskitos live. Zelaya, together with part of Rio San
Juan Department to the south, forms what Nicara-
guans call their Atlantic Region-a vast territory that
has always been physically and culturally distinct
from the rest of the country. While accounting for
half of Nicaragua's area, the region holds less than 8
percent of its population (see chart)
The Nicaraguan Miskitos have, until recently, been
concentrated along the middle and lower Rio Coco,
which forms the border with Honduras, and along the
coast from just south of Cape Gracias a Dios to Pearl
Lagoon, about 30 miles north of Bluefields (see map).
Traditionally, the Miskitos have lived in small villages
but have frequented market towns such as Puerto
Cabezas on the coast, Bilwaskarma, Waspam, Lei-
mus, and San Carlos on the Rio Coco, and Bonanza
and Siuna in a mining area of the interio
Our estimate of 55,000 Miskitos in Nicaragua (before
the recent exodus to Honduras) and 25,000 in Hondu-
ras is based on extrapolations from academic studies
Moravians comprise their principal denomination. done in the 1970s, on US Bureau of the C
projections for the Department of Zelaya,
The Miskitos pursue a life of hunting, fishing, and
recise figures are
subsistence farming; some also are employed as wage impossible to give because of the lack of accurate
census data and the varying interpretations of what
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constitutes a Miskito. The term is sometimes used
only for persons of obviously Amerindian racial origin
who speak the Miskito language and adhere to a
typical Miskito lifestyle. At the other extreme it is
sometimes used to include zambos (mixed Indians and
blacks) and even members of the other small east
coast Indian groups, the Sumos and Ramas.
Estimated Ethnic Composition
of Zelaya Department
white/mestizos
referred to as
'Spaniards"
by the Miskitos)
Other
2.000
Miskitos
(including
zambos)
Sumos
7,000
Ramas
1,000
Creoles
(blacks/
mulattos)
Before the Sandinista revolution of July 1979, most
Nicaraguan central governments paid scant attention
to the Atlantic Region. Except during periods of
estrangement between Nicaragua and Honduras, the
personnel, and construction workers was especially
resented. Violence first erupted in Bluefields, a large-
ly non-Miskito settlement, in September 1980. Febru-
ary of the following year brought renewed violence,
this time in Puerto Cabezas, an important market
town in a predominantly Miskito area. Shortly there-
after Steadman Fagoth, a charismatic leader of the
Miskitos, was arrested. He was head of the Misura-
sata (acronym for Miskito, Sumo, Rama, Sandinista)
Unity, an organization that had been created by the
Sandinistas to gain control of the east coast Indian
groups but which, under Fagoth, would not cooperate.
Fagoth was released in mid-April 1981 (after agreeing
to accept a sabbatical to study in Eastern Europe) and
managed to escape into Honduras, where he strongly
denounced Sandinista repression. He had already
been preceded in his flight by some 3,000 Miskitos
By late 1981 the focus of recurring border incidents
between Sandinistas and Honduran-based anti-San-
dinistas had shifted from the western highlands to the
lower Rio Coco. In December the Nicaraguan Gov-
ernment banned all media reporting from the Atlantic
Region and seized a popular radio station. On 7
January 1982 travel in the region was restricted, and
within a few days a large-scale roundup of the
Miskitos and the destruction of their villages com-
menced. Initially!
these activities involved a string of settlements on the
Rio Coco between Waspam and Rait
Later, settlements downriver on the Coco were
razed and attacks may have been carried out against
places on the coast in the vicinity of Sandy Bay,
Miskito Indians were free to pass back and forth Prinzapolka, and the Rio Kukalaya
across the Rio Coco with little regard for its function
as an international boundary; some even lived on one is activity stimulated a new exodus
side of the river and cultivated fields on the other. By o is ito re ugees to Honduras-swelling the ranks
and large, the Miskitos were content to be left alone of Nicaraguan Indian refugees there to about 10,000.
by the government. Social services, health care, and
education were left largely to missionaries-particu-
larly Moravians
with the rest of the country for military security
was met with opposition from the outset. The intro-
Many of the Nicaraguan Indians who fled into Hon-
duras, including the Miskitos and small numbers of
Sumos and Ramas, are now located in camps spon-
sored by the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) at Mocoron about 30 kilometers
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from the border in Gracias a Dios Department (see
photos 3, 4, 5, and 6). The UNHCR, at the request of
the Honduran Government, initiated an assistance
project for this refugee group on 1 June 1981. Camps
were set up and projects leading toward immediate
self-support were developed. In December 1981 there
were approximately 200 refugees under the assistance
of the UNHCR camps, by late January 1982 there
were about 2,000, and by late February the number
had risen to about 4,800. The other Nicaraguan
Miskitos in Honduras are either receiving aid from
their Honduran kinsmen or fending for themselves
According to a Nicaraguan Miskito who recently
crossed into Honduras, there are five main detention
camps in Zelaya in the general vicinity of the Rosita
mining operation.
he e en ion
centers are little more t an tent camps with only
primitive support facilities. There have been conflict-
ing reports about whether they are surrounded by
barbed wire fences, but no question at all that the
Indians are not free to leave.
prevent the infiltration of anti-Sandinistas from Hon-
duras has been enhanced by these actions-at least
for the short term. Protection of Puerto Cabezas is
obviously a major concern for the Sandinistas. The
port serves as a principal entry point for military
equipment and supplies shipped up the coast from
Bluefields; the airfield, currently being enlarged, is
among the three best in the country and will soon be
capable of handling advanced Soviet combat aircraft.
The brutal manner in which these security operations 25
were carried out has provoked a strong negative
reaction even in many quarters that have been sympa-
thetic to the Sandinista cause. In a document signed
on 18 February by Archbishop Obando y Bravo and
all the bishops in Nicaragua, the Catholic Church 25
vigorously denounced the mistreatment of Miskito
Indians and other inhabitants of the eastern part of
the country. The document notes particularly the
forced displacement of Indians from their villages
along the Rio Coco. This is by far the strongest
antigovernment communique the Episcopal Confer-
ence has issued since the Sandinistas took power.
From the Sandinista point of view, the statement 25
could not have come at a worse time. It was published
on the opening day of the Permanent Conference of
Latin American Political Parties, meeting in Mana-
gua and attended by many of the region's prominent
socialist leaders. The European press also reacted
negatively to the relocation of Miskitos, calling it a
deportation and referring to their new homes as
The Nicaraguan Government has described its ac-
tions as part. of a long-term plan to improve the living
conditions of the Miskitos and to protect them from
"counterrevolutionaries." According to the Sandinis-
tas a total of 8,500 Miskitos were removed from 24
villages along the Rio Coco in mid-February for
placement in new "settlements." The status of other
Miskitos in Nicaragua, numbering about 36,500, is
unclear at this time. No villages other than those
alon the Rio Coco are known to have been destroyed.
Significance of the Repression
Removal of the Miskitos from the Rio Coco and the
complete obliteration of many of their villages indi-
cate the top priority that the Nicaraguan Government
gives to military security matters. Its capacity to
control the whole eastern section of the border and to
"camps" rather than "settlements."
The Sandinistas have, on balance, probably lost by
their callous treatment of the Miskitos. Accounts-
now being given by refugees at Mocoron-of murder,
forced marches, burned homes, and desecrated
churches have stiffened the resolve of those elements
already opposed to the Sandinista regime and perhaps
converted some of the government's erstwhile friends
into enemies. The Sandinistas have further alienated
they are tr in so hard to integrate with the rest of
Nicaragu
 Area inhabited
by the Miskito Indians
Detention center
Department capital
Department boundary
least coast departments only)
f . / A ~t....~...1~.. _~.
JJ / ~r 4P
Makanta a
ZELAYA
~~~ r' a\pa
atagalpa Rio rJ nde a_' 'ata9
Blanco ,./G,af M `~.._s....
"NiICARAGUA
Bosco
Pea,/
Lagoon
COSTA RICA,-
,/ s Y' Puerto Viejo.
'Las Galles
oot eda~i a.ny a~mo~nanYe.
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