MANAGUA'S MOVE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403560007-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 26, 2012
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: March 6, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
' Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403560007-0
WALL 5TR1jE1 JUUKNAL
ARTICLE APPEARED 6 March 1986
aPAGF I
Managua's Move
Sandinistas Promote
Peace With the Indians
On Rebel-Held Coast
New Accommodation Tactics
Help Split the Dissidents
As U.S. Debates New Aid
Two Presidents of Nicaragua?
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
Staff Reporter of Tn WALL STREET JOURNAL
WAWA BOOM, Nicaragua - Lt. Ger-
trudes Rodriquez of the Sandinista army,
packing only a pistol, boards a rusty ferry
to cross the Wawa River into territory held
by Indian rebels.
On reaching the far bank, he is greeted
warily by two Indian sentries clad in the
blue fatigues of the Contra guerrillas.
Lt. Rodriquez quickly breaks the ten-
sion by offering the rebels a trip to the
other side of the river. "Do you want to go
to Puerto Cabezas to visit your families?"
he asks, referring to the Sandinista-held
town 15 miles southeast of here. "If your
commander gives you permission, it's fine
with me."
The two say they will consider the offer
another time. His goodwill mission com-
plete, Lt. Rodriquez gets back on the ferry
for the return trip.
New Friendliness
The lieutenant's offer is more than ca-
sual friendliness. It reflects a new broad-
based government strategy aimed at win-
ning back the more than 100,000 Indians
who support the Contra guerrillas because
of past Sandinista abuses.
After years of heavy-handed rule, the
Sandinista government is making politi-
cally adept peace overtures to Indians. A
top Western diplomat in Managua suggests
that the overtures indicate a more-flexible
policy. "They're walking up a learning
curve," he says. "Just because some
things are tactical doesn't mean they won't
become permanent."
With the Indians, the tactics involve ev-
erything from offers of food and supplies
(including guns) to ceding control of
dozens of villages to Indian warriors and to
talks about autonomy for their homelands
here on the so-called Atlantic Coast, which
actually borders the Caribbean.
N. Implicit in the tactics is a sharp re-
trenchment by the Sandinistas, who pre-
viously tried to force the Indians to follow
Managua's directives. But the fiercely in-
dependent Indians turned against the gov-
ernment, and some 4,500 of them took up
arms as guerrillas. Now, in a Sandinista
effort to win them back, official policy is to
leave the Indians alone.
Chances of Success
"We don't consider them as enemies,"
Interior Minister Tomas Borge says of the
Indians. "They were wrong to take up
arms, but their reasons and demands were
just."
It isn't clear that the new strategy of
accommodation and dialogue will work, for
many Indian guerrilla leaders still refuse
to deal with what they call the "Sandino-
Communist atheist devils." But the gov-
ernment's new approach, which began to
unfold last spring, is confusing and splin-
tering the rebels. And it is but one example
of the Sandinistas' growing willingness to
change directions when practical politics
dictate.
Managua, to be sure, continues to crack
down on domestic opposition and to cozy
up to Havana and Moscow. But over the
past year, planners have responded to the
country's war-ravaged economy with such
un-Marxist moves as shaving public food
subsidies, devaluating the currency and im-
posing a modified austerity program. Al-
though they rail against capitalism, the
Sandinistas have encouraged small farm-
ers to sell their produce privately and have
ordered higher pay raises for managers
than workers.
In the northern mountains, where the
Contras once roamed with abandon, the
Sandinistas are giving thousands of small
plots of land, and guns, to peasants who
once flirted with the insurgents. The policy
is a move away from socialistic collectiv-
ism, but it gives the traditionally conserva-
tive people a stake in the Sandinista revo-
lution.
Some old-line revolutionaries don't like
what they see. Ariel Bravo Lorio, a mem-
ber of the Nicaraguan Communist Party's
politburo, bitterly complains that the gov-
ernment is "simply diversifying the capi-
talist system."
But the Sandinistas are trying to win
enough popular support at home to defeat
the 20,000 or so Contras and convince the
U.S. that any future invasion would be
widely opposed and costly. And that effort
is considered particularly important now,
with the Reagan administration pushing
for $100 million in new aid to the insur-
gents-a request that Congress is expected
to vote on in the next few months.
Nowhere does the government seem to
feel more urgency than here on the iso-
lated eastern side of the country-home of
the 100,000 Miskito, 8,000 Sumo and 1,000
Rama Indians. The Sandinistas have al-
ways been more unpopular here than any-
where else in Nicaragua, and the govern-
ment and even some Indian leaders charge
that the Reagan administration plans to re-
vive the Atlantic Coast war front if Con-
gress approves the new aid. That helps to
explain why it is here that the Sandinistas
lately have shown the most tolerance to po-
litical and religious pluralism.
The Indians and English-speaking Cre-
oles who live in the honky-tonk ports, jun-
gles and pine savannas of the coast have
long aspired to independence from the
countrymen they still refer to as "the
Spaniards." Former dictator Anastasio So-
moza understood that this region-a for-
mer English colony that was united with
Nicaragua in the 1890s-had little in com-
mon with the Pacific side of the nation,
and he generally followed a policy of be-
nign neglect toward it. The people here
didn't join the popular insurrection that
overthrew Mr. Somoza, and the Sandin-
istas were irritated by their inaction.
Following the 1979 Sandinista triumph,
mutual distrust only grew. Locals resented
Cuban doctors and their strange accents.
Sandinista army troops showed their dis-
dain for the predominant Moravian reli-
gious customs by sleeping in local
churches and using pews as firewood. By
1981, many Miskito activists had joined for-
mer Somoza followers in Honduras, from
where they launched attacks into Nicara-
gua.
The Sandinistas overreacted and be-
came the enemies of the Miskito people. In
late 1981 and early 1982 the government
forced thousands of Indians from the Hon-
duran border region, along the Coco River,
which is a Miskito holy treasure. In the
river village of Leimus, 17 Miskitos were
arrested by Sandinista troops and mur-
dered-one of several such episodes of San-
dinista abuse.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403560007-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/26: CIA-RDP9O-00965ROO0403560007-0
Autonomy Project
"We lacked an anthropological vision,"
says Interior Minister Borge, who took
control of Sandinista Atlantic Coast policy
last year. "At times we didn't show enough
heart, enough love, enough understand-
Ing." He claims that is all in the past and
says the Sandinistas now are fully commit-
ted to an autonomy project that will "re-
spect customs, religion, waters and trees,
local elections and a regional legislature."
He adds: "I'm very optimistic, but I'm
concerned about the complexity of the At-
lantic problem."
Part of the complexity, he claims, is the
U.S. Central InfelIlpnce Agency. a says
the agency o e g . the lsst
Inds er a group, mone ana su Ties
to uni It an ee t rom n e
Sandinistas. Washington a spokes.
woman declines comment)
But that isn't a only problem. Wycliff
Diego, the leader of Kisan, says he will
never negotiate because "Communists only
want the poor and Indians to be instru.
ments of their power." He adds, "How can
we come to an agreement with people who
destroyed 117 of our communities and 86 of
our churches and butchered our domestic
animals?"
Nevertheless, Mr. Bore held three se-
cret negotiating seas ons a t g ? eve)
dissident san Auer a delegation list
November and December in Managua to
soli i y e- fires effected last may and
to formulate an autonomy pan or e
guerrillas. orge s-affid a e.
sav the Kisan intelligence chief, eyn o
Rees, who led the Indian team, "so long
as there aren't two pres en o cara-
Sandinistas' Steps
As a sign of good faith, Mr. Borge
promised to remove Sandinista troops
from dozens of Miskito villages, rebuild
churches the Sandinistas had destroyed,
free 110 Indian and Creole political pris-
oners, and speed up shipments of food and
supplies to Coco River villages the Sandin-
istas burned in the forced relocations of
four years ago. (The Sandinistas earlier
agreed to allow the Indians to return to the
river.)
Mr. Reyes revealed details of the talks
during a visit to Sandinista-controlled
Puerto Cabezas early this year, a sign of
progress in itself. His supporters took the
opportunity to visit the port's lively disco-
theques following rallies in Miskito bar-
rios. The video-projection equipment used
at the rallies to show Mr. Reyes's view on
Miskito autonomy was donated by Mr.
Borge's Interior Ministry.
Relations between Mr. Reyes and the
Sandinistas were strained soon afterward,
when Nicaraguan Air Force planes
bombed a village occupied by Indian
fighters not participating in the negotia-
tions. But, significantly, the talks and the
cease-fires did not break off.
"Wounds are being healed, but they are
so deep it will take a lot of years," says
the Rev. Leonard Joseph, a Moravian pas-
tor in the port of Bluefields.
Rama Key Project
The healing process is further along in
the south of the coastal region around
Bluefields, where streets are fragrant with
the smell of bananas frying in coconut oil.
The Sandinistas last year helped their pop-
ularity there by taking the highly unusual
steps of suspending the unpopular draft
and making participation in political ral-
lies and Sandinista activities strictly volun-
tary.
The Sandinistas have targeted for spe-
cial attention nearby Rama Key, the island
home of hundreds of Rama Indians and a
traditional center of popular support for
Misurasata, another leading Indian guer-
rilla group. In the last few months, they
have undertaken an electrification project,
donated a movie projector and screen, and
supplied paint to freshen up the island's
Moravian church. As a Christmas present,
the Sandinistas gave the islanders a televi-
sion set.
Much of the change in opinion, how-
ever, has little to do with the Sandinistas;
people have become tired of war and fear-
ful of the Contras. Elba Vanega Ruis, a
nearly toothless 47-year-old Rama Indian
woman, reaches into her apron pocket for
a wrinkled photograph of her younger sis-
ter, whom she says the Contras kil ed last
Dec. 20 in an attack outside Rama Key.
"They're bad," she says of the rebels.
"The Sandinistas haven't done me any
harm."
In the northern village of Sisin, where
Miskitos live in clapboard shacks perched
on stilts, people complain that Ki-
san rebels destroyed a vital bridge last Oc-
tober. But that doesn't mean they show
any affection for the Sandinistas. During a
visit by the region's top Sandinista offi-
cials, one Indian after another voices com-
plaints.
"During Somoza's time," an agitated
old woman grouses, the people could buy
mosquito nets. "Now we can't afford
them." She says the people are afraid of
the doctors the Sandinistas send. Other vil-
lagers complain about the price of
clothes.
Jose David Zuniga, the Sandinista party
chief along the northern coast, pledges the
government will address all their prob-
lems. "Our position for 1986," he promises,
"is to talk together and to search for peace
so we can understand each other as Nica-
raguan brothers."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/26: CIA-RDP9O-00965ROO0403560007-0