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 Autonomy Debate: Do the Miskitus Deserve Autonomy Source:http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/nu.html
Nicaragua state flag		 page created by
Monica Neil
December 4, 2000
 

YES for autonomy  

NO for autonomy 
The autonomy issue was the driving force of the Sandinista Conflict.  The MISURASATA argued that they deserved the whole Atlantic Coast, including areas not inhabited by the Miskitu people for themselves (Dennis 228).  This assertion was entirely different than the past in 1984, when local communities only wanted land rights of the land that they were cultivating.  But in 1915, title deeds to land were given to the tribal community and the rest of the land was considered as the central government's land.  Since the MISURASATA made such a bold claim, the FSLN leaders arrested MISURASATA leaders.  To them, the MISURASATA group led an "ethnic chauvinism" by asking for such radicalized demands.  In 1981, the MISURASATA organization claimed that 38% of their land must be given back to them (Dennis 228).  The Miskitu people have viewed their autonomy as their "'cultural heritage, not as a law that was given and can be revoked by western Nicaraguans'" (Wilde "Recovering" 926).  This implies that the Miskitu people have always viewed themselves as autonomous before this autonomy agreement took place.

Yes for autonomy

1.  They are a nation.

       The Miskitu nation should be granted autonomy because they are a nation.  They do not require a military-political bureaucracy to create nationality unlike a state.  A state is a "centralized political system, recognized by other states that uses a civilian and military and sometime language and religion with its claimed boundaries.  States commonly claim many nations" (Nietschmann "Third World" 1).  Therefore, Nicaragua (the state) is claiming the nation Miskitu as part of their state.  Nietschmann further describes what a nation-state does.  It is a common people with ancestral land that is governed by an internationally recognized central political system (Third World 2).  The Miskitu nation does not belong to the common people of inland Nicaragua.  They see themselves as a nation, and do not recognize a state's demand of allegiance, land control and resource control.  Inevitably, the Miskitu sided with the Contras since they felt coast was being bombarded.  It is noteworthy to see that nations use military resistance against states that want to take their land, nationality, and resources (Nietschmann "Third World" 4).  A nation, furthermore, has a distinctive identity and territory.  They have been misidentified with the use of propoganda terms such as "rebels," "separatists," extremists," "dissidents," "insurgents," "terrorists," "minorities." or ethnic groups" (Nitschmann "Third World" 4).

2.  They are not an ethnic group.                              Top

The Miskitu are not an ethnic people within their own nation.  For example, the Samis may be a minority in Oslo or Stockhol, but in Samiland they are a people.  Nietschmann argues that a people do not become a minority or an ethnic group because its nation is invaded.  Perhaps, the State calls them an ethnic group so that the Miskitus cannot be recognized nationally to their own self-determination and the State can use their territory and resources ("Third World" 5).  The Miskitu are not separatists since they have never wanted to join the state.  In fact, the British, Nicaraguan and Honduran governments split the Miskitu Nation in a 1960 World Court decision that made one-third of the Miskitu Nation be Hondurans (Nietschmann "Third World" 6).

3.  They have an separate identity.                              Top 

The Miskitu people have a distinct identity from the Nicaraguan mestizo people.  In particular, I am going to focus on the Moravian Church as their only church.  Furthermore, the majority of the Creoles, Sumu Indians and Rama Indians in the Atlantic Coast belong to the Moravian Church (Hawley 115).This detail is significant since religion can provide “an autonomous, liberating consciousness” (Hawley 112).Religious organizations can have great power in shaping political ideologies.  The Moravian religion comes from a protestant church that its originally from the United States.The history of the Church’s influence in the Atlantic Coast begins in 1849 and had a church membership of 30,000 (half of the population) in 1970 while the other 35-40% of the people were being influenced by Catholic missionaries who still have members in the Rio Coco region.  Yet, the Moravian Church had a higher success after the British Protectorate left the region in 1880s while the Nicaraguan state and U.S. companies invaded the region in 1894.In the 1880’s the Moravian missionaries learned the Miskitu language and had many dramatic events called the “Great Awakening” (Dennis 215).
The Church handled many issues for the Miskitu's.  They greatly influenced the region by creating indigenous pastors and functioning in the areas of education, healthcare, and arbitration.  The indigenous pastors exerted much control over the region as they became community leaders and administered the Church doctrine.  Moreover, in 1970 the Church operated 20 schools and 5 health care facilities (Hawley 115).  The Church was very important to maintain their cultural identity.  When foreign companies left the area after 1960 and the central government tried to push into the Atlantic Coast, the Miskitu people used the Church to handle gender conflicts and local class relations.  The Church became autonomous of its parent organization and became something for the Costeños. 
 
The Church was also important because it was the last link to the English-speaking white world that they had contact with since the 1600s.The Church, however, did not emphasize English since they translated their works to the Miskitu native language in order to be better accepted.  This course of action heightened their cultural identity because when the central mestizo government started to invade the Atlantic Coast in 1950s and 1960s, it did not have much success when implementing schools and trying to integrate the Miskitu people through Spanish language. The Miskitu people rejected this notion and asked the Church for support. 
 
The identity of the Church provided a strong opposition to the Catholic state and furthermore to the mestizo society.  The Church heightened the ideology of morality from an Anglo perspective.  The Moravinism identity became so stabilized that it became the symbol of local Miskitu ethnicity against external or internal forces (Hawley 119). 
The Moravian Church had a past of political history with the Miskitu people.  In 1970s, Moravian pastors were often community representatives in local and national politics for the Association of Clubs of Agricutultural workers of the Rio Coco (ACARIC).Their function was to control market prices of crops and remove bad National Guard soldiers (Hawley 120).  Their political drive increased when Moravian pastors, Wycliffe Diego and Silvio Diaz iniated new indigenous organizations, such as the ALPROMISU (the Alliance for the Progresss of the Miskitu and Sumu) in 1974 (Hawley 121).  The Church used their services to promote and educate the people of their rights which formed "an intra-village solidarity and a sense of a wider 'ethnic communities'" (Hawley 122).  Themes as church services included Miskitu self-rule and return of the Miskitu King, a rumor found in lower Coco River in order to prepare the people for secession (Hawley 122).  The Moravian church became the medium to this new ethnic identity and had more participation but lacked grassroots movements for the ALPROMISU. 
In 1979 when the revolution began, the Moravian Church grew by 3,000 people and formed 16 new congregations despite their loss of control over social welfare when the Sandanista government tried to take over education and health services (Hawley 123).  As the Sandinistas became more victorious, the ALPROMISU became MISURASATA (Miskitu, Sumu, Rama, Sandinista, Asla Takanka-United).  The new leaders of MISURASATA was Hazel Lau, Brooklyn Rivera and Steadman Fagoth.  These three young leaders were very respected amongst their people since they had their education from National Autonomous University of Nicaragua.  With their relations with the government, they could be intermediaries between their people and the Sandinistas (Hawley 123).  The Moravian Church guided the new activists' movements by holding rallies in the Churches and the pastors continued to be the Miskitu's representatives.  The Moravian Church leaders put great faith in the Miskitu people of England and U.S. support thus making the Sandinistas hated as they were thought of as the early Spanish colonials. 

Using its Christian identity, the Church mobilized the Miskitu in a battle not just against the Sandinistas but a cosmological battle against the forces of evil of communism.The Miskitu were trying to protect their ethnic purity and communism was not accepted by Christians (Hawley 126).This idea against communism was based on their strong sentiments towards the United States and British from past relationships.  It was even noted that in the Vietnam War, the Miskitu were on the lookout for airplanes to be a part of the warfare of the modern world against communism (Hawley 125 from footnotes of Helms, Asang 221).  Fagoth announced from the early 1980s and onwards that:

"The government was bringing a bad law to Nicaragua--the law of communism--and that this law would eventually incapacitate us as an Indian nation…the countries of the United States, West Germany, Israel, and Argentina were ready to give assistance to us if we would initiate a war against our government in Managua" (Hawley 125). 
Fagoth was successful in using the Church as a mobilization against communism.  When the Sandinistas had destroyed their Churches, this destructive act made the Miskitu's further believe that the 'communists' did not respect private property nor the Church and thus were evil (Hawley 127).
 
In retrospect, it is important to remember that religious institutions are not static and are reorganized as they deal with state and international policies.  Religious movements are responses to internal conflicts such as class or gender conflict (Hawley 113).  Nevertheless, the Moravian Church led great movements since the Church could unify the people.

5.  Sandinistas were oppresive.                                     Top

The Sandinistas might have come up with a Declarión de Principios but they still did not respect the Indians forms of community, basic values and languages.They considered these people backwards and wanted to integrate them.Their removal of the Miskitu and replacing 42 tribes was given no explanation and little sensitivity (Dibblin 19).They did not learn their language and tried to force mass organizations that had worked on the Pacific Coast.Finally, the Sandinistas looked down upon their Protestant faith because they were mainly Catholic (Dennis 224).Protestantism was a way to accept an exploitative economic system, such as allowing foreign companies to exploit their natural resources.The Catholics did not like Protestantism because it did not preach the liberation theology (Dennis 229).Their protestant ideals were very much political conservative and against communist ideas.

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No for autonomy

1.  Miskitu people are a minority.                                   top 

The Miskitu people are a minority.The UN Human Rights sub-Commission defines minority as:
A group numerically smaller than the rest of the population of a State, in a non-dominant position, whose members-being citizens of the State-possess ethnic, religious or linguistic characteristics differing from those of others of the population and show, if only implicitly, a sense of solidarity directed towards preserving their culture, tradition, religion and livelihood. (Nietschmann "Third World" 5).
Nietschmann claims that a minority must not show a history of dependence, self-government, tradition of nationhood and desire to preserve control over their own territory, resources and affairs.Since the Miskitu people were dependent on foreign investment in their area and had Kings that acted like puppet Kings to British Empire than they are merely a minority.Thus, the UN charter states that a minority or ethnic group does not have rights to self-determination but only "a people":
All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development (United Nations 1945).
However, the United Nations made a contradictory statement in UN Resolution 1514 in 1960:
All peoples have an inalienable right to complete freedom, the exercise of their sovereignty and the integrity of their national territory, although any attempt aimed at the partial or total disruption of the national unity and the territorial integrity of a country is incompatible with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations. 

2.  The Miskitu people are only using ethnic chauvinism.

These people are claiming an ethnic identity based on a untrue categorization of cultural traits.Ethnicity should be viewed as existing from time immemorial than be developed.It is not fair that they are pursuing their goals independent of all those who are exploited by the government.The Miskitu ignore the poor Nicaraguans when asserting that their ethnicity deserves autonomy (Dennis 230).These people never really had a history because their leadership was inauthentic and only had leaders “who only pretended to speak on behalf of their people’s real aspirations” (Dennis 231).

3. Their demands are unreasonable.                   top

A concern of the Costeños in the south is that their resources will be exploited if they do not have their autonomy.This argument is absurd because when the foreign companies invested in the Atlantic Coast in mid-1900’s, many of their resources were exploited.The NIPCA lumber company exported some 335 million board feet of lumber.Furthermore, those Miskitu Indians working tin gold mines at Siuna and Bonanza suffered diseases such as silicosis and tuberculosis.Yet, the Miskitu workers favored their jobs and used their wage labor to buy manufactured goods (Dennis 223).Even in the 1990s the Miskitu people want to the foreign companies to return and get paternalistic help from benevolent foreigners (Dennis 227).

The Miskitu people benefited from modernization and foreign direct investment; thus this shows that they rely on business other than from their people.These people exploited their own resources when “they obtained foreign goods from local merchants in exchange for cakes and bundles of wild rubber: (Helms "Middle America" 314).Obviously, the Miskitu enjoy commerce.When the demand for rubber decreased, they continued to search for jobs in interior Nicaragua in silver mines or the men became loggers for foreign lumber companies.They also raised bananas for North AmericanStandard Fruit Company. 

Therefore, the Miskitu can not say that they enjoyed their resources being exploited because they gladly accepted the commerce to help sustain their economic lives.  These people depended on these foreign companies and getting autonomy will not do anything to help these people with their relationship with these foreign companies.  The Atlantic Coast is obviously split in deciding whether or not they want help from foreign companies.

4.  The Sandinistas were not harmful.                          top

Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz from La cuestión miskita en la Revolución Nicaragüense comments that the Sandinistas never really abused the Indians rights but it was the Ronald Reagan administration along with the CIA from the United States who are to blame for the War.The FSLN were naturally responding to the Costeños “separatism” threat which was really the threat posed by the Contra and U.S. military forces (Dennis 217).
The Sandinistas understood the Miskitu goals since they developed a Declaración de Principios in 1981 that promised communal land titles, and supported programs for traditional cultures and languages.This document further reinstated that economic development must benefit all people and that the Costeños could share the benefits of their natural resources but the title for these resources belonged to the government since they wanted a united national territory (Dennis 218).The Sandinistas thought that these people were being exploited by the foreign companies using their resources and wanted to protect them (Dennis 223).

5.  They do not have a solid identity.  

The Miskitu people don’t have a solid ethnicity because they continue to change their ethnicity.Some Miskitu try to improve their social status by learning English and adopting a Creole identity (Dennis 227).  The Creole identity became important because the original traders were Creole with whom they traded with the Miskitus. The Creoles were the ones that initially had the weapons, etc.  Furthermore, because of the strong relationship with England and the set up of the Miskitu Kings, English became an important transition for many Miskitus.  It has been debated that the Miskitu interest in their culture and their language was only sparked when the revolution began against the Sandinistas.If MISURASATA had not existed, then these people would not be more united with a common identity.

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