Border war creates another exile group

Press, 22 October 1982, Page 16

Border war creates another exile group

From

SUSAN MORGAN,

in Sahsa camp, Nicaragua

Surrounded by eight of his ragged, black-haired children, Armstrong, a Miskito Indian, described in halting Spanish how he and thousands of other Sumos and Miskitos had been forcibly removed in January from their homelands,along the Rio Coco to this and four other permanent resettlement camps in Nicaragua. These camps, collectively called Tasba Pri (Land of the Free) are sited near the mining town of La Rosita, 150 miles from the Honduran border in North Zelaya Province on the Atlantic coast. Several more are still under construction. The decision to transfer the entire native population of 40,000 Indians from the Rio Coco, now the scene of constant fighting with anti-Gov-ernment forces, was made on purely military grounds, according to Julio Rocha, ViceMinister of the Nicaraguan Institute for the Atlantic Coast.

Armstrong said no one had told him why ~ he had been forced to leave at less,than 24 hours notice and walk in terrible heat for seven days, to reach this camp of more than 2000 Miskitos. He was still deeply upset at the burning and destruction of his home, his livestock and his fishing boat — destruction which the Sandinistas say was necessary to prevent their being used by the rebels.

The rebels are made up in part by members of the former Nicaraguan National Guard still loyal to the memory of Anastasio Somoza, the dictator overthrown in 1979. But privately, Sandinista military admit the bulk- of the insurgent force is composed of dissident Indians. Some admit that clumsiness in handling the delicate Miskito question exacerbated the “revolution within the revolution” and what Defence Min-

ister Humberto Ortega has described ' as the “silent invasion.” The decision to move the Indians from the Rio Coco, which forms the frontier with Honduras, not only protects them from border raids but also prevents them joining the opposition, as , many are now doing. Out of the total population of 40,000 Indians who lived along the Rio Coco, only 10,000 have found their way into the Nicaraguan settlement camps. There were few young men in the three camps I visited. Twenty thousand have fled across the border to refugee camps in Honduras and another 10,000 have joined the guerrillas or gone to isolated villages. The entire Miskito population has now been dispersed, while Sumos, numerically inferior, have also started to flee to Honduras as their settlements too are becoming battlegrounds between Sandinista and rebel forces.

Criticisms of the Nicaraguan resettlement camps as concentration camps are not true, but many Miskitos grumbled about conditions and lack of running water, and every Miskito I spoke to wanted to return home. Unlike the Miskito refugee camps in Honduras, the camps here, are permanent and there are no plans to move inmates back.

Three years after triumphantly overthrowing Anastasio Somoza at the cost of some 50,000 lives, Nicaragua is facing its most serious military challenge yet. There is no likelihood of the present fighting toppling the Government or winning a decisive military victory, but combating the rebels demands growing diversion of resources better devoted to national reconstruction.

The virtual mutiny among the Miskitos has led to the Sandinistas imposing such severe restrictions in the north that farming and the lumber trade have come to a halt. Since a state - of siege was imposed in mid-July, travel by civilians has almost ceased, the key port of Puerto Cabezas has become a garrison town, and food shortages are common because supplies have been cut in an attempt to squeeze the rebels.

Despite these moves (not disclosed in the censored press here), the “silent invasion” is growing and political opposition becoming more organised.

Over the last four months, military officials here say, a total of 357 rebels have been killed in the north of the country and 97 captured. Sandinistas are understood to have suffered heavy casualties. At the end of August rebels dynamited 38 new Soviet trucks (brought up only two days earlier) in a construction camp we passed enroute for the resettlement camps. This sophisticated operation hinted at good intelligence and local support. From Honduras, the main Miskito leader, Steadman Fagoth, is understood to be encouraging Miskito “refugees” to train with anti-Sandinista forces backed by both the Honduran Army and the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Manipulated from every side, it is clear the hapless Miskitos, a proud and independent race, are the pawns in a game of increasingly high stakes. At worst, they risk being cannon fodder for others' ambitions. At best, if only as a result of insensitivity and paternalism on the part of the Sandinistas, they are losing their cultural heritage. Copyright, London Observer Service.