World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Nicaragua

Last updated: June 2008

Environment

Nicaragua is bordered on the north by Honduras and on the south by Costa Rica. Over 90 per cent of its people, and the centres of government and the economy are located on the narrow Pacific Plains. The majority of Nicaragua's minorities live in the very sparsely populated tropical Atlantic lowlands, which comprise over 56% of the national territory.

History

Nicaragua is unique in Latin American colonial history. It was colonized simultaneously on the western Pacific side by Spain and on the eastern Atlantic coast by Britain. Under Spanish rule the indigenous Central and Pacific coast populations were almost annihilated. Many were enslaved and shipped to South America to work in Spanish colonial precious metal mines. Over time the remaining indigenous groups mixed with the Spanish colonizers, out of which evolved the dominant Spanish-speaking, Catholic mestizo culture of today. There are still a few indigenous Mayagna communities on the Pacific Coast.

The Atlantic Coast peoples avoided early depopulation mainly due to Spanish disinterest in colonizing areas with limited mining potential and fiercely resistant inhabitants. The indigenous population were mostly Chibcha speakers who lived by hunting, fishing and shifting agriculture. Chibcha who had little to do with the Europeans became known as the Mayagna (Sumu). Another Chibcha group the Rama, also maintained communities and continued to use their own language.

In the early 17th century. British pirates began using coastal estuaries as hideouts then turned to extracting the region's natural hardwoods in association with the indigenous group that became known as the Miskitu. Africans from around the Caribbean who had escaped bondage also moved to the Mosquito Coast and some joined in with indigenous groups. This collection of indigenous inhabitants who became mixed with people of African origin, and Europeans evolved into a distinct autonomous Miskitu culture that combined elements from all the groups including language and social structures.

The Miskitu established firm relations with the British crown thereby gaining access to firearms and other imports, which helped them to acquire significant ascendancy over other coastal groups. During the British Protectorate period (1687-1787), the Miskitu functioned as intermediaries in European trade dealings with other indigenous peoples, conducted long distance. slave raids and assisted in the recapture of escaped slaves in other Caribbean territories. They often joined the British in forays on rival Spanish holdings and eventually became the largest of the Coast's ethnic minorities.

In the late 17th century British traders and settlers began bringing Africans to the Nicaragua Atlantic Coast for forced labor timber extraction and plantation work. After emancipation in the late 19th century they were joined by economic migrants from Jamaica and Belize. All had mixed with both European settlers and indigenous groups and together they formed a distinct English-speaking minority who became known as Creoles They established population centres in the southern Atlantic Coast, and became the next largest minority group with a culture rather similar to Caribbean nations.

Britain surrendered most of its claims to the Atlantic Coast in 1860 and the region remained as a notably prosperous autonomous reserve until 1894. In the 1890's US commercial interests attracted by the region's considerable natural resources began establishing large scale fruit, gold and timber extraction enterprises and the US government sought to gain exclusive rights to build a trans-isthmus canal using the Atlantic Coast as the Eastern entry point.

With the coming to power of President José Santos Zelaya in 1893, the Nicaraguan national army invaded the Caribbean coast aided by US marines and forced territorial integration under central government control. Annexation brought increased mestizo migration to the coast and policies of economic and cultural absorption. This included pressures for total assimilation of the Caribbean Coast into the dominant Pacific based Hispanic mestizo mainstream via government decrees that marginalized the indigenous cultures and languages of the region.

A national war of liberation against American occupation led by Augusto Cesar Sandino was organized largely on the Atlantic Coast in Miskitu areas. US Marine and Nicaraguan National Guard efforts to capture the revolutionary leader were ultimately unsuccessful, however Sandino was tricked into attending peace talks with Guard commander Somoza Garcia and assassinated in 1934. Under the incoming dynastic Somoza dictatorship, the Caribbean Coast remained marginalized and neglected despite the considerable wealth being generated through resource extraction by US companies.

From 1936 onward, Somoza García ran Nicaragua as his giant family estate and amassed a large fortune. For two decades he cultivated and won powerful allies in the United States. Foreign companies were given free rein to exploit Nicaragua's gold, silver, timber and seafoods, almost all sourced in the Caribbean Coast region. In the rest of the country the National Guard was used to repress political opponents and anti government activities.

Mestizo migration to the coast increased significantly during the Somoza era helping to increase Caribbean Coast resentment and antagonism towards the Pacific region.

Following his assassination in 1956, Somoza was succeed by his US trained sons Luis Somoza Debayle who ruled as president and Anastasio Somoza Debayle who commanded the National Guard.

They continued and strengthened the system of absolute economic and political control, corruption and support for U.S. policies. In 1961 the Caribbean Coast city of Puerto Cabezas was used as the launching pad for the unsuccessful CIA backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.

That same year a small group of Nicaraguans inspired by the Cuban revolution, formed a guerrilla force aimed at overthrowing the Somoza regime. They took their name from the nationalist revolutionary leader Augusto Sandino calling themselves the Sandanista National Liberation Front (FSLN).

During the 1960s the Frente gained support mostly among students, rural Nicaraguans and poor urban youth in the Pacific region. After years of repeated defeats in clashes with the National Guard the Sandanistas eventually benefitted from the declining popularity of the Somozas following the 1972 Managua earthquake.

By August 1978 a Sandinista commando force was able to seize the National Palace taking the Nicaraguan congress hostage and greatly enhancing their reputation. By the time the Sandinistas finally took power and set up a junta and a broad-based cabinet on July 19, 1979, an estimated 50,000 Nicaraguans had died in the revolutionary effort.

Relations with the United States deteriorated steadily thereafter especially following the 1981 election of the strongly anticommunist Ronald Reagan administration. Reagan suspended aid to Nicaragua, imposed an economic boycott, and began supporting an armed opposition guerrilla force known as the contras.

Meanwhile the Sandanistas increased efforts to impose a socialist economic model which did little to dispel the long held Caribbean Coast antagonism and suspicion of Pacific region populations.

Relations between the monocultural socialist Sandanistas and the multicultural independently minded Coastal indigenous and Creole communities continued to deteriorate, prompting a significant number of Miskitu to become allied with the US-backed antigovernment 'contra' forces and triggering a search for political solutions.

Following the Sandanista victory in the 1984 elections, two years of nationwide discussions produced the 1987 Autonomy Law, which was aimed primarily at achieving peace and focusing national attention on the rights of the coast's peoples. The region's minority groups welcomed the autonomy proposal as an opportunity to guarantee not only multi-ethnic cultural, linguistic and religious rights but also historic economic rights to land and trade, and to share in the exploitation of natural resources. However with the change in government after 1990, making 'autonomy' work as envisaged has been a very slow and protracted process.

Peoples

Main languages: Spanish, English Creole, Miskitu, Sumu, Rama

Main religions: Christianity (Roman Catholic, Evangelical, Moravian, Episcopal)

Main minority groups: Miskitu, Creoles (9%, CIA 2007), Mayangna (Sumu), Garífuna, Rama

Nicaragua's indigenous minorities (5%, CIA 2007) comprise five different groups speaking six different languages. Their communities are located mainly in the rainforests and lagoons of the Atlantic Coast Region. It contains the nation's richest reserves of natural resources and the second largest tropical jungle in the Americas after the Amazon in Brazil.

Nicaragua also has substantial minorities of Middle East and East Asian origin.

Governance

The 1987 Autonomy Law is a unique and remarkable initiative aimed at limited self-rule within the Republic. Two autonomous zones were created; the North Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAN) and the South Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAS) with their respective governing councils however no provision was made for implementation of the statute. After 1990 the Violeta Chamorro government reasserted central control through the Managua-based Regional Development Institute (INDERA). It was not until July 1993 that the councils were able to present a draft to expedite Autonomy implementation.

Meanwhile the coastal populations continued to take initiatives on their own and in March 1995 The University of the Autonomous Regions of the Atlantic Coast (URACCAN) began its first year aimed at developing the necessary human resources for a genuinely autonomous development. This was further enhanced with the later establishment of the Bluefields Indian and Creole University (BICU).

Elections in 1996, and again in 2001 did little to change central government attitudes. In May 2002 Nicaraguan President Enrique Bolaños refused to swear in the Autonomous Council for 8 months. Exploitation of the regions resources has continued with companies engaging in resource extraction without consent from the indigenous owners.

There was notable progress in statute approval by the National Assembly in 2003 ensuring better recognition of the rights of indigenous people and ethnic communities as well as consolidating the juridical-legal framework of the Autonomy. Most notable was the passage of regulations for the Statute of Autonomy itself. Other very important regulations also gained legitimacy such as the Law of Demarcation of Communal Property (Law 445); the General Law of Health (Law 423) that recognizes the use and promotion of the traditional medicine in the Autonomous Regions; the Law of Conservation, Development and Sustainable Development of the Forest Sector (Law 462) that establishes the power of the Regional Councils to determine forestry policy and grant concessions.

Nevertheless the Central Government continued its unilateral handling of the Caribbean Coast natural resources in flagrant violation of the Autonomy Laws. Prime examples are the authorization of fishing licenses through ADPESCA by the Ministry of Development, Industry and Trade; the operation of the mining company HEMCO; as well as the licenses given to timber companies through INAFOR.

Furthermore the National Development Plan presented by the Central Government in 2003 did not include the Caribbean Coast in any of its perspectives. This was challenged by coastal organizations as well as international funding institutions prompting the UNDP to support the preparation of a special Regional Development Plan consisting of programs and a variety of specific projects.

International NGOs continued to be the main funders of regional development projects and programmes such as the bilingual education program. The centralization of administrative funding also persisted manifested in the retention or delay of funding assigned to the region's governing structures. Of the US$33 million (568 million córdobas) budget allocated for public investment in the Autonomous Regions only US $1.9 million (32 million) was actually administered by the Regional Council. This was seen regionally as another coercive measure to force acceptance of policies imposed from Managua.

Moreover despite the advent of autonomy, the ever increasing influence of Managua based national political parties on the internal political activities of the autonomous regions since the 1990s, has seriously compromised the original intention of those who drafted the autonomy law. The victory of the Sandanista Party under Daniel Ortega in the December 2006 national elections raised hopes among indigenous and Creole supporters on the Caribbean Coast for a revitalization of the autonomy process and an end to the implicit and explicit discriminatory attitude towards populations of the Autonomous Regions at official levels.

This expectation encouraged the emergence of a new political alliance between the FSLN and the YATAMA Party (Yapti Tasbaya Maraska Nani Asla Takanka or Organization of the Nations of the Mother Earth) which is the country's largest indigenous socio-political movement. After years of limitations imposed against it by Nicaragua's Supreme Electoral Council (CSE), YATAMA chose to contest the December 2006 elections jointly with its former wartime rival the Frente.

YATAMA has its roots in the Miskitu/contra anti-Sandanista resistance and had long been a fierce adversary of the FSLN. It was created when MISURASATA (the Miskitu, Sumu and Rama Sandanista Alliance) led by Brooklyn Rivera and militantly anti-Sandanista MISURA/KISAN led by Steadman Fagoth reorganized as a political party in 1988. Since then YATAMA has enjoyed considerable support among the indigenous majority Miskitu population of the RAAN, first winning seats in the regional council in the 1990s and since 2005 holding mayoral positions in the three main RAAN cities of Bilwi, Waspam and Prinzapolka.

In the December 2006 national elections one female YATAMA candidate won a seat in the Central American parliament and Brooklyn Rivera, the leader of YATAMA gained a seat in the National Assembly.

According YATAMA's leaders, the unprecedented political initiative was intended to ensure greater ethno-cultural inclusion after years of marginalization and economic stagnation. It was seen as a means of better enabling the indigenous Miskitu, Rama and Mayagna peoples and Creole and Garifuna minority populations to collectively address socio-economic development issues and exercise greater control over regional resources and institutions.

YATAMA argued that that the former Liberal governing party (PLC) never defended the region's multi-ethnic group interests choosing instead to promote Pacific centered party based agendas and Hispanic cultural homogeneity that failed to protect minority languages or cultures.

Minorities

• Creoles
• Garífuna
• Indigenous peoples

Resources

Minority based and advocacy organisations

Indigenous peoples

CIDCA (Investigation Centre for the Atlantic Coast)
[Culture and research]
Tel: +505 278 0854, 278 4930

Garífuna

Organización Negra de Centro América (ONECA)
Tel: +504 43 3651
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.afrocubaweb.com/oneca.htm

URACCAN (University of the Autonomous Regions of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua)
Tel: +505 2 482 118
Website: http://uraccan.edu.ni

Voces Caribeñas
[Women's Rights]
Tel: +505 248 5440
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.mujeresafro.org

Sources and further reading

General

Archer, D. and Costello, P., Literacy and Power: The Latin American Battleground, London, Earthscan, 1990, ch. 10.

Freeland, J., A Special Place in History: The Atlantic Coast in the Nicaraguan Revolution, London, Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign/War on Want, 1988.

Nicaragua Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2005 Nicaragua. www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61734.htm

Norsworthy, K. with Barry, T., Nicaragua: A Country Guide, Albuquerque, N. Mex., Resource Centre Press, 1990.

Indigenous peoples

Autonomy in Nicaragua and Nunavut: A Comparative Study in Self-Determination by Rodolfo Pino-Robles. www.yorku.ca/cerlac/URACCAN/thesis/Robles.rtf

Brunnegger, Sandra, From Conflict to Autonomy in Nicaragua: Lessons Learnt, London, MRG Report, 2007.

Cunningham, Lottie, 2004 CfHR Annual Report Indigenous Territorial Rights: the Awas Tingni Case of Nicaragua. www.aaanet.org/reports/03ar/cfhr.htm

Declaration of Rights: Indigenous People and Nations of Atlantic Coast. www.cwis.org/fwdp/Americas/nic_dec.txt

Dunbar Ortiz, R., The Miskitu Indians of Nicaragua, London, MRG report, 1988.

Feiring, Birgitte, Pueblos Indigenas y Pobreza: Los Casos de Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. MRG Report www.minorityrights.org/admin/Download/pdf/LAindigenousMacro (Esp).pdf

Freeland, J., A Special Place in History: The Atlantic Coast in the Nicaraguan Revolution, London, Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign/War on Want, 1988.

Hale, C.R., Miskitu Indians and the Nicaraguan State 1894-1987, Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press, 1994.

Indigenous and Tribal Peoples: A Guide to ILO Convention No. 169 - Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Interamerican Human Rights commission OAS Nicaragua. www.cidh.org/Indigenas/intro.htm

Situation of the Human Rights of Indigenous Persons and Peoples In the Americas. Inter-american Human Rights Commission OAS Nicaragua. www.cidh.org/Indigenas/intro.htm

Working to End Violence against Indigenous Women. www.madre.org/articles/int/vaiw206.html

Garífuna

Freeland, J., 'Nicaragua', in MRG (ed.), No Longer Invisible: Afro-Latin Americans Today, London, Minority Rights Publications, 1995.