From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (misc.activism.progressive co-moderator)
Subject: The Sandinistas and the Miskitos (III)
Organization: misc.activism.progressive on UseNet ; ACTIV-L@UMCVMB
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 08:44:05 GMT

The Sandinistas and the Miskitos (III)

    "Americas Watch substantiated one subsequent case: in Walpa Siksa
    in 1982, seven Miskito youths were killed by Sandinista soldiers
    `who were later severely punished by their officers.' [31]
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    "`UNLIKE several other Latin American government that have come
    under harsh criticism (though not from [the Reagan]
    administration), the [Nicaraguan government] has responded to
    human rights organizations with efforts to improve the
    situation..'" adds Americas Watch.
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[From: Washington's War on Nicaragua (see below)]:

...The `Red Christmas' offensive began in November 1981 with contra
attacks in the Rio Coco area... On December 20, seven government
soldiers in San Carlos were tortured, killed and mutilated. Some 60 or
more people, including civilians, died during the two-month offensive.
[27]

Mirna Cunningham, Nicaragua's only Miskito doctor, and Regina Lewis, a
Miskito nurse, were kidnapped on December 28 outside the hospital in
Bilwaskama by about twenty contras; the hospital was ransacked and had
to be closed. Mirna Cunningham recounted multiple gang rapes beginning
after they were taken to a house on the Rio Coco... Cunningham and
Lewis were taken across the river to a training camp Honduras where
their captors, Miskitos and former members of Somoza's elite EEBI
unit, boasted of their support from the United States. They "said
that... they received help from the Honduran army... They were very
proud of the help that they were receiving from the U.S. Government.

They offered us Camel cigarettes, for example, as a proof that they
were smoking good cigarettes. And they said they were getting canned
food, good clothes and things like that, as a way to tell us why they
were fighting."

After two or three hours at the camp, recalled Cunningham, "They told
us that they were going to kill us ... on our way back we were raped
again, by all the ones who were taking us to the village." Inside
Nicaragua Cunningham and Lewis were released, but the contras told
them to leave the Atlantic Coast because they did not want doctors
there [28]. In 1984, Mirna Cunningham became government minister for
Northern Zelaya.

In January 1982, the Nicaraguan government responded to the military
threat ... it relocated 8,500 Miskitos and Sumus from the Rio Coco
region. The U.S. government seized on the relocation to accuse
Nicaragua of genocide. [Secretary of State Alexander] Haig
dramatically produced a photo he said showed Miskito bodies being
burned by Sandinista troops. The French magazine _Le Figaro_, source
of the photo, corrected him, explaining it showed the Red Cross
burning corpses of people killed by [former U.S.-backed dictator --HB]
Somoza's National Guard on the Pacific Coast in 1978.

[The Haig (_Le Figaro_) photograph in question can be found on page
147 of George Black's _The Good Neighbor (Subtitle: How the United
States Wrote the History of Central America and the Caribbean)_,
Pantheon Books, New York, 1988. Pages 144-147 contain several other
examples of "Lying with pictures." See the "misc" file for an example
of Reagan administration distortion, using a Nicaraguan stamp, also
found in Black's book --HB]

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) found only one
incident of noncombatant killing by Sandinista forces. On December 23,
between fourteen and seventeen Miskito prisoners were shot in Leimus
in retaliation for the San Carlos killings. Americas Watch
substantiated one subsequent case: in Walpa Siksa in 1982, seven
Miskito youths were killed by Sandinista soldiers "who were later
severely punished by their officers."[31] Over the next two years the
government significantly altered the training and composition of the
Atlantic Coast security forces; by 1984, 70 percent were from the
Coast. [32]

Americas Watch reported that:

    Unlike several other Latin American government that have come
    under harsh criticism (though not from [the Reagan]
    administration), the [Nicaraguan government] has responded to
    human rights organizations with efforts to improve the
    situation... In early 1984, for example, the [Nicaraguan
    government] conducted several investigations of abuses in remote
    areas, which resulted in the prosecution and appropriate
    punishment of members of the security forces.

    In the most important of these cases, forty-four security agents
    and civilians were prosecuted for several cases of murder, rape,
    theft, and other abuses that had taken place in a border region of
    Matagalpa and Jinotega.  Thirteen of them received heavy
    sentences... In April 1984, an Army sub-lieutenant was sentenced
    to eighteen years in prison for raping a Miskito woman in the
    village of Lapan...  [35]

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[27] Americas Watch, _Miskitos in Nicaragua 1981-1984_, November 1984.

[28] Reed Brody, _Contra Terror in Nicaragua_ (Boston: South End
Press, 1985), pp. 121-23.

[31] Cynthia Brown, ed., _With Friends Like These: The Americas Watch
Report on Human Rights and U.S. Policy in Latin America (New York:
Pantheon Books, 1985), galleys, p. 146

[32] Bourgois, "Ethnic Minorities," p. 205

[35] Brown, ed., _With Friends Like These_, galleys, pp. 145-53

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Washington's War on Nicaragua, by Holly Sklar
1988, South End Press, Boston

South End Press, 300 Raritan Center Parkway, Edison, NJ 08818
For a free catalog: 1-800-533-8478; see above for GET command.


            =============================================
            T h e   " N i c a r a g u a   L i b r a r y "
            =============================================

*
* =========
* Nicaragua
* =========
*
  WHO-WERE CONTRAS    Contras' origins; make-up; practices - documented
  FSLN     H-RIGHTS  Documented HRs comparison w/Somoza,Guat,ES,others
  FSLN     MISKITOS  Sandinista treatment of Miskitos;Charges & Realit
  FSLN     NICAJEWS  Debunks charges of Sandinista 'Anti-Semitism'
*
  OXFAM84  NICARAG   Oxfam America's 1984 report on Nicaragua, in full
  FSLN     ACHIEVE   Documented: achievements of the Nica. revolution
*
  NICA-84  ELECTION  Documented: Fair under Sandinistas; US subversion
  FAIRNESS NICA-USA  Flwup:`Is Nicaragua More Democratic than the US?'
  NICRAGUA ELECTION  Study in US subversion of '90 Nicaraguan election

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