|
|
|
COAIM BLOG CO AIM LATEST NEWS MEDIA
|
Between a Rock and a Hard Place Ward Churchill, Glennn T. Morris [To get a] picture of the Meo's situation in Laos, [there must be] discussion of the U.S. Program to organize them to fight for the United States, trapping them like desperate dogs and throwing away the leash when they [have] lost their usefulness. Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, As has been remarked elsewhere, it has become a hallmark of US, counter-insurgency/counterrevolutionary doctrine that indigenous peoples within Third World states can be manipulated to serve global anti-communist policies, providing a ready and on-site pool of combatants for deployment against progressive movements and governments.1 Typically executed by Special Forces and/or Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) personnel, this cynical line of action has repeatedly resulted in the dislocation, dissolution, decimation, and, in some cases, virtual eradication of the native societies thus used. In this sense, the introductory observation offered by Chomsky and Herman, astute observers of America's imperial adventures abroad, is entirely accurate.2 For purposes of this essay, it will be accepted that the United States opts to enter into military alliances with indigenous peoples solely on the basis of its own geopolitical needs, and never for such altruistic motives as "saving them from genocide."3 To the contrary, we accept the conclusion that it is primarily U.S. actions and firepower which have inflicted the bulk of all casualties upon America's erstwhile indigenous allies, consistently placing them in the position of "facing extinction as ... organized societies."4 However, we seek to raise the deeper issues of why indigenous peoples seem susceptible to recruitment by U.S. low intensity warfare specialists, and whether there might not be principles imbedded in contemporary progressive theory and practice which contribute to such outcomes. In considering these questions, two cases will be examined: the case of the "Meo" or h'Mong hill people within the context of the CIA's "secret war" in Laos during the 1960s and early 1970s, and the more recent case of the Miskito, Sumu, and Rama Indians of eastern Nicaragua and Honduras. Space limitations preclude more than the most general contours of each illustration, or more than the most rudimentary analysis. Nonetheless, the lack of literature on this topic demands that exploration begin. Because of the relative topicality of the situation in Miskitia, a greater emphasis will be placed on the details of that particular situation. The Case of the h'Mong According to Guy Morechand, "the Hmong consider the term Meo, used by the Lao, demeaning" (probably because they associate it with the Vietnamese word "Moi"--meaning "savage" or "subhuman"--used to describe tribal peoples generally), and "they have tended to avoid involvement with the lowlanders except for trade."5 Richard S. D. Hawkins reinforces this latter point by observing that the h'Mlong areas of Laos, centering upon the Plain of Jars, have historically been "the scene of frequent revolts against [i.e., resistance to] lowland control."6 (For an overview of the h'Mong conflict area, see Map L) By all accounts, the h' Mong jealously guarded their cultural integrity, political autonomy, and the self-sufficiency provided by an economy based upon "the shifting cultivation of upland rice, maize, and opium as a cash crop."7 Further, "the montagnards [the French word encompassing hill peoples such as the h' Mong] were neglected by the dominant Lao during the colonial period" (roughly 1880-1955), and were thereby able to maintain the full and relatively untrammeled range of characteristics marking the expression of de facto national sovereignty in the modern era. This situation was undoubtedly facilitated by the French colonists' lack of interest in the Annamese highland areas inhabited by the h'Mong, and their preference in viewing Laos as a potential lowland "river empire." It was not until military dynamics of World War II initiated a process of increasing encroachment on their territory that the h'Mong elected to enter into alliances with outsiders. In l946, this assumed the form of h'Mong leader Faydang's alliance with the anti-colonialist Lao Issara exile government headed by Prince Phetsarath and Phaya Khommao.8 The objective of this Particular union for the h'Mong appears to have been a hope for a return to the Lao "neglect" of highland internal affairs exhibited in earlier years. A "Free Laos" was perceived as corresponding nicely with a "h'Mong Free State." A significant snag in this arrangement can be detected in the fact that "all the Lao Issara exiles shared the belief that Laos was incapable of gaining freedom unassisted"; hence, an important "minority of the Lao Issara, grouped around Prince Souhpanouvong, were willing to use Vietnamese support to wage an armed struggle for total independence from France ... [and] came to share the Viet Minh view that the war for independence involved all of Indochina.10 The question became one concerning the extent to which the Laotian nationalist movement would align itself with (or subordinate itself to) Ho Chi Minh's highly centrist Viet Minh organization. This created a split within the Lao Issara, leading to the emergence of a "moderate" faction, finally headed by Prince Souvanna Phouma, and with which the h'Mong were allied. Souvanna Phouma assumed power through the 1954 Geneva Peace Accord in exchange for the "acceptance of anti-communist premises and forces including the French, the Thai, and lastly the Americans."11 Considering the stipulations (accurately enough) to be a blatant manifestation of neocolonialism, the Souphanouvong faction, now identifying itself as the Pathet Lao, rejected the legitimacy of the new regime, aligned itself ever more closely with the nationalist/marxist Hanoi government, and prepared to refocus its armed struggle against its former colleagues in Vientiane (the capital city of Laos).12 For what may have been obvious tactical reasons, the Pathet Lao based themselves squarely in the midst of h'Mong territory, a matter which set off an inevitable spiral of friction between the two groups.13 Worse, under a 1951 agreement granting reciprocal use of troops in "each other's territory," the Pathet Lao brought in Vietnamese cadres, representatives of a people whose traditional haughty disdain for all things "Moi" had hardly endeared them to the h'Mong.14 Programs were quickly implemented in the "liberated" areas that included the strong-arm conscription of h'Mong youth into Pathet Lao guerrilla units, and the extraction of "taxes" from the villagers, usually in the form of food and opium crops.15 Finally, the Pathet Lao promulgated as its vision of the future a program which had been formulated in Vietnam in 1950 and that openly called for the incorporation of "the people of all tribal groups" into the anticipated post-revolutionary progressive state and society.16 Clearly, the h'Mong had little option but to see these developments as an outright denial of their right to national sovereignty, or even autonomy, in both theory and practice. Consequently, the h'Mong began to actively resist as soon as the Pathet Lao and Vietnamese arrived in their territory.17 Meanwhile, "America maneuvered to pull Laos away from neutrality" by integrating it into John Foster Dulles' collective security scheme (to "contain" countries such as North Vietnam), and having assisted Laos with the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), the next U.S. move was to strengthen the country in order to forestall a communist takeover: "Laos became the only foreign country in the world where the United States supported 100% of the military budget."18 Under such conditions, the Vientiane government was prodded by the United States into mounting increasing operations against h'Mong territory in order to destroy the opposition's infrastructure, a policy which rapidly built h'Mong resentment of the Lao Issara no less than against the Pathet Lao, and for much the same reasons. The trend reached its head in 1957, when Vientiane entered into negotiations--from which the h'Mong were excluded--with the Pathet Lao concerning the "political disposition" of the highlands, and a possible coalition government.19 Unsurprisingly, the h'Mong, led by Touby Ly Fong and rejecting the presumptions of both the Left and the Right, aligned themselves in 1960 with the neutralist revolt of Kong Le.20 For its part, the United States pursued its principle regional policy objective of walling North Vietnam in from the west and, proceeding from the assessment that the h'Mong were "the best fighting men in all of Laos," started, probably in 1958, to send in the first "Special Forces [which] began advising the scattered detachments of Meo which continued to hold mountain strongholds in Pathet Lao territory."21 The CIA, quickly realizing the potential effectiveness of this program, increased the number of "Special Forces White Star Mobile Training Teams" by the end of 1960 and, with remarkable insight into the motives of the h'Mong, began selling its "package" with promises of "an autonomous 'Meo State' in return for [the h'Mong's] helping ... fight the [communists]."22 h'Mong leader Vang Pao, with the agreement of Touby Le Fong, responded with a plan which "Special Forces advisors encouraged ... as the first step in building a substantial guerrilla army."23 This "development process" was continued uninterrupted despite the i962 Geneva Accord for a Laotian cease-fire, from which the h'Mong (as with all previous negotiations) had been excluded.24 As the Indochina war escalated throughout the 1960s, the h'Mong highlands area came to be of crucial importance to the North Vietnamese as the crux of its supply conduit (the so called Ho Chi Minh Trail) to the south. Correspondingly, "the Meo outposts [were] seen as vital barriers to communist penetration" by U.S. strategists, and came to be "regarded as perhaps the single most important American program in Laos."25 Guided by veteran CIA covert operative Edgar "Pops" Buell, Van Pao's ground forces were coupled to U.S. air power, which had shifted its emphasis "from tactical to strategic bombing" on the Plain of Jars at least as early as 1966.26 The comparatively massive numbers of Vietnamese now operating within the highlands, and the extent of the devastation from the air, caused the h'Mong to fight with desperate ferocity for Vietnamese eviction. Caught in the cross fire between the United States, North Vietnam, and the Royal Laotian Army, the h'Mong were physically decimated. Buell wrote in March 1968: Vang Pao has lost at least a thousand men since Jan. 1, killed alone, and I don't know how many more wounded. He's lost all but one of his commanders.... A short time ago we rounded up three hundred fresh recruits. Thirty percent were fourteen years old or less, and ten of them were only ten years old. Another thirty percent were fifteen and sixteen. The remaining forty percent were thirty-five or over. Where were the ones in between? I'll tell you, they're all dead ... and in a few weeks, 90 percent of [the new recruits] will be dead.27 Despite such sacrifices by the fighters, by 1970, Buell was estimating that 250,000 of the approximately 300,000 h'Mong had been displaced from their homeland.28 Another source estimated that "of a quarter of a million Meos in 1962, only a pitiful remnant of ten thousand escaped to Thailand in 1975."29 Vang Pao, with a forlorn absence of genuine altenatives available to him, continued the struggle, with his "ultimate motive ... to fight for a de facto autonomous Meo kingdom spreading through most of [eastern] Laos."30 By 1975, with the final collapse of the U.S. military adventure in Indochina and consolidation of the Vietnamese statist agenda, even Vang Pao was gone, resettled on an upland ranch in Montana, his people largely dispersed into squalid refugee camps along the Lao-Thai border. The culture and society for which they had fought so hard and suffered so much was shattered.31 As Chomsky and Herman point out, at least as late as March of 1978, pockets of h'Mong were still in Laos and resisting subordination to lowland authority: "a major military campaign by Laotian and Vietnamese forces ... with long range artillery shelling, which was followed by aerial rocketing, bombing and strafing" was directed at them.32 The h'Mong who continued to reside in Thai refugee camps--perhaps as many as 100,000 in 1987--continued to maintain a staunch loyalty to their traditional leaders, and the aspiration for a h'Mong Free State. Reports that Vang Pao had directed the h'Mong in these camps to regroup and carry on the struggle for their homeland indicated that their dream of sovereignty had not been extinguished.33 The Case of Miskitia Essential to an understanding of current political conditions within Miskitia is a threshold recognition that the Miskito, Sumu, and Rama Indian Nations constitute the indigenous peoples of the eastern Nicaragua-Honduras region, having used and occupied their territories from time immemorial.34(See Map IL) Additionally, these native nations have staunchly and consistently defended their homelands from invasion and occupation, first by the Spanish, then by the British and Americans, and now by forces of both the left and the right from the contemporary Nicaraguan state. A significant population of Creoles has peacefully shared the area with the Indians since the seventeenth century and, more recently, Latinos from western Nicaragua have begun migrating into the region. Despite the efforts of European-rooted colonial regimes and settler states to assimilate and eradicate Indian identity in Miskitia, formidable and distinct indigenous societies, characterized by separate languages, the perpetuation of traditional social, cultural, and political practices, and control of a substantial portion of their land base continue to be maintained.35 Also significant is the strong animosity harbored by the Indians toward the modern descendants of the original Spanish invaders. Many Indians in Miskitia continue to refer derogatorily to Pacific-side Nicaraguans as "Spaniards," reflecting primary cultural and ideological rather than racial differences. A contributing factor is that condescension toward the Indians exists on the Pacific side, producing perceptions and policies which subordinate Indians as "backward" and "primitive," requiring "salvation" through application of "revolutionary principles."36 The situation is thus similar to that which marks relations between h'Mongs and lowlanders in Laos. Cultural divergence in Nicaragua is coupled with a geographic separation of the Pacific side from Miskitia. This separation facilitated Spanish/Catholic colonization of the Pacific area, leaving Miskitia more susceptible to the influence of Britain and the United States. Most of the sources of conflict in Miskitia today can be traced to attempts by both the Nicaraguans and the United States to extend hegemony over the sovereign Indian nations of the Atlantic Coast region. The ongoing Indian resistance is, at root, a response to those attempts, a circumstance which again corresponds rather well to the realities of Laos. (For a view of the Atlantic Coast conflict area, see Map II) The modern Indian movement in Miskitia was embodied initially in the organization ACARIC (Association of Agricultural Cooperatives of the Rio Coco), formed in 1967 to advance demands by Indians along the river for a recognized land base and freedom in agricultural production. In 1973, ACARIC was succeeded by ALPROMISU (Alliance Promoting Miskito and Sumu Development), which continued and expanded the drive for native self-determination. ALPROMISU joined the emergent international movement of indigenous peoples in an attempt to advance the aspirations of the Indians of Miskitia.37 Although catalyzed by the Indian elders of the region, the organization was publicly led by a generation of Miskito students studying at the National University in Managua, among them Brooklyn Rivera and Steadman Fagoth Muller (typically referred to as Steadman Fagoth). Although the Sandinista insurgency of the 1970s, which overthrew the despotic, U.S.-backed Somoza dynasty, was fought almost entirely in Pacific Nicaragua, Atlantic Coast Indian support and participation existed, including that of the ACARIC (and afterwards by ALPROMISU) leadership. After the triumph of the revolution in 1979, the Indian leadership was optimistic that conditions in Miskitia would improve, and that the Sandinistas would promote a truly revolutionary Indian policy which would respect aboriginal land rights, cultural and economic autonomy, and political self-determination. Within three months of the Sandinista victory, however, the new government informed the ALPROMISU leaders that the Indian organization was incongruent with advancement of the revolution, The government believed the Indians should be integrated into the national revolutionary mainstream through mass organizations designed to promote class consciousness, and to minimize the Indians' nationalist disposition.38 Only after traveling to Miskitia personally in 1981 did Daniel Ortega, director of the revolutionary junta, concede that the effort to disband ALPROMISU was futile. Subsequently, a compromise was reached, whereby the organization would continue, but would be renamed (essentially merely a re-designation rather than an actual merger of the Sandinistas and ALPROMISU) MISURASATA, an acronym for Miskito, Sumu, Rama, and Sandinista Aslatakanka (United). Unfortunately, the enmity created within Miskitia as a consequence of the unilateral Sandinista policy that had been implemented, coupled with U.S. policy designed to destabilize the Managua government by any means available, led to a protracted warfare which continues to some extent even today. Revolutionary Triumph/Indian Policy Failure Initially, post-revolutionary relations between the Indians and the Sandinistas were relatively amicable and cooperative. The leadership of ALPROMISU endorsed the revolution and sought to advance indigenous aspirations through revolutionary channels. Within a short time, however, relations began to worsen, commencing a six-year period (1981-1987) which, as even the Sandinistas came to admit, was replete with "excesses and mistakes" on the part of the government. Many of Managua's policies during this time seem almost intended to provoke conflict with native peoples desiring self-determination. Among the more contentious were the following: Unilateral decisions to introduce cadres of government
workers and foreign (primarily Cuban and Soviet Bloc) advisors and technicians
into
Each of these elements was present in Vietnamese/Pathet Lao policies vis-a-vis the h'Mong. Implementation of these subordinating "methods" led, directly or indirectly, to two circumstances: 1) escalation of antagonism in Miskitia toward the government, to the point of armed Indian opposition; and 2) a splintering of the Indian movement into at least three factions. On the first point, animosity between the Indians and the government reached such a level in early 1981 that, on February 22, when the government arrested the MISURASATA leadership, young Indian men and women turned on Sandinista troops in the town of Prinzapolka, beginning the native armed struggle. Counter to the prevailing views of most of the Sandinistas' international supporters, Managua's repression and the consequent emergence of the armed conflict thus began nearly a year before the United States undertook its covert support of the Somocista-led counterrevolution from Honduras.40 On the second point, despite the release of most MISURASATA leaders within a few weeks of their arrest in 1981, the MISURASATA representative to the Nicaraguan Council of State, Steadman Fagoth, was detained longer, having been accused of serving as a government agent during the Somoza years. His release from incarceration was conditioned upon an agreement that he spend an extended period studying in Bulgaria. Although Fagoth initially accepted this condition, he fled instead to Honduras and joined the Somocista, lending credence to the Sandinista allegations against him. Brooklyn Rivera, general coordinator of MISURASATA, remained in Nicaragua after his own release, trying to mend the disintegrating relations between the government and the Indians. Rivera immediately condemned Fagoth, and urged international groups to ignore him. 41 Rivera' s task of improving relations proved particularly difficult, however, as the Indian villages had become increasingly radicalized by the events of the preceding months. They were unwilling to make further compromises in their talks with Sandinista representatives,42 Subsequently, Managua withdrew recognition of MISURASATA, which had been formed with the consensus of 225 native villages throughout Miskitia. The government also made it clear to Rivera that if he did not renounce MISURASATA' s self-determination perspective and "join the revolution," his "personal safety in Nicaragua could not be guaranteed." Taking this as a threat to his life, Rivera fled to Honduras. When he arrived there, he quickly discovered how well established Fagoth was with his CIA/Honduran hosts; the coordinator was arrested by the Hondurans, and spent several months in their jails or under house arrest. Finally, apparently by order of the CIA, he was deported to Costa Rica, and was allowed to return to Honduras for the first time in 1987.43 Immediately after arriving in Costa Rica, Rivera established a brief alliance with Eden Pastora, the former Sandinista commander and leader of the Alianza Revolucionaria Democratic (ARDE).44 MISURASATA received a minimal amount of material support, presumably through the CIA's indirect conduits, but the alliance soon failed when Rivera refused to cooperate with the Agency. His consistent refusal to allow the CIA to dictate any of the terms of MISURASATA's resistance was to lead to serious and chronic material shortages for his movement throughout the period of armed struggle.45 With the primary leaders of MISURASATA, Rivera and Fagoth, out of the country, the Sandinistas changed their tactics and began to negotiate land agreements with individual Indian communities. Eventually, Managua realized the futility of such an approach when applied to fiercely communitarian peoples who informed the government that land agreements could be reached only by all villages acting together.46 Therefore, in 1985, the Sandinistas resorted to creating their own sanctioned "Indian" organization, known as MISUTAN. For obvious reasons, this new entity was met with almost universal suspicion among Indians and ultimately established itself in only a few villages. Despite the exodus of over 20,000 Miskitos, Sumus, and Ramas from Miskitia by 1987, Managua opted to move forward with its own design for "regional autonomy" in Miskitia. The Sandinista plan was touted by supporters of the government as "the most progressive Indian policy in the hemisphere."47 It was also viewed as an indication that the Sandinistas had realized their past "errors" and were willing to make concessions to the Indians as proof. The plan, however, was all along wracked by non-cooperation and discord in the villages. A major reason for native skepticism was that, at base, the proposal simply advanced the Sandinista philosophy that all key decisions concerning Miskitia would "necessarily" fall under the purview of the central government in Managua. The powers left to Indian villages under the plan amounted to no more than administrative and consultative functions. According to the eventual "Autonomy Statute," unveiled on April 22, 1987, no original jurisdiction was vested in the Indians, other than with regard to the most rudimentary bureaucratic details.48 Issues such as territorial land rights remained unaddressed. Control of the military and police continued to be held exclusively by the central government. Decisions concerning natural resource exploitation within the "national economic strategy" were left entirely in the hands of Managua. Under the government's plan, autonomy remained explicitly "regional" (rather than national), leaving serious doubts as to whether the Indians would be able to retain control over their traditional lands if Latino immigrants, who then outnumbered Indians on a regional basis, were allowed to exercise equal political participation. In sum, Managua's autonomy plan was little different in principle from Vietnamese centrist ideology, or the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act, used by the U.S. government to politically subordinate indigenous nations within its borders. Indicative of the fact that this Sandinista posture was not the outcome of mere "confusion," in May of 1987, MISURASATA released its own autonomy proposal, in addition to a draft treaty of peace between the Indian nations and Nicaragua. The MISURASATA plan called for significantly more control by native governments, and a cooperative system of decision making with the central government on issues such as military defense and resource development. The government refused even to respond to the MISURASATA initiative.49 Enter the CIA The CIA is no stranger to Miskitia. In 1961, the town of Puerto Cabezas was used by the Agency to launch the ill-fated Bay of Pigs assault on Cuba. CIA policy in Latin America suggests that it is neither timid nor particularly secretive in its operations in the area, especially as regards Nicaragua. In the case of the indigenous struggle in Miskitia, the CIA has been interested in manipulating Indian discontent, in much the same fashion as it used the h'Mong as surrogates against Hanoi, to serve its ends in countering and destroying Sandinismo. As Brooklyn Rivera has stated, "The CIA cowboys want us to be their little Indians."50 The first motion in this direction came with the grooming of MISURASATA defector Steadman Fagoth in mid-1981. The conditions of support from the Agency to Fagoth were clear: his charisma as a Miskito leader, and as a member of the Nicaraguan Democratic Front (FDN, more commonly known as the "contras"), was to be utilized to open a military front in Miskitia with the ultimate goal of toppling the Sandinista government. From 1982 through 1984, the CIA armed and maintained Fagoth as the sole Indian leader who was trusted to do the Agency's bidding. Correspondingly, he was the only indigenous leader with access to the CIA station in Honduras. During this period, military activity along the Rio Coco increased, as did reports of human rights abuses by both the Indian contras and Sandinista troops Accounts circulated about the egomaniacal Fagoth killing anyone who opposed him, and mistreating his own personnel. In late 1984, Fagoth showed two U.S. Senate investigators a "hit list" of 12 native leaders he planned to assassinate. He claimed to have killed five already, a matter he never recanted.52 Fagoth also publicly condemned Rivera for negotiating with the Sandinistas in 1984, and threatened to kill him and anyone else who parlayed with Managua. By the end of the year, such bravado had led to his removal from leadership of the organization, MISURA (MISURASATA without the Sandinistas) that he had established. He was then exiled to Miami. As a result, in September 1985, the CIA created a new Indian contra organization known as KISAN (an acronym derived from the Spanish for "Nicaraguan Coast Unity"), to be led by Wycliffe Diego, a protégé' of Fagoth.53 The CIA's control of KISAN was complete and deliberate. Diego was on the Agency payroll, and no leaders of MISURASATA-especially Brooklyn Rivera--were allowed into Honduras to challenge his authority. Nonetheless, KISAN showed signs of failure from the outset, a situation originating in the CIA's ethnocentric inability to perceive that native unity was/is predicated in consensus and internal cultural integrity. The inevitable disintegration of KISAN occurred in 1986, with an appreciable segment of its troops spontaneously resurrecting MISURA (without Fagoth), and other groups beginning individual cease-fire negotiations with the Sandinistas.54 With their organization deserting before their eyes, the remaining KISAN leaders resorted to strong-arm tactics to maintain themselves, invading refugee camps, kidnapping Indian teenagers, and forcing them into service.55 Such methods caused some Indians to return to Nicaragua to take their chances with the Sandinista policy, rather than face the abuse of their brethren in the squalor of the camps. There is an obvious irony in the fact that it was exactly the same approach by the Pathet Lao that so greatly exacerbated tensions between them and the h'Mong. In 1987, with the looming demise of KISAN, the CIA's operatives in Honduras, in cooperation with Colonel Eric Sanchez of the Honduran Fifth Battalion Headquarters, near Morocan, invented yet a third Indian contra group, FAUCAN (derived from the Spanish for "United Armed Forces of the Atlantic Coast"). Their plan was again to bring the Indians under the unambiguous control of the CIA and Honduran military, and to insure they followed the Agency's strategy in Miskitia, subsuming their own nationalist aspirations to a "greater good."57 Support for FAUCAN was even less than that evidenced for KISAN in its final days, with front-line troops refusing to fight for an organization without an Indian agenda. Even the former MISURA and KISAN leaders failed to support FAUCAN. One native fighter put it succinctly: "We left Nicaragua because the Sandinistas didn't want us. Now we see the gringos, who are supposed to be our allies, don't really care about us either ... [O]ur interests are small compared to theirs. It seems as though they just want to use us"58 The CIA's failures in Miskitia, including that of FAUCAN, attracted international attention in mid-1987.59 This resulted in the United States making two immediate changes with respect to the Indians: First, four of the five CIA agents working in Miskitia were reassigned to other stations, and, second, the State Department assumed control over policy in this connection. But it was by then too late to salvage the Indian contra effort.60 One upshot of the State Department' s attempt to recoup the situation was a relaxation of the barriers preventing certain Indian leaders from entering Honduras for the first time in seven years. Consequently, from June 9-14, 1987, a regional gathering of all native factions (except MISUTAN) was convened in the village of Rus Rus.61 The outcome was a new, unified, indigenous organization called YATAMA, committed to pursuit of native self-determination in its own right. Brooklyn Rivera emerged as de facto head of this reconfiguration, despite strong U.S. support for the idea of a return of Steadman Fagoth. Rivera still unequivocally rejected subordination to U.S. authority: Believe me that we have been and still spend much of our time, our energy, our resources, fighting against or defending ourselves against the Contras and CIA actions against [our] organization. They have been using their influence, their funds, to divide the Indian people and to use our struggle for their own interests. They have been creating artificial organizations. They have been inventing leaders. They have even attempted to kill the MISURASATA leadership. The damage that the Contras and the CIA have effected against the Indian people, against the resistance of our people, is clear.62 On the other hand, he maintained his position of equally unequivocal rejection of subordination to the authority of the Sandinistas: One thing is certain: Our people will continue their struggle, no matter the circumstances. We will continue. Many of our young people have given their lives for our people; they have sacrificed themselves. We will continue because that is the mandate of our elders, that the young people should continue to struggle until they have liberated our land, and we can live there peacefully. Our people have a long history of struggle and resistance, and we do not trust those who attack us. So, apparently we will be forced to continue our struggle for a very long time.63 Conclusion Although the 1989 general election in Nicaragua averted such an outcome by unseating the Sandinista regime, it remained possible until that point that a prolonged war of attrition might have reduced the independent Indian fighters to a h'Mong-like dependence upon the CIA or other foreign agencies for their very survival. In that event, the contra war against Managua would have been bolstered substantially, and might have succeeded militarily. While it is not difficult to discern why the United States might have welcomed such an eventuality, the riddle of why the Sandinistas would allow themselves to follow the failed example of Vietnamese policy in this regard is much more elusive. The danger such a course posed to them seems plain enough, at least in retrospect. The solution to this seeming paradox resides perhaps most squarely within the realm of theory. Although the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) purported to be "marxist-leninist" in orientation, as did the Vietnamese and Pathet Lao revolutionaries before them, the ideologies of all three groups diverged substantially from Lenin's own writings. Concerning the so-called national question--the marxian term encompassing the self-determining aspirations of all "marginal" peoples such as the h'Mong, Miskito, Sumu, and Rama Nations--both the Vietnamese and Sandinista prescriptions appear, in simplest form, to be that all "minorities" have not only the right, but indeed an obligation to pursue sovereignty so long as they are colonized by a "reactionary state." The best route to this end, it is claimed, is for indigenous nations to join forces with "progressive sectors" within the colonizing society itself, in order to destroy the existing order. Once encapsulated within a post-revolutionary "progressive state," however, such rights mysteriously disappear; indigenous people are then duty-bound to integrate themselves into the society of their "former" colonizers. The formulation at issue comes, not from Lenin, but from Joseph Stalin,64 and finds its clearest reflection--albeit with reversed priorities--in the ideology of contemporary corporate capitalism. In either its capitalist or stalinist variants, when put into practice, such an outlook has been shown to yield an inevitably genocidal impact upon indigenous peoples.65 Confronted with the specter of their own extinction as peoples--a prospect patently bound up in their forced incorporation into some "broader" or "dominant" society--indigenous nations have no real alternative but to engage in the most desperate sorts of resistance, seeking succor and assistance (real, or only apparent) from whence it may come. The breadth and scale of this phenomenon today may be illustrated not only in the examples of the h'Mong, Sumu, Miskito, and Rama, but by the vast proliferation of similarly motivated conflicts described by Bernard Nietschmann in his article on the topic, published in Cultural Survival Quarterly.66 In contrast to the stalinist practice and perspective adopted by both the Sandinistas and Vietnamese communists, Lenin was very outspoken in his view that full rights of self-determination apply to peoples and nations in situations exactly like the h'Mong and the Indians of Miskitia (for example, the various "ethnicities" indigenous to the territory claimed by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). On this theme, Lenin wrote: Victorious socialism must necessarily establish a full democracy and consequently, not only introduce full equality of nations, but also realize the right of oppressed nations to self-determination, i.e, the right to free political separation. Socialist parties which did not show by all their activities, both now, during the revolution, and after its victory, that they would liberate the enslaved nations and build up relations with them on the basis of free union--and free union is false without the right to secede--these parties would be betraying socialism.67 He continues in this vein: The recognition of the right to secession for all; the appraisal of each concrete question of secession from the point of view of removing all inequality, all privileges, and all exclusiveness ... [L]et us consider the position of an oppressor nation. Can an oppressor nation be free if it oppresses other nations? It cannot.69 Until self-proclaimed marxist-leninist revolutionaries match their practice to such principles, their brand of "progressivism" will not be preferable to the capitalist order they seek to replace, at least insofar as the rights of indigenous peoples are concerned. To the contrary, their avowed "humane alternative" will simply represent a continuation of the process of destruction of indigenous societies ushered in by early capitalism, the "same old song" so aptly described by American Indian Movement leader Russell Means in a 1980 speech.69 One need look no further than this to discover how it is that native peoples are presently trapped between the "rock" of right-wing reaction and the "hard place" of left-wing revolution. In the interim, indigenous peoples have no choice but to continue to defend themselves, their sovereignty, and their cultural integrity, against the forces of both the right and the left. Toward that goal, they must continue to exercise the right of nations, forging alliances--including those which are temporary, desperate, or merely forced by expedience--in whatever way represents the least immediate threat to their existence. * This essay first appeared in Culrural Suntival euar~erly, Vol. II, No. 3 (Fall 1987) Notes l. This has been a guiding principle of the U.S. Army's
John F. Kennedy Special Warfare 12. Ibid., pp. 119-20. |
|
© 2004-2005
Colorado AIM Contact us at
denveraim@coloradoaim.org or
303-832-2544 |
