In Nicaragua, a Miskito separatist movement
The Miskito indians of Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast have a history of clashes dating back to the Spanish conquest and leading through to the Contra War. More recently their coast was badly damaged by Hurricane Felix in 2007, and largely neglected by Managua in the aftermath of the storm. The Miskitos, suffering under the same exploits of other indigenous people in Latin American recently declared their independence.
The Council of Elders of the Miskito people has an extensive list of grievances. For as long local residents can remember, the federal government has allowed outside companies to exploit the raw materials in their jungle territory — everything from lobster to lumber to gold. Little benefit has come to the people who eke out a living here, they say.
Fed up, the separatists seized the region’s ruling party headquarters on April 19 and appointed Héctor Williams as their wihta tara, or great judge. Mr. Williams, a local religious leader whose thin black mustache stretches out toward his deep dimples, said the region suffered from a variety of woes — devastating hurricanes and rat plagues to a mysterious disease known as grisi siknis, which is marked by collective bouts of hysteria.
“We have the right to autonomy and self-government,” declared Wycleff Diego, the breakaway movement’s ambassador abroad, as he held up the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.