An organisation that supports the revolution and defends the Miskito people In July of last year, a new Miskito organization was founded in Nicaragua, the MISATAN, which seeks to solve the problem of autonomy and of those who lack title to the land they work, through negotiations with the government.
Oscar Hodgson, MISATAN's secretary for international relations, toured West Germany in January of this year. After a forum of the Nicaragua Committee in Hamburg, he gave the following interview to Was Tun, the paper of the German section of the Fourth International.
Question. Can you tell us something about yourself and your political functions?
Answer. I come from Waspam on the Rio Coco. At the time of the victory of the revolution, I was a student. I realized then that there was a need for work on the Atlantic Coast. So, I decided to do work there in the Ministry of Health. As a representative of the Indian communities, I began working for the FSLN.
Then, as a representative of the eastern regions, I entered the government and started working on the problems of the Miskitos. The obvious question is why I specifically represent the Miskitos now. The reason is that the Indian communities on the Atlantic Coast elected me as their representative in an assembly, because they saw me as some one who really defended the interests of the Miskitos. So, at the moment I am MISATAN's secretary for international affairs.
As an organization, we take a critical attitude to the government, but we also defend the revolution, we defend the rights of the native people, we defend everything that leads to the extension of these rights.
Q. Why did you form a new Miskito organization, and who took the initiative in this process?
A. The initiative came from the Miskitos in Nicaragua. I Today, 45,000 Miskitos live in Nicaragua and they have to face a lot of problems, the war and the fact that they are now living away from their home territory, in the interior of 26
Nicaragua.
We also believe that this organization had to be founded at the demand of the Miskito people in order to solve the problems of health, education and the land.
So, on July 22, 1984, at an assembly of 63 Indian communities from Zelaya Norte the organization was set up. Its primary demand was to reunite the Miskito families. You have to understand that we Miskitos are now split up. There are 18,000 Miskitos in Honduras and 3,000 in Costa Rica. That is a problem for our people, and we think that it is one of the first things that has to be solved. So, at the moment it is also an important part of our work to publicize this problem internationally and bring pressure on the government of Honduras and its armed forces to make it possible for those Miskitos who so wish to return home.
Another task of our organization today is to press the demand that our government give us title to our tribal lands. Another difficulty here is that these lands are not suited to agricultural production. But there are some minerals, and we are working out conditions for exploiting them in accordance with a policy corresponding to the needs of the native people.
So, the organization is concerned to an extent with the land and with a plan for autonomy, a project for a general settlement of the Atlantic Coast question. By a "general" solution, I mean that the Atlantic Coast is not inhabited only by native people but also by Creoles and Latinos, who have their own special problems. In order to come up with a thor-