With Indian rebels in Nicaragua

Mar 11 1986
^PM-Nicaragua-Indians
^Guerrillas Welcome in Indian Villages
An AP Extra
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
^ EDITOR'S NOTE - Andrew Selsky, a reporter for The Associated Press in Honduras, recently accompanied a group of Miskito Indian rebels to their Nicaraguan homeland by boat on the Coco River and on foot. Here is his report.

SAKLIN, Nicaragua (AP) _ About 25 heavily armed Miskito Indian guerrillas crossed a partially destroyed wooden bridge, walked past the charred ruins of several houses, and entered this Indian village just across the border from Honduras.

Villagers wearing tattered clothing greeted the rebel column with smiles, embraces and slices of cool watermelon, even though they barely had enough food to feed themselves.

The villagers told a reporter accompanying the guerrillas on a three-day trip inside Nicaragua that they would happily share anything they own with the rebels because they consider them their only protection against government troops.

In 1982, soldiers of the leftist Sandinista government forced 40,000 Indians from their homes along the Coco River in northern Nicaragua, destroyed their livestock and crops and burned entire villages to the ground in an effort to remove civilian support for the Indian rebels and to create a free- fire zone.

The government agreed last year to allow the Indians to move back to their isolated, remote homelands along the Coco. Amnesty was offered to the Indians who fled, and an autonomy program is being drawn up to meet Indian demands.

Residents of some of the six villages visited said they had received wooden planks for walls and corrugated-metal sheets for roofing from the Sandinistas, others complained that they received no building supplies and had to scavenge for material.

The villages are in the northernmost strip of Nicaragua, none more than five miles south of the river and about 200 miles northeast of Managua.

"They promised to give us houses, food, clothes, blankets - all the things we lost," said Margarita Williams, a 31-year-old mother of six. "But it's a pure lie. You can see it."

Ms. Williams, who was interviewed in the village of Wasla, about 10 miles from Saklin, said she had to rebuild her home from debris she found scattered around the ruins of her village.

"When we came back to Wasla, we found only bush, there was no village anymore," said Ms. Williams' brother, David Williams. "We didn't get any houses. We had to sleep on the ground like animals."

The government has said it is interested in providing ample supplies to residents returning to their homelands and that they need fear no reprisals. But it charges that the guerrillas operating in the area are impeding the program.

Sandinista soldiers maintain garrisons in the region, but have generally kept away from the villages since the Indians returned from their forced relocation, the residents said.

The villages the Indians left in 1982 had grass lawns that were cropped by the cattle most of the families owned. The Indians lived in simple but sturdy wooden houses perched on stilts to keep them dry during the rainy season. Groves of fruit trees kept them nourished, along with pigs, chickens and other farm animals.

When the Indians began returning last year, they found their homes, schools, churches, crops and fruit trees burned to the ground. The livestock was gone. The ruins were covered with jungle growth.

Some of them now are using plastic sheets for roofing.

"The rains will come in June, and those roofs will not last then," said Bepio Sandino Tobu, a resident of Saklin. "How will the people keep themselves dry then? They will have no protection."

Tobu said the government has given villagers seeds to grow rice, beans and grains, as well as allotments of sugar, lard, soap and salt. But he said the rations are scheduled to be cut off early this summer.

Adan Artola, the military commander of Kisan, the group of Indian guerrillas that operates in northeastern Nicaragua, said about 10,000 Indian civilians have returned to the Coco River area since last summer. About 14,000 Indians who formerly lived here remain in refugee camps in Honduras, and others are elsewhere in Nicaragua.

Kisan stands for Nicaraguan Coast Indian Unity, in the Miskito Indian language.

The memory of the relocation programs leaves little fondness here for the Sandinistas, and the guerrillas usually have relatives among the civilians.

"The boys are fighting for us," said villager Edison Washington Diaz, referring to the rebels. "I hope that one day we will be in peace and live like Indian people."

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