Word: miskito
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...reported bloodbath in Leimus, in which as many as 50 Miskito Indians were shot or drowned, was part of an operation ordered by the Sandinista high command in Managua to evacuate a zone some 50 miles deep on the Nicaragua-Honduras border from Santa Isabel eastward along the Coco River to the coast. Beginning in mid-December, Sandinista forces evacuated or burned between 25 and 40 Miskito villages, allegedly killed an estimated 200 inhabitants and resettled 8,500 to 10,000 more at internment camps in the Nicaraguan interior near Rosita and Siuna. Reason for the Sandinista campaign: the Miskitos...
...Everybody has the same story," said Tom Hawk, the director of the overflowing United Nations-sponsored refugee camp at Mocoron, Honduras. "You hear it again and again." The camp is in a muddy meadow of thatched lean-tos surrounded by jungle. It has become home for 5,100 Miskito Indians who fled across the border into Honduras. Another 3,000 to 5,000 are expected in coming weeks. Food shipments are infrequent, and many of the refugees had not eaten in three days when Willwerth visited...
...Sandinista operation was the regime's first concerted military effort to neutralize the Miskito minority, which makes up some 4% of Nicaragua's population of 2.7 million and occupies most of the country's vulnerable northeast region. The Sandinistas fear that the porous Honduras border, and the 336-mile Caribbean coastline, might eventually be used as a staging area for an invasion led by anti-Sandinista units. The forcible resettlement of the Miskitos was designed to prevent them from providing food, shelter and intelligence to the anti-Sandinistas. Whatever the reason, the Sandinista action against the Indian...
Besides those killed or forced to abandon their homes, 160 Miskitos were jailed in the coastal town of Puerto Cabezas and 71 were found guilty of counterrevolutionary activity. Early in February the northern part of the department of Zelaya was declared a "military security zone." Even so, the Managua government still has cause for concern. A small but growing number of Miskito refugees who have escaped into Honduras are arming for revenge...
...tension between the Miskitos and the Sandinistas has been growing for some time. After the Sandinistas came to power in 1979, they initiated ambitious reform programs to improve conditions of health care and literacy among the Miskitos. Sandinista volunteers and Cuban cadres made some headway, but the Indians soon bridled at the accompanying ideology-and the fact that literacy classes were initially held only in Spanish. Disgruntled Miskito leaders quickly became a major nuisance for the Sandinistas. Suspecting growing separatist sentiments among them, Sandinista forces last year arrested 33 Indian leaders, and shortly thereafter four government soldiers and four Miskitos...