[News] Ward Churchill: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

[News at freedomarchives.org]

This is a well researched, historical piece that explains Ward Churchill's 
position on the Indigenous struggles in Laos and Nicaragua. More complex 
than the caricature used to attack his views and worth the read!


This essay first appeared in Cultural Survival Quarterly, Vol. II, No. 3 
(Fall 1987)


Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Left-Wing Revolution, Right-Wing Reaction, and the Destruction of 
lndigenous Peoples'

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,
The Political Economy of Human Rights

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 Vietnamese 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 alternatives 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
Miskitia in an effort to "integrate fully Indians into the Sandinista Front"
(1979-89)39
    *  Implementation of literacy and medical programs which disregarded or 
ignored the needs and cultural traditions of the Indians. The regional 
literacy campaign was begun in Spanish, even though the predominant 
languages there are native and English (198~-81).
    * Unilateral natural resource exploitation policies which denied 
Indians access to much of their traditional land base and severely 
restricted their subsistence activities (1979-89).
    * The arrest and imprisonment of the entire MISURASATA leadership, and 
withdrawal of recognition of the organization, which was arguably the only 
representative indigenous political entity in Miskitia (1981).
    * The military occupation, bombing, or deliberate destruction of over 
half of all Miskito and Sumu villages in the region, and the conscription 
of Indian youth into the Nicaraguan military (1980-89).
    * Forced removal of at least 10,000 Indians from their traditional 
lands to
    * "relocation centers" in the interior of the country, and destruction 
of their villages (1982-87).
    * Embargoes and blockades against native villages known to support 
self-determination (1981-89).
    * The death, disappearance, or imprisonment of hundreds of Indians 
attempting to secure an autonomous homeland for their nations (1981-89).
    * Unilateral imposition of an "autonomy process" without adequate 
participation of all Indians affected, and without provisions sufficient to 
guarantee native self-determination (1985-89).

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
School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, since its inception.
2. Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, After the Caraclysm: Posnvar 
Indochina and
the Reconstrucrion oflmperial Ideology, The Politicnl Economy ofHuman 
Rights, Vol. II
(Boston: South End Press 1979), p. 25.
3. Nina S. Adams, "Patrons, Clients, and Revolutionaries: The Laotian 
Search for Inde-
pendence, 1945-1954," in Laos: War andRevollction, Nina S. Adams and Alfred 
W. McCoy,
eds. (New York: Harper and Row, 1970), p. 363.
4. Noam Chomsky, "The Wider War," in his For Reasons ofStare (New York: 
Vintage Books, 1973),p. 180.
5. Guy Morechand, "The Many Languages and Cultures of Laos," in Laos: War 
and Revolution, op. cit., p. 32.
6. Richard S. D. Hawkins, "Contours, Cultures, and Conflict," in Laos: War 
and Revolution, op. cit., p. 6.
7. Guy Morechand, op. cit, p. 32.
8. Alfred W. McCoy, "French Colonialism in Laos: 1883-1945," in Laos: War and
Revolution, op. cit., p. 77. 9. Ibid., p. 98.
10. Nina S. Adams, op. cit., p. 110.

12. Ibid., pp. 119-20.
.


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