This important joint investigative report done by Onda Local, La Prensa and Connectas provides important background and update to the situation of the indigenous communities in the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua, who in spite of having titles to communal land, are constantly being harassed, killed and forced off that land by armed mestizo groups with the implicit backing of government authorities.
The invasion of settlers which forces indigenous to flee their homes
In Connectas, February 2024
Despite the strong presence of the Army of Nicaragua in the zone, armed groups have invaded more than a million hectares of indigenous land in the Caribbean Coast. Many of them in protected areas, where they exploit natural resources and are causing a forced displacement of the inhabitants who ancestrally have lived in these territories.
Two men appear at the entrance of the indigenous community of Polo Paiwas on the banks of the River Waspuk in the Northern Nicaragua Caribbean. Their mestiza appearance betrays them. They are not from this area. They use rubber boots, blue pants, and shirt. Both are full of mud and by the tools they are carrying, pass themselves off as two artisan miners who in the afternoon of this Sunday in August 2015 are passing through this community to rest.
“Do you have a little water you can give me?”, asked one of them.
“Yes,” responded an indigenous.
“Thank you,”.
“Where are you from?”
“We come from the mines. We were out working and now we are heading for home.”
They finish the glass of water and after resting a few moments, these strangers leave. The next Sunday they once again pass through the community, and in addition to water, ask for a little bit of food in another one of the neighboring houses. And likewise, one week later. They passed through several Sundays and their presence became daily. Some indigenous invited them to go into their homes and to share with their families until one day they quit coming.
Two months later, on October 29, 2015, a group of armed men dressed as soldiers and with AK47 rifles came to the community. Another group came out of the forest and frightened the community members, while others came out of the western side of the hamlet. The community was surrounded.
“These lands no longer belong to you. Get out of here,” said one of the men, apparently the leader of the group, while he walked between the homes shooting gun bursts into the air. On hearing the shots, the community members began to run afraid for their lives. The only escape was to seek refuge in the forest or try to flee upriver toward the neighboring community of Klisnak.
While the indigenous fled, the invaders searched home by home to evict their inhabitants. Among the armed men the natives recognized the two men who passed as miners and arrived every Sunday to socialize with them. “What they had come to do was to see how many families were in the community, whether there were men, whether there were weapons, what time they would go out to their plots of land. They came to investigate,” said a Miskita leader who lived in Polo Paiwas and requested anonymity out of fear of reprisal.
This Mískita remembered that that day several community members were opposed to abandoning their properties. Some even tried to defend themselves with hunting rifles, like the case of the only fatal victim of that invasion, the young man Germán Martínez Fenley, who was gunned down by the bullets of the invaders. To be certain that no one stayed in the zone, they burned the homes and crops and killed their animals.
A similar experience Florentina Wilson lived through from the community of Wiwinak. That same year, a group of some 30 armed men came to that community to evict its inhabitants. According to her, some invaders arrived on horseback and others on foot. Some dressed as civilians and others in military clothing. They carried AK47 rifles, the official weapon of the Army of Nicaragua, in addition to shotguns and 12 and 22 caliber weapons. They came into the community shooting. “They said some bad words and they began to shoot. When they saw that the people were crossing the river and fleeing, they burned all the houses, “said Wilson, 44 years of age.
But this is not just an old problem, because the invasion of indigenous lands in Nicaragua persists to these days. A leader of the Mískito ethnic group stated that in 2023 only in the Wangky Twy Tasba Raya territory in Waspam, in the Northern Caribbean, which includes 21 indigenous communities, armed third parties took over more than 25,000 hectares of the communities of Francia Sirpi, Wisconsin, Esperanza Rio Wawa and Santa Clara.
According to the data provided by the indigenous themselves, since 2009 when the first invasions were reported, invaders have taken over approximately 1,750,000 hectares of indigenous lands in the Nicaraguan Caribbean Coast (equivalent to 36% of total land). In other words, an average of 125,000 hectares a year. Likewise, until 2023 they recorded 76 indigenous killed during the invasions.
Amaru Ruiz, environmentalist and Director of the Fundación del Río, an organization dedicated to the preservation of the environment and made illegal by the Government of Nicaragua in 2021, points out that the data on invaded hectares could even be higher due to the fact that it is very difficult to measure those lands with precision, above all because the access to the zone is complicated by the presence of these armed groups.
Nevertheless, Ruiz explains that the deforestation is an indicator of those invasions, because once they take over those lands, the armed people are responsible for turning them into pasture land to sell those properties to third parties, or they devote them to activities like ranching or mining.
Loss of forest cover:
In the Global Forest Watch platform which shows satellite images of the forests of the world, it is possible to see the advance of the deforestation in the Nicaraguan Caribbean. Between January 21, 2022 and January 21, 2024 the platform registered 6,664,313 deforestation alerts in the Northern Caribbean and another 763,991 in the Southern Caribbean.
That same platform shows that between 2009 and 2022 in the Nothern Caribbean 524,000 hectares of forest cover were lost, while in the Southern Caribbean there were 404,000 hectares lost, which adds up to a total of 928,000 hectares. This figure can help to indicate, in part, the advance of the deforestation caused by the invaders, Ruiz points out.
THE INTERESTS BEHIND A LONG-STANDING INVASION
The invasion of indigenous lands goes back to the 1990s, a postwar stage in Nicaragua where members of the Sandinista Popular Army and the guerrillas known as the Counterrevolution, who were at war for ten years, received lands in the Caribbean Coast once they demobilized as part of the peace process. They brought the first economic activities to the region, above all ranching and the extraction of wood.
In 1998 the Interamerican Human Rights Court ruled that the State of Nicaragua, presided over by Arnoldo Alemán, had violated the rights of the Mayangna indigenous community of Awas Tingni, after granting a wood concession to the Solcarsa corporation, which was prohibited by law. That concession resulted in the fact that other people went into the zone taking over plots of land to devote them to activities of ranching, farming and mining, among others.
The International Human Rights Court obliged the State to demarcate the lands of the indigenous, which resulted in the creation in 2003 of Law 445, known as the Law for the Communal Property Regime of the Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Communities. In that norm five stages are established to recognize the rights of the indigenous over those lands, which are: presentation of the request, solution of the conflict, measuring and marking borders, titling and remediation.
Despite the approval of that law, the invasion of third parties continued in the zone during the government of Enrique Bolaños, between 2002 and 2007. Once Daniel Ortega came to power in 2007, the invasion and violence in the indigenous communities increased, with 2015 being the most violent, the year in which Polo Paiwas and Wiwinak werre invaded.
According to the Center for Justice and Human Rights in the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua, that year there were 35 indigenous murdered by settlers and a report of this organization in the year 2021 pointed out that up to that date there were 3,008 indigenous displaced to other communities by the invasion of third parties of their lands.
According to the sociologist and investigator Elvira Cuadra, complying with what is established in Law 445 would not necessarily put an end to the indigenous land invasions, but it would provide the indigenous with better arguments to reclaim them with property titles in hand before a court.
“Law 445 is there, but its implementation does not exist,” points out a leader of the Mayangna ethnic group, another one of the peoples affected. This indigenous points out that in nine Mayangna territories, up to now, there are 23 artisan mines made by invaders who arrived in their communities since 2012. According to the count of the Mayangnas, there are some 8,000 invading families in their territories.
In the Nicaraguan Caribbean 48,399 square kilometers belong to indigenous communities, occupying 32% of the national territory. These lands cannot be taxed and are immune from seizure, inalienable, and imprescriptible, according to what is described in Law 445.
The Northern Caribbean is much larger than the Southern Caribbean: it has a total of 32,159 square kilometers. It has navigable and abundant rivers like the Wawa, Kukalaya, Prinzapolka and Coco. And the most important gold deposits of the country, located in the municipalities of Siuna, Bonanza, and Rosita, known as the Mining Triangle. In addition, the zone has forest and marine resources.
For the indigenous these are ancestral lands which include even part of the Honduran Caribbean Coast. All this was colonized by the British, and before it became a part of Nicaragua, the indigenous had a monarchical model and called their territory the Moskitia Nation. In 1894 the territory was annexed to Nicaragua and another part to Honduras. Their monarchy disappeared and it was not until the middle of the decade of the 80s of the XX Century that the peoples of the Caribbean Coast began to enjoy autonomy.
In addition to being furrowed by several rivers, the Nicaraguan Caribbean Coast has broadleaf forestry masses of precious wood, mountains and exotic animals (some in danger of extinction) where thousands of indigenous communities of Miskito, Mayangna, Ulwa and Rama Creole original peoples live; in addition to the Garifuna and Mestizo Afrodescendent peoples, who live on indigenous lands.
Many of these communities are in protected areas like the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve in the Northern Caribbean, recognized as such by UNESCO in 1997 and popularly known as the “lungs of Central America”; and the Indio Maíz Biological Reserve in the Southern Caribbean. Even though they are protected areas, the invaders enter these areas in the full view and knowledge of the authorities.
These are inhospitable zones where most of the indigenous do not have access to electric, potable water, internet or communications. “We live off the forest, off of what our mother earth gives us. We are one with the land. Without land we are nothing,” explained a Rama Creole leader, whose territory is located in the Southern Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua.
This indigenous pointed out that the principal problem of the communities in their territory is the invasion on the part of third parties. The Rama Creole, like the other ethnic groups, live principally off of fishing, farming and hunting, but after the arrival of the invaders, animals have begun to get scarce in the zone because they are hunted, and their meat sold in other zones of the country. This has generated hunger and scarcity among the indigenous of the zone.
“The people who are coming in do so to grab up more land and sell it, to do ranching. When they want to make pastures, they cut down the trees and plant grasses. They leave the wood to rot,” criticized the Rama Creole leaders, and added that when the indigenous want to use the wood to repair their homes or boats, the authorities tell them that they cannot use it because it comes from a protected zone, “but they do not say anything to the settlers who are those who are cutting down all these trees.”
INACTION OF THE ARMY IN A ZONE WITH A MILITARY PRESENCE
According to the River Foundation [Fundación del Río], in the Southern Caribbean Coast the principal activities carried out by the invaders are deforestation, ranching and mining.
Even in the Indio Maíz Biological Reserve, this organization has detected more than 100 points of artisan mining extraction, despite the fact that it is a protected area. Artisan mining is carried out in front of the eyes of the Army and authorities of the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (MARENA).
The environmentalist Amaru Ruiz, of the River Foundation, exemplified this with the case of the Las Cruces mine, whose operations began in 2022. It is located just 7 kilometers from the Boca de San Carlos military base, where there is also a post of the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources.
To get to that point, you have to navigate through the Río San Juan and the departure of all the boats who want to navigate it is controlled from the military base. They have to pass through a checkpoint and leave their personal data. From that place the soldiers control those who move in the zone and those who do not, as well as who enters and leaves the area. “They know the situation. They cannot say that they do not know anything,” points out Ruiz.
On the other hand, in the Northern Caribbean, Ruiz points out that 42% of the Mayangna territory Sauni As is dedicated to artisan mining by the invaders. There are other territories which are also being used for ranching and wood extraction. According to the environmentalist, up to now more than 3,000 cubic meters of wood has been extracted, which would be enough to fill trucks along the entire Panamerican Highway of Central America, from Guatemala to Panama.
All these activities are also controlled by the Army in the Northern Caribbean Coast, indicates Ruiz, because in the zone there are several military checkpoints which always check every boat or truck which enters or leaves the zone.
For this investigation Colonel Álvaro Rivas was contacted, the Chief of the Public Relations office of the Army of Nicaragua, to get to know his version on this situation. But no response was received by the close of this report.
The military presence was able to be confirmed during the reporting done in the zone, where it was very easy to note troops of the Ecological Battalion of the Army, whose mission is to protect the areas of protected forests, natural reserves and water sources of the country. But contrary to this task, they instead facilitate deforestation and illegal activities of third parties in this zone, Ruiz indicates.
“The Ecological Battalion of the Army takes more care of the cows than the indigenous and Afrodescendent communities,” he states, and adds that these groups act with impunity. “Right now we know of no case of settlers processed who have entered these territories,” he mentions.
For her part, a Miskita leaders who lives by this zone says that the checkpoints of the Army are to “monitor” the indigenous, so they do not try to recover their lands or move toward the invaded communities. “Previously you could enter the territory and perform tasks, but now you do not walk two kilometers when they already have begun to monitor you and ask where you are going. You have to show them your bags, purses. Everything,” she described.
For Ruiz it is evident that there are economic interests behind the invasions of indigenous lands. “The invasions are not spontaneously generated, but because there are interests in the protected areas and the natural resources of the Caribbean Coast,” he commented.
Some of these resources are gold, wood, water and land, which is very fertile in that zone of the Central American country. “Those economic interests are behind the invasion processes and those interests are right now what are keeping the regime of Ortega Murillo in power,” denounced Ruiz, who is convinced that the State of Nicaragua is involved in the land invasions because “it permits this model of looting and dispossession to exist in those territories.”
The environmentalist also indicates that many of the armed invaders are “demobilized members of the Army and the Counterrevolution who are connected to illicit activities, land trafficking, human rights violations of indigenous, invasion and occupation devoted to extractive mining.” Their way of protecting themselves is arming themselves and they do it with the complicity of the authorities, he points out.
On her part, the sociologist Elvira Cuadra also thinks that there is complicity of the State in these invasions. “The settlers (invaders) are one of the major actors, but there are also others who are important. Some of them are the large landowners who are pushing the settlers to displace the indigenous and on the other hand, the State which always has acted avoiding its responsibility to protect the indigenous communities and to protect their rights,” she points out.
A COMMON PATTERN AT THE MOMENT OF INVADING
According to the Attorney General of the Republic´s Office (PGR), property titles have been given for 25 indigenous territories which include 315 communities. Nevertheless, the Alliance of Indigenous and Afro descendent Peoples of Nicaragua (APIAN) maintain that the State of Nicaragua has not fully honored these collective property titles by not implementing the Remediation Stage established in Law 445, referring to the Communal Property Regime.
The indigenous organization adds that “remediation consists in determining the rights of the people within the indigenous territories who claim property rights; which has resulted in the fact that the titling process has been turned into an inconclusive process, undercut by violence, created by armed settlers who invade the indigenous territories; and by third parties who have remained in titled territories.”
The indigenous lawyer Becky McCrea states that the stage of remediation is the principal demand of the communities; but the lack of fulfillment of the State has brought in serious consequences and irreparable damages, like the murder of community members and the indigenous defenders who have fought and resisted for the respect of their rights.
Esteban Gofrey Martínez, communal chief of Klisnak, expects that the State comply with the territorial remediation. “Our mother earth is completely destroyed; we do not have land. Our government is not concerned about our indigenous race. We are completely isolated, abandoned.”
Meanwhile, the stories of the indigenous leaders from different ethnic groups consulted for this investigation let it be known that the invaders have configured a pattern at the moment of invading the communities. First, they investigate for a time, which can be days or weeks, and then they show up armed to evict the inhabitants. Whoever resists, is killed. They burn everything that there is in the community and transform the use of the soil to make pasture lands or ranches.
They also deforest the zone and plant grass for the cattle that they bring in, despite the fact that much of these territories are protected areas, where ranching activity is illegal.
Mediating with the invaders is nearly impossible. After the settlers took over more than 25,000 hectares of indigenous territory in 2023, an indigenous leader who asks for anonymity says that this past December, he and a group of indigenous tried to peacefully approach the armed men to reach an agreement and so they might give them back their land.
They did this because every time they denounced the theft of their lands to the authorities, no one paid them any attention, and tired of being ignored, they decided to act on their own.
The morning that they went to talk to the invaders, the indigenous were afraid. They thought that as soon as the settlers saw them, they would shoot at them. On arriving, the indigenous walked in with their hands up so they would see that they were disarmed.
“We just want to talk!”, shouted the Miskito leaders, while the armed men aimed their rifles at them.
“What do you come here to do?”, asked the leader of the invaders.
“We just want to talk and reach an agreement.”
“All right. Talk”.
“This plot of land does not belong to you.”
“If this was your land, you would be working it. But since no one is working it, we came in to work it.”
“Let´s go to the courts, then,” suggested the Miskito.
“I don´t have anything to do with the courts. This land is mine. Get out of here. There is nothing to talk about.”
The indigenous were not able to reach an agreement and out of fear that they would be shot, they decided to leave. They, like the thousands of indigenous evicted from the Caribbean Coast of Nicaraguan, are resigned to losing their lands.
