Jewiss, Tom --- "The Effects of Globalisation on Indigenous Communities in Latin America: Case Studies from Nicaragua" [2002] IndigLawB 11; (2002) 5(15) Indigenous Law Bulletin 4
The Effects of Globalisation on Indigenous Communities in Latin America:
Case Studies from Nicaragua
by Tom Jewiss
Using two case studies, this paper deals with the impact of globalisation on the Indigenous peoples of the Región Autonomía de Atlántico Norte y Región Autonomía de Atlántico Sur de Nicaragua, or the Autonomous Regions of Nicaragua. The paper also highlights the need to improve Indigenous peoples’ access to the legal resources that would allow them to defend themselves against the impact of globalisation.
Background
The Indigenous peoples of Nicaragua live primarily in the North and South Atlantic[1] Autonomous Regions (RAAN and RAAS respectively). This is the eastern half of the nation that comprises the continental-dividing cordillera and the tropical Caribbean lowlands. With less than 10 per cent of nation’s total population, the regions claim both an Indigenous majority and more than 95 per cent of all those Nicaraguans who self-identify as Indigenous.[2] Differences between the Atlantic and western halves of the country are profound. While politics, economics and racial attitudes are most obvious of these, it is the geographical factors of climate, natural resources and access that have played the largest role in keeping the ‘halves’ separate.
The Spanish colonised most of the Central American region in the wake of Columbus’ visits to the Americas, and subjugated local groups of Indigenous peoples. However the east coast of Nicaragua did not fall under the rule of the Spanish or their Nicaraguan successors until modern times. Internally, the region remained largely unaffected by early colonialism and was occupied and governed by the Indigenous peoples—Miskitu, Rama, Sumu or Mayangna, and later the Garifuna—before European contact and well into modern times. Late in the 19th Century the United States (‘US’), within its strategy for hemispheric domination, prevailed in the region. The region came under nominal Nicaraguan control in 1890, through the direct involvement of the US military.[3] Even then, except for quelling regular insurgencies, the national government continued to ignore its ‘backwater’ until the revolution and the Sandinista/Contra war of the 1970s and 1980s.
Near the conclusion of the Sandinista/Contra war, the Sandinista government enacted and constitutionalised autonomy laws recognising the historic, unsurrendered and essentially continuous independence of the Indigenous peoples of the region and their rights to govern.[4] The autonomy laws also recognised Indigenous systems of land tenure and community government while creating the two autonomous regions. However, the demarcation of Indigenous lands and the further development of the two regional governments were left to an uncertain future. Neither the Sandinistas nor the embryonic autonomy lasted long enough for development to mature. The succeeding governments of Violetta Chamorro and Arnoldo Alemán alternately repressed the Indigenous peoples and ignored their historic claims to sovereignty.[5] Furthermore, they did not consult the regional or local leadership in the most important areas of jurisdiction under the autonomy laws—land regimes and environmental protection—with grave implications for Indigenous peoples.
Resource Exploitation and Indigenous Communities
The Indigenous peoples live in more than 200 communities, or in smaller groups in the rainforest, and rely extensively on traditional economic activities that, in turn, depend upon a healthy and sustainable natural environment. The Indigenous systems of collective land tenure and community control of natural resources continue to offer protection for both Indigenous cultures and the environment in a modern context. However Nicaragua is a desperately poor country, and its leadership has welcomed foreign corporations proposing exploitation of its resources. The author was formerly employed by an Australian mineral exploration company that, upon application to the appropriate government ministry, was instantly awarded exclusive exploration concessions to 40 per cent of the land base of Nicaragua, most of it on the Atlantic side.[6] The attitude toward logging, agriculture and other resource sector exploitation has been similar. These concessions come from the national government with no involvement by the peoples of the Atlantic. Often the first notice that a community receives of resource activity is the sound of the bulldozers or drills in the bush near their homes.
Nicaragua has only limited free trade with its Central American neighbours. In fact, Nicaragua produces relatively little to trade in the global market, but it does have vast natural resources and cheap labour, and both are being exploited by foreign developers with rapidly increasing impact on the autonomous regions and their citizens. That the sources of the impact violate customary, regional and national law—in all areas of the natural resource sector—has not deterred the national government. With the hope of opening the nation to trade through its Caribbean shore, the government has invited proposals for such developments as harbour dredging and the so-called Eco-Canal or dry canal, a transportation corridor that would link the east and west coasts of Nicaragua. These two projects and the mainly legal, largely unsuccessful responses to them are outlined below.[7]
The Harbour at Bilwi
One concession granted by the national government has been dredging of the harbour at Puerto Cabezas (or more properly in Miskitu – Bilwi) a major supply and service point for more than 100 Miskitu communities in RAAN. A US firm, incorporated in Nicaragua as DELA s.a. (or ‘DELASA’), has been awarded a 25-year lease to expand the harbour into the most modern and best equipped port in the Caribbean.[8] DELASA has guaranteed that it will spend at least US$25 million on the project, and the total projected investment is estimated at US$200 million,[9] with implications for thousands of jobs in an area with 90 per cent unemployment. However, this plan ignores the constitutional and legislative requirements to consult with regional and local government representatives. Yet all the construction will take place on Indigenous land and water, and people will be forced out of their portside homes. Among the likely impacts are the immediate end of fishing for shallow water species and traditional oyster harvesting that has attracted investment from European Union agencies.
Legal and political strategies employed to stop the development have included a declaration by the regional government that the harbour lease is illegal, the threat of rebellion, and legal action in the form of an attempt to sue the national government in the courts of Nicaragua. But there is no funding to pay for the action, and few lawyers available. It can be predicted that the national government will ignore the declaration, as it has ignored the law, the consultation process and the resulting protest.[10] Rebellion is much more expensive than legal action, and although the will of the people is strong and their outrage at government is extreme, memories of the revolution and the futility of the neighbour against neighbour Sandinista/Contra war are too recent.
The development began in 2001 and is proceeding rapidly, as is displacement. Any legal action is likely to be ineffective and far too late. Even if a well endowed non-government organisation (‘NGO’) steps in and funds legal representation, experience suggests that it could take longer to get an injunction and enforce it than the time it will take to build the port.[11]
The Rama Community at Monkey Point
Two hundred and fifty kilometres to the south, a development known as the ‘dry canal’ has evoked numerous protests by citizens and environmental NGOs, and some rather pathetic attempts at legal action. The concept that Nicaragua offers an opportunity to move goods cheaply between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans predates the Panama Canal by more than half a century. It is a particularly appealing now that the United States has returned the Panama Canal to Panama, and interoceanic trade continues to increase. The Nicaraguan government has proposed two methods for moving goods between the oceans. One involves using the Río San Juan, Lago de Cocibolca,[12] and a train or truck connection. This proposal is considered so preposterous and expensive that it may soon be abandoned.[13] Unfortunately initial damage has already been caused to communities from exploratory work. The second scheme involves a high-speed, high-volume freight railroad that would join the country’s two coasts with deep water dredging of ports on each side. This idea is very much alive.
Monkey Point, an isolated Indigenous Rama[14] community with no road access, telephone or radio service, is one of several Caribbean communities affected by the proposal. The Rama have a traditional system of law and justice, including communal land tenure, which is protected under the autonomy legislation and the constitution.[15] The eastern terminus of the railroad would be on Rama communally owned lands, and the combined harbour and railway construction could lead to the end of their culture and society.[16] The dry canal would also bisect the internationally established and environmentally sensitive Atlantic Biodiversity Corridor.[17]
Two US-based companies were given concessions and authorised to commence feasibility studies. The invasion that followed has brought serious problems to the community. Wealthy off-shore land speculators, claiming to have purchased Indigenous titles, have begun logging on lands that are already being encroached by farming. Neither activity is sustainable in the fragile tropical ecosystems. Resistance has been met with violence, and there have been several armed attacks, assaults, rapes and at least one murder, all in a tiny community that was previously crime-free.[18]
Formal actions in Monkey Point have been quiet in comparison to those in the larger, and better serviced Bilwi. Some legal assistance has been received from the Center for Legal Assistance to Indigenous Peoples,[19] but their resources are already spread too thin. Complaints to the National Assembly’s Committee on the Environment, made by the community’s legal spokesperson, Pearl Cunningham, have met with resistance.[20] However the National Assembly has agreed that impact studies should be conducted.[21] Unfortunately such official responses are common in Nicaragua, where agreement that there is an injustice often accompanies the perpetuation of the injustice.[22]
Conclusion
Nicaragua is not unique, nor is what is happening to its autonomous regions and their communities. These examples are representative of what will happen to thousands of communities and millions of people in the Americas as global economic pressure increases and free trade agreements are implemented.
Free trade without protective measures, which is all free trade in the Americas to date,[23] threatens not just Indigenous communities, but all politically and economically marginalised communities. The forces of globalisation, increased and formalised through agreements like the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, will bring rapid, uncontrolled decline quickest to those who have the most to lose and the poorest defences. Such peoples will not be able to avail themselves of legal representation. There will be insufficient legal resources available for them in fora in which they will be hopelessly outnumbered and ‘outgunned’ by their legal opponents—governments and multi-national corporations. The situation points to an unpromising future for such communities.
Tom Jewiss is a practising lawyer, and a sessional instructor and graduate student at the College of Law and the Native Law Centre at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
[1] It is customary to refer to those sections of each Central American nation on the Caribbean Coast as ‘the Atlantic’. The term is as cultural and social as it is geographic. In Nicaragua there is a descriptive distinction between the ‘Atlantic’ and the ‘Pacific’ sides of the nation that has important political and social connotations.
[2] Socially, politically and economically, the autonomous regions are predominantly Indigenous, but poor census taking, refusal to self-identify and large discrepancies between official national government statistics and those provided by Indigenous organisations make accurate estimates impossible.
[3] The US relied on the Monroe Doctrine. This was a declaration to the US Congress on 2 December 1823 by James Monroe, the fourth President, that claimed the US had the right to interfere in matters throughout the hemisphere to protect its ‘safety’ and interests.
[4] See Estatuto de Autonomía de las Regiones de la Costa Atlántica (law number 28) (published in La Gaceta, Diario Official No 238 del 30 de octubre de 1987) Articles 11 and 36; Constitución Politica de Nicaragua con sus Reformas, Articles 5, 89 and 180.
[5] Tom Jewiss (ed), A County Profile of Nicaragua (1997) chapter 2.
[6] The company is WMC International Inc, and it partnered with US exploration companies more familiar with the region. It should be noted that this company was hardly unique with respect to being granted such concessions. Note also that while the concessions expire if not developed, they can also be renewed.
[7] For information on another more successful case study, the Awas Tingi case, see an article by the author in the next issue of the Saskatchewan Law Review.
[8] Office of President Arnoldo Alemán, Press Release (undated).
[9] La Prensa, 21-22 September 2000; EL Nuevo Diario, 21-22 September 2001
[10] Jewiss, above n 5, chapter 4.
[11] S James Anaya and S Todd Crider, ‘Indigenous Peoples, the Environment and Commercial Forestry in Developing Countries: The Case of the Awas Tingni’ (1996) 18 Human Rights Quarterly 345-367; María Luisa Acosta, ‘La Comunidad de Awastingni Demanda a Nicaragua Ante la OEA’ (June/September 1996) Wani-Revista del Caribe Nicaraguense, 24-36.
[12] This is the traditional (Indigenous) and more frequently used name for Lago de Nicaragua or Lake Nicaragua.
[13] El Nuevo Diario, 7 February 2001.
[14] The Rama are the smallest distinct group of Indigenous people in Nicaragua and one of the smallest remaining groups in Central America. There are, according to various estimates, approximately 1000 Rama, a number that seems not to have increased for many years.
[15] Above n 4.
[16] El Nuevo Diario, 27, 28, 31 March 2001; La Prensa, 29 March 2001.
[17] This has at least caught the attention of some major environmental NGOs, although it has not led to any support or funding: El Nuevo Diario, 22 March 2001.
[18] El Nuevo Diario, 22 March 2001.
[19] El Nuevo Diario, 19 April 2001.
[20] El Nuevo Diario, 25 May 2000.
[21] Ibid; El Nuevo Diario, 19 April 2001; Radio Ya (Managua, Nicaragua) 23 April 2001.
[22] This may not be as contrary or perverse as it appears. Even among incorruptible senior bureaucrats and elected officials, there is an understanding that neither the infrastructure nor the funding is available to deal with problems. Thus, announcements of action can be made at the same time that inaction continues.
[23] No free trade agreement, other than one among some of the Caribbean Basin countries (Caribbean Community and Common Market), offers more than tokenistic protection for labour and environmental rights. While this agreement does offer some social protection, as all Caribbean nations will presumably be included in Free Trade of the Americas Agreement (‘FTAA’) and the FTAA discussions have not included social protection, it is safe to say that even these very limited protections will disappear.