Puerto Lempira, capital of the remote and wild Gracias a Dios department of Honduras, is the ancestral home of the indigenous Miskitu People. Historically a roadless fishing port with little development nor electricity, it has transformed into a boom-town, host to drug traffickers, nearby military bases, and oil and gas development. In an effort to overcome this adversity, we participated in a blessing for the people and their land and culture in transition, directed by a local Miskitu sukya, or healer, and members of the community.
Ceremony to Bless the Community
Considering the economic, social and political troubles of the people of La Moskitia, it was decided a community blessing ceremony was in order. One cannot say whether this was the wish of my generous hosts or a personal request of the gringo guest, but preparations were made nevertheless. We bought food for a small feast for several families and sent four local boys into the lagoon to coat themselves in red clay.
Since the coup of 2009, life on this remote coast, far from the rest of the world, has had to confront construction of a dam on the Patuca River, significant outside incursions into protected lands in the Rio Platano and Tawahka Biosphere Reserves and the growing presence of the international drug trade. Despite military bases and police presence, crimes are not investigated, murder has become common, and food and transport, as well as the everpresent cellular phones, have become quite expensive.
Yet, for many of the Miskitu families, life remains simple but hard, work in the hot sun farming and fishing, gathering and chopping wood. Unfortunately, this subsistence-based work no longer pays for the new faster way of life in La Mosktia.
Along the Caribbean Coast, lagoons, swamps, and pine savannas dominate the landscape. One must travel upriver several days (on a slow-moving pipante with a tuk-tuk engine) to reach the tropical forests and mountains of the interior. While the coastal villages have always been influenced by the outside world and were the first to adopt electricity generators, television, and a semblance of roads, Miskitu traditions and beliefs remain steadfast for some. But things are changing fast.
Development pressures, oil and gas interests, and of course the drug trafficking, have caused numerous land conflicts in La Moskitia. The Honduran government has been moving toward recognizing Miskitu community land titles in the region, but sometimes at the expense of the privately held land owned by Miskitus. Because of a lack of governmental oversight and proper titling and deeds, considerable abuses of ancestral property rights continue to occur.
Many people told me the last time people had some money to spend and life seemed to be improving for people was before 2009 when Manuel “Mel” Zelaya was President. Ousted in a coup, a neoliberal cabal has taken over Honduras, selling everything off to palm oil barons, mega-tourism, logging, and land development interests, at the expense of indigenous or campesino rights. Facing the specter of privately run, libertarian-minded “Model Cities” proposed for locations on La Moskitia, near to Trujillo, or closer to San Pedro Sula and Puerto Cortez, Miskitu solidarity organizations have been seeking ways to protect their interests.
Can Zelaya’s wife, Xiomara Castro, capture the Presidency and change Honduras for the better? Many in La Moskitia have hope, as when the former first couple and daughter touched down in Puerto Lempira for a campaign stop, the town came alive.
Another friend reminded me that no political party can get rid of the drug trade. One other man I met wondered, as I’d heard many others express, if Xiomara wins and attempts to reform the country, what will stop them from throwing her out, just like her husband?
Yet, faith and hope are catching in the country.
We lit the flame. We burned the herbs, picked expressly to provide a blessing, cleansing of dark entries and unforeseen dangers. The blessing was given for the children, for the future, for peace and security, for Miskitu solidarity.
No guarantees. Blessings never have changed the world, but blessed people can. One thing is for sure, change will always come, and sometimes it might just be for the better.
For more impressions of La Moskitia, see Land and Lobster, Fishing for Jellyfish, and the Flooding of the Rio Kruta.
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une 3rd, 2015
We ask that you please read this Release Information and Awareness for it is not just important to us also to you, democracy and the future.
We Thank you
From the Office of:
Rev. Josephenie E. Robertson, M.T.T.
http://www.Miskitu-nation.com ????
Contacts: Gary B. C. Mitchell, Chief Advisor
Former – U.S. Naval Air Force
Senior Star Wars Technologist (LLNS)
Cameron Park, CA – Telephone 510-677-5903
Email: excallibburr@yahoo.com
GrinOlsson
Freelance Writer
Cebu-Philippines
Email: grinolsson@gmail.comGrinOlsson
Graig Brooks
Independent Media Freelance Journalist
Telephone: 510-432-1432
Email: Phibetaisthelife@gmail.com
U.N. Breaks Protection Guarantee with Central American Miskitu Nation as a result is the Chinese-Nicaraguan Canal Guise for Sandinista-Communist Alliance For Global Power?
During the Contra-Sandinista War of the 1980’s and 1990’s the Miskitu people agreed to disarmament for peace, autonomy and development under U N. protection. Our people have never been given these international protections and now we are facing genocide.
The Miskitu Matriarch, Rev. Josephenie Hendy Tawaska, Prince Carlos Rivas Thomas, Miskitu Commander, Elacio Bennet Holmes in a recorded interview pleaded, “That the cease-fire between the Contra, Sandinista and the Miskitu Nation, Peace and Autonomy contract to the Miskitu Nation under protection of the United Nations in exchange for disarmament has not and is not being fulfilled.”
The UN sent James Anaya to review the Miskitu plight. Mr. Anaya remained in Nicaragua the duration of his stay and never set foot on the Miskitu territory or spoke to our Council of Elders, leaders or citizens. He collected information about the Miskitu Nation from the Sandinista FSLN Government. Officials in Nicaragua, wrote it up, placed it in a report for the United Nations; claiming that we are ignorant, could not read or write and are incapable of governing ourselves.
We have the right to have our weapons returned to us. Currently, we have no way of defending or protecting ourselves from the invaders, we upheld our part of the agreement. The United Nations gave us a guarantee and it has not been upheld.
Furthermore, intelligent, progressive, civilized, societies do not murder and oppress the weak or those with lesser intellects. Everyone born to the planet has an inalienable right to live, with dignity, not having a gun pointed at ones face or forced to sign over ones property, with out oppression. It is inherent in our species to live in love, liberty, justice and a chance to better ourselves.
Reverend Josephenie Robertson speaks out in saying “With all due consideration to the United States, the United Kingdom (Common Wealth and Parliament), Pope and People of the world of nations; that these new transgressions created and afforded under the new Chinese-Nicaraguan (Sandinista-Communist) alliance are in direct violation of the 1860 Treaty of Managua and other American treaties regarding Central America, including the Monroe Doctrine; However, these international omissions have denied us international protection. With these words, we are now, officially appealing to you as fellow human beings, personally, individually and as groups for substantial help and support!
After spending thousands of dollars, mailing letters from Miskitu Matriarch, leaders and Nation, through international, registered and Domestic certified mail (with return receipts) to International Heads of States including United Kingdom (Common Wealth and Parliament), Central America, the UN and the Pope chose to ignore them.
Historically, Mosquitia was once a super power in Central America, an ancient Kingdom that neither the Spaniards nor anyone else ever conquered. The Miskitu Nation consists of united races and tribes- Miskitu, Rama, Guarifanos, Waikas, Afrodecendentes, Sumu, Sambos, Lacca, and Creole. Before 1492 the Miskitus were already a united sovereign nation,with their own written, spoken, and numerical language.
After 1894 under orders of United Kingdom and United States the Mosquitian Kingdom was partitioned off to the five Central American Countries and President Zelaya of Nicaragua erased their way of life, by burning and burying their history, leaders and people. Somoza followed the same tyranny.
In 1957 the Matriarch Josephenie E Hendy Tawaska, rose up and claimed the Independence of the Miskitu, published by La Prensa’s Joaquin Chamorro and later was exiled by Somoza.
Today, as the building of the Nicaraguan-Chinese canal is set in motion, the Nicaraguan and Honduran governments have severely restricted the Miskitu Nation in their respective regions to silence the Miskitu concerns. At this very moment, these two Central American governments are withholding medical supplies, cutting food rations, engaged in recent forced relocations of the Native people from their ancestral homelands to accommodate an international Chinese-Nicaraguan Canal sponsored by Daniel Ortega Wang Jing and the Republic of China. it is hard to believe that profit and political advantage are not the motivating force. The Native people are under duress, are forced to sign away their property. Without permission, notice or housing in place; restricted ingress and egress of peoples from their villages, afforded not even the basic needs, as well as keeping the people in a state of constant stress, obscene and unnecessary poverty and fear.
Our Miskitu Council of Elders, Government in exile and Nation tell us there is a great and imminent international danger in the midst from, South to Central on through North America. Incoming reports indicate that with the new Sandinista-Communist alliance the Miskitu territory is under a policy of Nicaraguan and Chinese colonists coming in and seizing Miskitu people’s properties. Mining and selling uranium from Miskitu land to Iran. Other atrocities are hidden from media. The world see’s is what Ortega wants you to you to see. Events; a phasode, that if not acted upon by the Miskitu people means certain harm even death.
The Miskitu Government in Exile seeks to educate citizens and asks the constituents, voters, human, ecological and environmental rights advocates, to ask your leaders to make a call to action for immediate naval support and intervention on behalf of our Miskitu Kingdom of peoples from the Caribbean regions of Gracias a Dios in to the San Juan River by the presence of one aircraft carrier directly positioned off of our Miskitu Coast to thwart a new Communist-Sandinista foothold.
We have been ignored, by the U S. government and British Parliament Foreign Affairs, the Common Wealth, the Pope and all other Foreign and Domestic governments; especially those governments that know of and benefit of the plunder of our Miskitu Nation’s natural resources.
When President Reagan called upon our Miskitu people to take up arms against the Sandinistas in alliance with the Contras – we were there for you as American allies. We are still here for you, but we desperately need American help.
In fact The Reagan Administration had recommendations for the restoration of our government and territorial boundaries. We come before the United States, United Kingdom and Pope to “undo” what has to be “undone” by taking responsibility for the horrific atrocities imposed upon our people, from ignoring former Miskitu national interests by attempting to appease former Nicaraguan governments in pursuit of canal interests prior to the construction of the Panama Canal. It is very noteworthy indeed.
The Royal Miskitu Family in Exile along with Pastor Earl Lee Agape Food Bank, Fraser Valley Gleaners, Have secured humanitarian aid to give our people. We need immediate safe transport in to Central America and that the aid gets to its intended destination.
Historically in the past, many believed that the United States Monroe Doctrine was created to assure there was no longer colonial exploitation of the “New World” and this “doctrine” was even applied towards the United Kingdom’s and Spanish colonies.
In today’s world, the United States’ interests are so nearsightedly focused and diverted on the Middle East and West Philippine Sea, all the while its enemies, under the disguise of business and major projects are swarming into our region and compromising America Southern defenses, with out any form of American Confrontation which by omission constitutes and is tantamount to appeasement.
Meanwhile, the Miskitu Nation are kept in constant poverty, denied any form of profit sharing, amenities, compensation or royalties from business front ventures that are media propaganda fronts for a false premise that desensitizes the actualities of setting up military bases in Central America.
In the words of Secretary of State John Kerry, “The United States Monroe Doctrine no longer exists ” therefore there’s no way to stop this tyranny? The questions are if it is truly dead then who killed it? How? Why? And, under what authority?
We are desperately asking for you people of the world, to help bring attention and action to end these violations and an investigation into Miskitu human, land, ecological and environmental violation claims.
Looking into this matter will not only help the Miskitu but the United States and Democracy as well. After all we are the back door to the security of North America!
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