Abstract

Throughout the 1980’s, Nicaragua was mired in one of the many proxy wars that plagued and devastated Central America. Indigenous populations were particularly vulnerable to human rights violations, forced migration, displacement, and conscription into rank and file positions in the Contra organization. The Esquipulas Accord (1987) created the structure for the cessation of armed conflict amongst the divergent warring factions of the Contras and the Nicaraguan central government, institutionalizing regional political autonomy in historically Afro-Caribbean and indigenous territories. Subsequently, a deliberate attempt at (re)creating Nicaragua as a multicultural and multiethnic nation was enshrined in the newly promulgated Nicaraguan Constitution. The paper shares ethnographic interviews and oral histories of survivors and ex-combatants of the Contra War. Their biographical accounts illuminate their individual and collective motivation for participating in the conflict, but also reveal a present-day experience of colonization of indigenous territory, history, culture, and language. Their accounts invite critique of the collective memory of the Mestizo core community and its failure to reconcile with that of the indigenous minority of the Caribbean Coast. The legacy of conflict is evident in the discourses of contact with the illegal settlers that the Miskitu refer to as colonos. These voices of resistance and resilience expose and problematize the efficacy of regional autonomy and suggest that its realization may serve to reproduce and aggravate wartime identities.

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Presentation Type

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

Theme

Social and Community Studies

KEYWORDS

Ethnography, Oral History, Ethnic Identity, Latin American Studies

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