The effects of cocaine trafficking are gradually taking greater and greater tolls on Miskito communities such as Sandy Bay, Nicaragua. The Miskito, who have traditionally lived along the coasts of Honduras and Nicaragua, have interacted with foreigners since Europeans first arrived on their shores, cooperating with the British military and entering into business relations with outsiders. In the last few decades however, they have suffered the effects of the Sandanista-Contra War, encroachment on their lands by ladino farmers, health risks posed by lobster-diving and now the drug trade.
Ever since batches of cocaine dumped by Colombian boats on the run first washed up on Miskito shores, these communities have found their problems simultaneously worsened and improved by a business venture which has involved entire communities, from villagers to priests to policemen.
Minimal policing in the area has made the region an ideal point of transport for cocaine en route to California. Profits derived from the sale of this cocaine are divided among the community -- providing the funds for improved churches, new houses, cattle, and better speedboats.
With the good, however, has come the bad. In Puerto Cabezas, 35 percent of secondary students reported having used cocaine by 1993. Theft has become increasingly common in communities where traditional homes have windows with no glass and doors are left unlocked.
Lobster divers -- already facing growing health risks as they must dive deeper and deeper as the shores are over fished -- use cocaine to dive deeper and for longer periods of time, increasing the risk of paralysis, which occurs in 20 percent of divers. Death occasionally results. Oftentimes, the lobster tails acquired are simply traded for more cocaine with Colombian boats.
Today, elders wish to reverse the communal decision to engage in the drug trade but are finding that their words fall on deaf ears.
The poor of the world are arguably the most vulnerable to the perils of the drug trade. Throughout the world, indigenous peoples are consistently denied equal access to education, health services, land rights, and the means of subsistence, placing them among the poorest people in the world. It would seem that the Miskito have fallen prey to such forces in Nicaragua.
