The 'Political Crisis' and Struggle for Black Autonomy in Nicaragua

• In Event: Ethnic rights: the struggle for identity politics and self-determination

Abstract

Before the recent popular uprising of Nicaraguan citizens in response to economic reforms and violent state repression that began in late April 2018, all was seemingly calm in the nation whose image abroad was of a country once plagued by civil war in the 1980s, but that had since established a reputation for peace, safety, and a growing ecotourism industry. While the state-sanctioned violence that has led to more than 450 deaths and many more serious injuries is indeed brutal and deplorable, narratives of a prior state of ‘peace’ mask both the state’s authoritarian turn that pre-dates the recent anti-government protests and the ever ongoing struggle for autonomy and against (gendered) anti-black state racism by black and indigenous groups on Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast. What is at stake for the Caribbean coast, a former British colony historically autonomous from Nicaragua prior to its military annexation to the nation in 1894, in the current political moment? Black and indigenous Costeños have mobilized in the past several months against the same corrupt and authoritarian regime as the majority mestizo Nicaraguans protesting on the Pacific side of the country. Yet, though Costeños are affected by the same forms of oppression and economic policies affecting the nation’s majority mestizo population, they continue to face the additional burdens of gendered state racism and forced assimilation into the mestizo nation-state. My paper discusses the nature of black visions of autonomy on the Caribbean coast and considers what this current political moment means for black people in Nicaragua.

Author

• Melanie White