"NICARAGUA’S FAILED REVOLUTION THE INDIGENOUS STRUGGLE FOR SANEAMIENTO", April 2020

This report, based on field research conducted in 2018 and 2019 compiles dozens of first-hand testimonies from members of the communities – who have been subject to multiple murders, kidnappings, violence, and intimidation, linked to land invasions for mining, cattle ranching, and the exploitation of forests. The Caribbean Coast Autonomous Regions are particularly affected and targeted by settlers and land grabbers.

Since 2015, 40 Indigenous People have been killed, dozens injured and kidnapped and some missing, in cases related to land invasions. Thousands have had to flee their homes. Displaced from the forests and the lands where they have farmed, hunted, and fished for generations, they now face hunger and disease. Yet, Nicaragua is often seen as a world leader in the granting of land rights to native peoples...

One of the logging concessions became the basis for a dramatic shift in the legal status of Indigenous and Afrodescendant lands in Nicaragua and throughout Latin America. The Mayangna community of Awas Tingni sued the Nicaraguan government over a logging concession in its traditional lands, and after years of litigation, the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights decided in favor of Awas Tingni in a binding 2001 decision. The Court ordered Nicaragua to communally demarcate and title these lands...

In addition to mining, logging and cattle ranching has also devastated the Indigenous land rights...

Nicaragua has the largest cattle-raising industry in Central America. The autonomous regions are the departments with the highest concentration of cattle and where most of the expansion has been happening...