What’s happening to the Miskitos now? When I was in Nicaragua
in October 1993, church sources—the Christian Evangelical Church,
primarily, which works in the Atlantic coast—were reporting that
100,000 Miskitos were starving to death as a result of the policies
we were imposing on Nicaragua. Not a word about it in the media
here. (More recently, it did get some slight reporting.)
People here are worrying about the fact that one typical
consequence of US victories in the Third World is that the
countries where we win immediately become big centers for drug
flow. There are good reasons for that—it’s part of the market
system we impose on them.
Nicaragua has become a major drug transshipment center. A lot
of the drugs go through the Atlantic coast, now that Nicaragua’s
whole governmental system has collapsed. Drug transhipment areas
usually breed major drug epidemics, and there’s one among the
Miskitos, primarily among the men who dive for lobsters and other
shellfish.
Both in Nicaragua and Honduras, these Miskito Indian divers are
compelled by economic circumstances to do very deep diving
without equipment. Their brains get smashed and they quickly die.
In order to try to maintain their work rate, the divers stuff
themselves with cocaine. It helps them bear the pain.
There’s concern about drugs here, so that story got into the
press. But of course nobody cares much about the working
conditions. After all, it’s a standard free-market technique. You’ve
got plenty of superfluous people, so you make them work under
horrendous conditions; when they die, you just bring in others.
China
Let’s talk about human rights in one of our major trading partners—
China.
During the Asia Pacific summit in Seattle [in November 1993],
Clinton announced that we’d be sending more high-tech equipment
to China. This was in violation of a ban that was imposed to punish
China for its involvement in nuclear and missile proliferation. The