Miskito Indians Reject Sandinistas’ Demand

Talks aimed at ending Nicaragua’s Indian insurgency hit an early snag Tuesday when the Indians rejected a government demand that they publicly oppose further U.S. aid to the Contras.

The dispute surfaced on the first day of peace talks here between Interior Minister Tomas Borge and a Miskito Indian group led by Brooklyn Rivera, who has broken with the Contra movement to negotiate on Indian rights.

Armstrong Wiggins, an aide to Rivera, said Indian negotiators were surprised by Borge’s opening position. He said the minister was blocking a promised visit by Rivera and his negotiating team, who returned from exile Saturday night, to their Atlantic coastal homeland uness they urge the U.S. Congress to vote against new aid to anti-Sandinista rebels.

No Comment From Borge

Borge, whose ministry governs the coastal region, did not comment publicly on the government position.

It appeared to underscore the Sandinistas’ determination to use the Indian visit to sway the vote set for next week on a Reagan Administration request for about $36 million in Contra aid.

“We did not come here to be used like this,” Wiggins said during a midday recess in the talks at the Moravian Church. “We came to speak with our people so we can negotiate in their interest. Then if we see that the government is serious about Indian rights, we might take a position on what the Congress should do.”

Rivera’s eight-member negotiating team, claiming to speak for 2,400 guerrillas and 30,000 exiles, returned to Nicaragua from Costa Rica after President Daniel Ortega invited them to visit the coast and open peace talks without prior conditions. But since they arrived, Indian negotiators say, Borge has tried to impose conditions.

On Monday night, Borge sent word that four American Indian rights activists who are advising Rivera’s group should leave Nicaragua. In the talks Tuesday, however, both sides indicated a willingness to compromise on allowing two of the advisers to stay.

The four are Bernard Nietschmann, a geography professor at UC Berkeley; Glenn Morris, a Denver University law professor; Steven Tullberg, an attorney for the Indian Law Resource Center in Washington; and Jim Anaya, a representative of U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, (D-Mass.).

CIA Overtures Resisted

The Miskitos began fighting the Sandinista government in 1981 and became loosely tied to the Contra movement launched that year in western Nicaragua. Indian rebels have received a small share of U.S. Contra aid allotments but resisted CIA overtures to join the Nicaraguan Resistance, as the Contra coalition is now known.

In turn, Rivera has broken with other Indian rebel leaders, who are against holding their own peace talks now.

Rivera has always emphasized Indian rights over the Contra goal of ousting the Sandinistas. He seeks local self-rule and collective ownership of the coastal region’s natural resources for Miskitos and four other indigenous minorities.

The Miskito leader got a warm welcome from a multi-ethnic congregation of 200 coastal natives at the Moravian Church service here Sunday. Norman Bent, the Moravian pastor, called Rivera’s homecoming “a cause for great celebration” and led a prayer for the success of peace talks, which the church is mediating.