Of Hegemony and Humanitarianism

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Of Hegemony and Humanitarianism

By Jonathan Constantine | 09/27/08 | 03:46 PM EDT | 0 Comments

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The following article is apart of a series about a U.S. Navy humanitarian mission I observed this August and September.

Hurricane Felix devastated the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua in August 2007

(Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua): "We were very well received," said registered nurse and Navy Lt. Cmdr Vicky Hayward upon the U.S. Navy and their augmenters arrival in the Atlantic Coast City of Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua. "Everyone gave us hugs and they were all very grateful." Passionately idealistic about the transcendent duty of RNs, she continued as she showed me the medical sites at the ad-hoc hospital created at Juan Comenius High School: "You are taking care of moms and dads, it makes you feel good. The staff leaves better and it gives you new found appreciation of being military. As a nurse you provide the same services no matter who you are." The U.S. run hospital was established to provide general care needs for the Miskito Indians, a people whose homes were devastated last year by Hurricane Felix and largely neglected by the "Spanish" west in Managua.

A U.S. sailor helps an elderly Miskito woman to the optometry center. At Juan Comenius, The Navy and its augmentees treated patients with general family care and education, as well as dental and eye care.

Optometrist Lt. Megan Reiman and other eye doctors from the U.S. Navy treated patients for among other ailments cataracts, glaucoma, and ptyerigium. The Navy also distributed eye, reading, and sunglasses.

Lt. Cmdr Joe Zagame from the USPHS distributed 1000's in pain relief and comfort care prescriptions to patients in Nicaragua.

Also augmenting Operation Continuing Promise were volunteers from Project Hope.

A U.S. sailor weighs a Nicaraguan child as a part of the general care process. All children were treated in a de-worming process.

I specifically quote "Spanish," because I would constantly hear it invoked among the Miskitos as it demonstrates the racial and linguistic divide in the region. In providing basic care, the military appropriately prepared for the mission by staffing the USS Kearsarge with Spanish linguists. During the initially stages of the mission, however, they quickly realized that many Miskitos couldn't speak or were deferential to not speaking Spanish.

The U.S. Navy found two young Mormon missionaries who helped facilitate the three-way translation process with patients and military doctors: Miskito to Spanish to English/English to Spanish to Miskito.

I saw this prideful deference simply demonstrated at the local RubÃ©n Dario elementary school ironically honored for the country's legendary poet, who notably griped against the increasing American influence in the South at the turn of the 19th century. His poem "A Roosevelt" (1905) was a scathing vituperative lyric on then Pres. Theodore Roosevelt:

Eres los Estados Unidos,
eres el futuro invasor
de la AmÃ©rica ingenua que tiene sangre indÃgena,
que aÃºn reza a Jesucristo y aÃºn habla en espaÃ±ol

You are the United States
you are the invader of the future
of the naive America that has Indian blood
and that still prays to Jesus Christ and that still speaks Spanish.

On the walls of the classrooms were not the eloquent Spanish verse that dictated from the pen and parchment of Mr. Dario, but rather the alphabet and a numbering system that oddly signifies 6 rather than 10, as the smallest two-digit number. Similarly, the people of the semi-autonomous Atlantic Coast also rejected the markedly animus verbage of the Nicaraguan poet, and received the Americans with collective admiration.

Miskito not Spanish, the language spoken in the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua, is primarily taught in area schools. Pictured above is the Miskito numbering system in a classroom at the RubÃ©n Dario School.

One of the patients at the makeshift hospital, Truman Rivera, an ardent anti-Sandinista, a proscribed Contra veteran, and self-described "freedom fighter" explained to me that the Miskito people "feel like brothers with the American people." Recounting of what often seemed like battlefield tall tales (stating that he shot down a female Russian fighter pilot), and others that appeared grotesquely true (he showed me his mangled toes, broken by pliers from his captors in a Sandinista prison), he proudly and repeatedly reminded me that he was named after America's 33rd President, Harry Truman. "They called me Hiroshima bomb," he told me in the spirit of his own tough as nails personality in comparison to the President's decisiveness in ending the Second World War. But Truman's more sincere admiration came from watching his people receive the essential comfort care and pain medication that Americans can simply purchase on drug store and grocery store shelves everyday. Observing some of the over 11,000 Nicaraguans treated, Truman was reminded of the earlier days of American commercial presence in the region, explaining to me that the doctors who arrived with American workers were so benevolent in treating natives free of charge.

Truman Rivera, a veteran of the Nicaraguan Civil War, discusses with me the political and economic conditions of the Miskito people.

Conversely, in Nicaragua, essential medication is often horded and resold for profit and political expedience. Truman explained that vital medication sent by USAID (United States Agency for International Development) meant for patients on the Atlantic Coast has been resold by local pharmacies, sold with the warning visibly prohibiting its redistribution. "Life is cheap here." Truman said. "You can only get help if you support a certain candidate, people kill each other for one dollar, one dollar!" The following week, along with two combat camera men and Nicaraguan force protection, I took a stroll in a market place in central Puerto Cabezas. The marketplace appeared conventional to a poor Latin American country. Women were cooking corn tortillas in the open air, and street vendors stood outside storefronts peddling everything from meat and vegetables to clothing and native jewelry. Far from bustling, it had a ghostly desolateness about it. As if the people were clinging to one last hope of industriousness.

A woman makes tortillas in a market in central Puerto Cabezas. Food and clothing vendors are a main staple of the local economy.

Vendors in central Puerto Cabezas sell local produce.

A man approached us as we departed the marketplace and spoke what was otherwise unintelligible English. Pointing to a wheel on the side of the street, he proceeded to tell us: "when industry was done everything is finished." Failing to comprehend his vagueness, I pressed him. "Why is everything finished?" The man described the wheel as a memorial and a component of what used to be his community's timber mill. "The Spanish" in Managua had cut off the North Atlantic city's main economic engine.

A memorial of the local timber mill. According to a local resident, the Nicaraguan government has cut off the mill's supply and destroyed the local economy.

While the poet RubÃ©n Dario foreshadowed against what leftists and nationalists like Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez call American hegemony, as evident of the condition of the poor and isolated Miskito Indians, the role of hegemon and exploiter was not carried by "the yanquis," but they were certainly more than happy to fill the humanitarian void.