6. Lasa Tinghni
At 11:35 that morning, the 24th (the day after my 42nd birthday, which was also my second wedding anniversary), our little convoy of Toyota pickups rolled into the Miskito and Sumo refugee camp at Lasa Tinghni, a few kilometers upstream from the TEA camp, and still not far from the bank of the Río Coco.
I saw no morsel of food in that camp, not so much as a single kernel of rice or corn. The thatched huts had floors raised three or four feet above the ground, which keeps them above the mud during the rainy season, and allows air to circulate all around the dwellings during the hot dry season. They reminded me of Montagnard houses in the highlands of Vietnam, where I had helped patch up Tin and his Sedang comrades after he shot them near the Special Forces camp at Mangbuk sixteen years earlier. The bare earth that stretched under these Miskito huts looked as if it had been swept with a vacuum cleaner. A large wooden mortar and pestle for pounding grain into flour lay on its side in the hot noonday dust.
A new group of refugees had just crossed the river from Nicaragua. They told –
some through MISURA fighters who would translate Miskito or Sumo into Spanish for
me to re‑translate, some directly to me in Spanish ‑ of being driven from their homes
by Sandinista soldiers, or by fear of the war's increased incursions into their lives. These
stories were not canned: facial expressions and body language were obviously
unrehearsed. Desperation was palpable. Women, dressed in trail‑weary clothing that
was already becoming rags, crowded around us, pleading with their eyes, even more than with their voices, for help. A few had a little Nicaraguan money. They were in
Honduras without benefit of any immigration process; they had crossed the border –
the Río Coco – in dugout canoes. They had no way of dealing with any sort of
paperwork. We had been told to leave all our money in camp. I had disobeyed, so
started to change what Nicaraguan currency they had. Finally, the four Indians and I
just gave them the Honduran lempiras we carried in our pockets.
I got busy taking photographs: a young boy and girl sitting in the dirt under a hut's raised floor, only occasionally trying to brush the flies from the open sores on their faces. The flies had more energy than the children. There was an old man, his pants and shirt filthy and in shreds, holding a listless infant; an emaciated dog, soft brown eyes bulging from taut skin, too weak to plead for food, waiting to die; a teenage boy in a Houston Astros T‑shirt; a striking‑looking young Miskito mother, one child on her hip and another clinging to her filthy skirt, wearing an old T‑shirt with the Playboy Bunny emblem on the front. (Apparently CMA had organized, or cooperated with, some church‑based relief organizations in the southern United States to collect clothing and transport it down to the people in these camps.)
The four North American Indians in our group were visibly stricken. The hour or two we spent in Lasa Tinghni was the first of several times that week when I would see this change in them: a visible identification with other Indians and with their suffering, a too‑easily tapped reservoir of blood memory, of being hounded and starved and killed by agents of the white man's government. It affected Gary, Larry, Bill, and Mike physically: some circulatory change would visibly alter the skin color in their faces. I have a photo, which I think is one of the best I've ever taken, of Larry Pino holding a Miskito or Sumo infant at Lasa Tinghni, holding the child close to his chest and nestling its head next to his chin, bending his own head down, his own eyes staring deep within himself, remembering stories of his own people.
"Just like what happened to us," one of them murmured.
I noticed something else while we were in that camp ‑ this not about Indians, but about men who carry guns. As I moved slowly about with my camera, I was pained at what I was seeing through the lens but relieved that, for once, my subjects were too preoccupied with their own survival to be offended by being photographed. Like most Vietnam veterans, I have a perpetual itch between my shoulder blades. In any public place, I am always looking about, wanting to know who is present, what sort of force fields or psychic disturbances they emanate, what sort of trouble might come from what quarter. And especially, who is carrying what weapons, and what they're doing, or intend to do, with them.
This habit caused me, even while moving in the emotional whirlwind of photographing the refugees, to lift my gaze above the immediate scene, to probe the edge of the forest at the camp's boundaries, to look at everything I saw through another lens in addition to the one that studied human suffering: this one calibrated to ask Where are the weapons? What's the current disposition of those who are carrying them? Is anyone there in the brush beyond this circle of suffering?
At Lasa Tinghni, every time I changed my way of looking in this manner, no matter how subtle I tried to be about it, I would look out above everyone else and immediately meet the eyes of Flaco, Shooter, and Perico staring back at me. I realized that their focus was much greater on the military aspects of the scene than on the humanitarian aspects. I also realized that they considered cameras to be weapons, and mine particulary so. (We had been warned early and repeatedly not to photograph any of the three "security men;" I considered it another of my most important tasks, besides getting the tape of Larry Pino talking about US soldiers parachuting into Nicaragua back home intact, to somehow sneak photos of Stewart and the three mercenaries. I would succeed at three out of four.)
7. Red Chief, White Chief
We were back at the TEA camp in early afternoon. My notebook has this 2:44 pm entry: "Gary Fife just came by from the creek: 'Somebody just hung out the Stars and Bars.'" I looked out from under the rolled‑up tent flap. A large Confederate flag was draped on the front of the mercenaries' tent. Gary "says he's descended from Stand Watie, a Cherokee who was the last Confederate general to surrender."
Then Gary began to tell a story he'd heard from his people ‑ I believe it was from the Cherokee side ‑ about how the decision was made to go to war. He said he wasn't sure about the details, but that the tribe had two chiefs, a Red Chief and a White Chief. The Red Chief was the war chief, whose job was strictly military: once the tribe decided to go to war, he was supposed to make decisions that would bring success, and to lead the warriors in battle. But, precisely because of his fighting ability and experience, he was never allowed to make the decision about whether to go to war. That decision was made by the White Chief, in conjunction with the tribal council. The White Chief would often be a woman. It was her job to be the guardian of life, and to never let the warriors' enthusiasm for fighting get them into a situation which brought more death than life to the tribal community. I thought it was the most sensible political idea I’d ever heard.
8. In Camp
I asked Maco how he'd gotten his name. He said that when his great‑grandmother was pregnant with his grandfather, two spinster aunts had come to his great‑grandfather and insisted that the baby be named after them, since neither would ever have any children. The patriarch had said that would be fine if the baby were a girl, but how could he name a boy after two women? They insisted, and the baby was a boy, so two letters each were taken from "Mary" and "Cora," and Maco Stewart I had a name. Our host was Maco Stewart III; his grandson is Roman numeral V.
About 3:00 pm, Shooter invited us over to their tent. Flaco was handing out rank insignia, and indoctrinating the Indian officers about the responsibilities of their respective ranks. Alejo Teofilo translated into Miskito. The insignia were those used by US military officers: Comandante Raúl was given the silver leaf of a lieutenant colonel, and made "Second Comandante." Hilton Fagoth, brother of Steadman Fagoth, the elected MISURA leader who had been expelled from the country by the Honduran government a few weeks before, also got the silver leaf, and was put in charge of supply, which made him junior to Raúl. (I later asked Flaco why he hadn't made Fagoth senior, since he was Steadman's brother. Flaco replied that Hilton was a wimp. The next morning, Flaco wore on his camouflage cap the silver bird of full colonel. He was First Comandante, the military commander of the MISURA warriors. I don’t know how long that arrangement lasted.)
Then it was trinket time. Teofilo, who I think was made a major, got some of the best stuff: a new fighting knife, a new mess kit with skillet, plate, pot, and green plastic cup. The others removed their hats, one at a time, and ducked their heads to enter the tent. It made it look like they were bowing. I knew it was just because the doorway was lower than their heads; still, it made me wince because of what was going on. The Indians emerged with their hats half full of cheap red and silver flashlights, batteries, brushes for cleaning weapons, pocket knives. Some Miskito boys hung around the wall of the tent looking at a weapons magazine. Flaco was entertaining the troops. "Dos años in Vietnam," he said, pointing to his chest, then made a motion like boys do at play to imitate the firing of a submachine gun on full automatic: "Kill many gooks." There was a little polite laughter. I wondered whether the Indians identified more with Flaco, or with the "gooks" he supposedly had killed. (I learned later, from Flaco himself, that he'd never been in Vietnam.)
That evening one of the pickups returned from the little store at Rus Rus with scarred old 355 milliliter bottles of Coca‑Cola, some "Tropical" orange soda and some cellophane ‑ wrapped cookies from San Pedro Sula. That was our dinner.
Another outboard motor had been found; we would cross the Río Coco into Nicaragua tomorrow. As dusk turned to dark and someone started the generator to light the bulbs in our tents, Shooter came over and demanded our identification. All of it: passports, driver's licenses, credit cards, everything with our names on it. He said something which I already knew about covert operations, which was that it is standard practice during “black ops,” including illegal border crossings like tomorrow’s, to "go in sterile," to preserve deniability in case anyone falls into the hands of the other side. Dead or alive. He assured us there was very little chance of that happening... but just in case.
I asked Shooter what this kind of soldiering was like, as opposed to the more normal kind we had both known in the Marine Corps. He shrugged: "Somebody comes from Washington and says, 'Do it, and don't get caught.'"
9. Border Crossing
The next day was overcast with dark clouds. It rained on and off all day, ranging from drizzle to moderate. It took about two hours of violent jouncing in the Toyotas to get upstream to the refugee village of Awas Bila, where our canoe was waiting. Unlike Lasa Tinghni, Awas Bila was populated by people who had been on the north side of the river long enough to become somewhat established. It was obvious from looking at them and their animals that at least some minimal nourishment was available to them, and that life there had settled into a routine. This time Honduran soldiers followed us about. They were very pushy about stopping us from taking photos of more than two or three refugees at a time. Just by reading their behavior, I could see that their orders were to prevent outsiders from gathering evidence of either significant refugee populations, or anything suggesting that military raids against Nicaragua were being staged from their side of the river. That was a change from when we’d first arrived.
It was after 10:00am when we walked down to the riverbank and climbed aboard a long dugout canoe with a squared transom on which was mounted a small, but working, outboard motor. There were a little over twenty of us: Maco Stewart, Moses Fiske, Flaco, Shooter, Perico, Gary Fife, Larry Pino, Mike Hunt, and Bill Pensoneau; plus about a dozen MISURA warriors. Hilton Fagoth stood in the bow with a long pole and sounded for obstructions in the shallow channel. Neither Stewart nor Fiske, so far as I could see, was armed. Flaco carried a short‑barreled autoloading shotgun and a 9mm semiautomatic pistol. Perico had a similar pistol ‑ I believe he had borrowed Shooter's ‑ and an M16 automatic rifle. Shooter carried his Uzi submachine gun with extra magazines. Mike Hunt, the only tribal representative to accept the offer of a weapon (I had declined), had been given an M16 to carry; he had a magazine loaded into it. Each MISURA fighter was armed with either an M16 or an AK47.
We spent most of the day on the river, letting the current carry us downstream, using the small motor for steerage as much as propulsion. To keep the canoe from tipping, we had to distribute ourselves evenly along the two sides, which meant that those seated on the starboard side had their backs toward the Nicaraguan bank, toward danger. Those on the port side had to keep their weapons pointed up, or leaned across the opposite gunwale between passengers. Perico was seethingly alive, just sitting there. His weapon was always ready, its action shielded from the rain but its muzzle pointed in the direction of his communist enemies. I had the strong feeling that, beyond wanting to fulfill his professional responsibility to provide military security for our excursion, he really hoped for a fight, for the chance to kill anyone ideologically connected with the hated people who had stolen his Cuba.
I seated myself next to Perico, figuring that if anything happened which was very important to photograph, he'd be in the middle of it. I also kept an eye out for a chance to snap shots of him and the other "players" at work. Before the day was out, I managed to get recognizeable facial shots of Shooter and Stewart and Fiske (who didn't care whether he was photographed or not). And Flaco, though he always managed to have his back to my camera or to duck behind his hat brim just as I snapped, is recognizable to anyone who knows him.
But never Perico. As alert as he was for Sandinistas on the Nicaraguan riverbank, he seemed to regard my camera as no less an enemy. I finally just asked him if I could lower my camera and aim it out along his M16, showing it and his arm against the background of the far shore. He let me. But no matter how intently he'd be looking at the bank, every time I began moving the camera in his direction, he would either have his face hidden before I could focus, or turn and fix me with a look of such unfiltered menace that I got the point and swung it back away.
Sometime during the morning, we passed the mouth of a fairly large tributary flowing into the Coco from the Nicaraguan side. As we passed, Mario Córdoba told me it was the Río Sang Sang, and that it came down from the country where were located the three major gold mines of which Alejo Teofilo had spoken the day before.
At 12:30 we beached the canoe at the mouth of a creek on the Honduran side, and took time for lunch. I washed my plate near two Miskitos; Mario Córdoba was singing in Spanish, "...he perdido un gran amor...." ("... I have lost a great love...."). The other, younger, Miskito sang a Moravian([1]) hymn in his own language.
It wasn't much farther downstream after lunch that we pulled into shore on the Nicaraguan side. All the MISURA men (and boys: several were teenagers) aboard knew that we were approaching what was for them a regular crossing point. Rifles were checked yet again; people who had alternated sweeping looks at the Nicaraguan shore with conversation among themselves now turned their complete attention toward it.
We nosed into a small brushy cove where a trail led up the steep bank. Everyone stood up as those in the bow of the canoe jumped ashore and spread out in the brush. It may have been, as we had been told, quite unlikely that we would encounter any Sandinista military presence. But the electric jolt that ran through everyone in the canoe told me that the people who lived here and had made this crossing before still considered it possible.
I was near the stern of the canoe. I stood up just as the bow went aground, braced myself, and snapped a photo that caught most of the people in the canoe just as the first Indians jumped ashore. Shooter is clearly visible in the photo.
We climbed the steep, muddy trail. Shooter, walking behind me, said, "Welcome to Nicaragua." Stewart and Fiske lagged behind, and were winded when they came up to where we were waiting at the top. We walked along an overgrown trail not far from the riverbank, and not over a quarter mile along it, until we came to an abandoned village of crude but comfortable‑looking wood frame houses. Several had anti‑contra slogans written on the walls. I've lost track of the town's name. I remember some of the houses having been painted in fuschia and turquoise green, colors which are seen a lot in Central America. Some of the houses had been burned to the ground. Raúl Tobías told us it was an Indian town, and that the Sandinistas had burned some of the houses and forced the people to leave, sometime in 1981 or 1982, about the time the new Reagan Administration began heating up the contra war.
When it had started to rain, the mercenaries had broken out several translucent, very civilian‑looking rain slickers and put them on. These made a visual mockery of their camouflage fatigues, and sounded like a battalion of old ladies on a rainy‑day shopping spree as they walked through the brush. Gary Fife carried a large, bright orange backpack. I gave up trying to guess if this were a real or pretend military mission.
We returned to the canoe, convinced that the little town we'd seen had indeed been an Indian village, and that the Sandinista military had been primarily responsible for emptying it out and destroying some of the buildings. The larger responsibility, of course, lay with the war itself.
[1] Moravian Baptist missionaries had evangelized among the Miskito beginning in 1849, and it stuck. At the Moravian Church American headquarters in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, archives still exist of this history.
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