ABSTRACT
The Ronald Reagan administration devoted significant resources to make the best case for its foreign policy toward Nicaragua. The administration showed the shallowness of its commitment to indigenous struggles, particularly in Central America, through its refusal to condemn the significantly worse systematic government assault on the indigenous populations of Guatemala. The use of indigenous and ethnic struggles to support Washington's anti-Nicaragua policy distorts the intrinsic meaning of the struggles. Relations between indigenous people and nation states have been asymmetrical. From the outset, there was a strident campaign to characterize Sandinista policy on the Atlantic Coast as the destruction of coastal peoples and their cultures. The United States claimed that its support for anti-Sandinista forces in the Atlantic Coast region was meant to help achieve Indian self-determination by the overthrow of the Sandinistas. The Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua acquired enormous significance in Reagan's war against Nicaragua.
