By WENDY GRIFFIN

In the Department of Gracias a Dios, also known as the Mosquitia, 91 percent of the inhabitants speak a native language such as Miskito, Tawahka, Pech or Garifuna. Edgardo Benitez, the Tawahka Executive Director of CIDCA, believes it is time that indigenous peoples are co-executors of development projects in their area.

CIDCA is the Independent Commission for Development and Environmental Conservation, headquartered in Tegucigalpa. Its goals are to promote, support, coordinate, and implement projects that protect, conserve and develop the native cultures of the Mosquitia and their environment. The organization also acts as a voice against projects that threaten these cultures and their environment.

The non-governmental organization (NGO) came about because of a felt need for an organization run by native professionals who could articulate the desires of the people of the Mosquitia and turn these into financeable projects. These native professionals are trying to change the role of indigenous peoples in development projects, in response to previous bad experiences.

"I remember," says Benitez, "that twice the people from the United Nations Development Programme 'Project Cultural Rescue' came in a helicopter to Kraosirpe to say this project was going to be the salvation of the Tawahkas." The project received $700,000 in funding, but "in the end they did almost nothing."

In the past, international projects have paid hefty salaries for international and local consultants, but nothing for the indigenous people who helped to do the planning studies. "Que todos trabajemos parejo," says Benitez (Everyone works equally.) Either the international and the national consultants work for free and then the Indians will work for free, or we all get paid."

This issue of unwillingness to pay the indigenous counterparts is delaying the completion of a diagnostic study for a $7.3 million World Bank project. The Indians also wanted this study to include their suggestions for projects and what they considered were the problems the projects should help resolve. The World Bank coordinator, an economist, declined to include their suggestions in the profile.

The people of the Mosquitia are also tired of "engaños," a word that covers a host of behaviors like lying and cheating. When asked about the new project for Biodiversity in Priority Areas (PROBAP/GEF), Benitez said, "They asked for a budget for snacks for so many people. Then they took the project money to get snacks for people as they met in different parts of the Mosquitia, then talked about how Jaime Rosenthal Oliva is going to be the next president of Honduras." Most Hondurans working on these kinds of projects are appointed for their contributions to political campaigns and not for their ability or interest, he added.

CIDCA is currently negotiating several projects. For the European Economic Community project "Wetlands, Biodiversity and Indigenous Peoples," Brus Laguna is one of the sites being considered for this Central American project, with CIDCA as the local coordinating NGO.

The group is also working on a community health project. Following Hurricane Mitch, it has become more apparent than ever the dangers of using river water for drinking and bathing in the Mosquitia. Many children have diarrhea and when they bathe, they get a rash. These rivers collect mercury from gold operations, dynamite, agricultural chemicals from upstream, and human and cattle wastes from surrounding communities. "There has never been a good project to improve the quality of water in the Mosquitia," says Benitez.

Most Hondurans know very little about the Mosquitia. One CIDCA proposal is to create a research program on the development, culture, and environment of the Mosquitia, the results of which would be published in the magazine "Moskitia." This magazine would let Mosquitia residents give opinions about their future.

Within the Mosquitia, it is also very difficult to get information to the people, because radio, television, and newspapers do not reach even the large towns. There used to be the SANI radio at the time of the Contras' war against the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua during the 1980s, but when the refugee problem ended, so did the funding. CIDCA and the Miskito organization MASTA have travelled to Europe in search of funds to start up educational and cultural radio programs in the Mosquitia.

"For what they spend to put five seminars in the Mosquitia on public health or the environment, they could reach the whole Mosquitia with radio," Benitez pointed out.

CIDCA can be reached at A.P. 4245, Tegucigalpa, Honduras; Tel. 222-7573; Fax 237-7543; or e-mail: <cidca@sdnhon.org.hn>.