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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1988-04-04-LWSCC-rpt.pdf LEXINGTON CENTRAL AMERICA SISTER CITY COMMITTEE REPORT TO TOWN MEETING APRIL 4, 1988 1 ORIGIN AND CHARGE OF COMMITTEE The Lexington Central America Sister City Committee was appointed by the Board of Selectmen in September, 1987, to carry out the mandate of Article 55 of the 1987 Town Meeting Article 55 authorized the creation of a committee, "to explore how the town of Lexington, in light of U S involvement in Central America, can contribute to peace, stability and democracy in the region, promote people to people contact, and link Lexington residents and institutions with the people of Central America through establishing a sister city relationship with a town in Central America The committee will investigate how a sister city in Central America may be selected, how the town of Lexington can strengthen its participation in the Sister Cities Program initiated by President Eisenhower, and will recommend action to the 1988 Town Meeting, after which the committee will disband None of these activities will be conducted at financial cost to the Town " The members of the committee were Toby Sackton, Chairman Rev Peter Meek, Clerk Martin Diskin Jacquelyn Ward Howard Smith Vaughn Bogosian Joseph Steinkrauss With this make up, the committee broadly represented the town, and involved a number of people who have a long history of active civic service in Lexington Meetings of the committee were posted with the Town Clerk, and most meetings were attended by one or more interested Lexington residents The committee has been meeting approximately every three weeks since October, 1987 2 HOW THE COMMITTEE CARRIED OUT ITS WORK. The initial task of the committee was to find meaningful criteria to narrow the scope of the committee's work After the first meeting, when committee members contacted the embassies of -2- every Central American country, we quickly realized that we had to find a means of narrowing our focus At this time, Oscar Arias, President of Costa Rica, had put forward the Arias Peace Plan and had been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize One important element of the Arias plan was return and resettlement of refugee populations that had been displaced by the war in the region After some discussion, the committee felt that focusing on refugee resettlement would provide an excellent basis for developing a sister city relationship The reasons were first, that supporting refugee resettlement in the region was a positive step, that in a small way contributed to peace Secondly, the aid and support that Lexington residents could give a resettlement community would make a tremendous difference in the life of that community Typically, the returning refugees find that they almost have to start from scratch to rebuild their communities Based on our enthusiasm for this approach, the committee examined three areas of resettlement occurring in Central America in light of the Arias Peace Plan They were resettlement of Highland Indians in Guatemala, Salvadorans returning to their home villages from refugee camps in Honduras, and Miskitu Indians of Nicaragua returning from Honduras to their homes in the Atlantic Coast province of Nicaragua The committee organized a discussion among Boston area residents either from these countries, or familiar with current activities in the region We heard from Beatriz Manz, a respected Guatemalan anthropologist, specializing in Highland Indian communities, from Oscar Chacon, a Salvadoran living in Boston, who is head of the New England Interfaith Office on Human Rights, and Jethro Pettit, of OXFAM America, which conducts a number of projects in the Atlantic Coast Region of Nicaragua Each of these people strongly convinced us that we were headed in the right direction through focusing on a resettlement community EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES OF THE COMMITTEE Based on the success of this meeting, Howard Smith, who had formerly been in charge of the Cary Lecture Series, proposed that the committee sponsor a panel discussion at Cary Hall so more people in town could hear the information about Central America that was being presented to the committee On Friday, Feb 5th, a Panel Discussion was held with Martin Diskin, a member of the committee and a Lexington resident who is a nationally known M I T expert on peasant communities in both El Salvador and Nicaragua, and Kenneth Sharpe, a political science professor at Swarthmore, who is a frequent contributor to the N Y Times, Christian Science Monitor, and the L.A Times on developments in Central America Although there was not a large turnout, those who were there -3- commented that this was one of the best discussions of events in Central America they had ever participated in RECOMMENDATION OF THE COMMITTEE Following the forum, the committee felt ready to choose a specific community to recommend to the Town as a Sister City in Central America The committee voted to recommend that Waspam, the second largest town in the Atlantic Coast Region of Nicaragua, be asked to be a sister city with Lexington Waspam is on the Rio Coco, which is the river that separates Honduras and Nicaragua It is the commercial and transportation center for the Miskitu communities along the river When tensions between the Miskitus and the Sandinista government reached the stage of armed conflict in 1981-82, Waspam was destroyed by the fighting and abandoned In the last several years, the government of Nicaragua has admitted mistakes in its approach to indigenous indian populations on the Atlantic Coast, and the Indians have secured a significant degree of local autonomy and provincial authority As a result of this accommodation, fighting in the area has ceased, and the Miskitu Indians who had left their homes in Waspam and other parts of the region to flee to Honduras, have returned They have been accepted by the Sandinistas as full citizens, with the right to bear arms, and the right to have their own local government and institutions By mid 1985, people began returning to the river, first to Waspam, and then to their up river and down river villages Thus Waspam began to serve as a way station for returning refugees, which is a role it still plays This year, most of the Miskitu remaining in Honduras are returning to their homes Waspam is filling up once again, but its infrastructure, once so important to other communities, is in serious disrepair Its electric plant, water system, and feeder roads, all need improvement The returning population needs considerable support to rebuild their homes, schools, and churches The committee felt that Waspam, offered one of the best regional examples of the type of reconciliation envisioned in the Arias peace plan, and that by developing a sister city relationship with Waspam, Lexington residents could make a real contribution to peace and stability to the region THE FUTURE OF THE SISTER CITY RELATIONSHIP The Lexington Central America Sister City Committee has fulfilled its duties through the presentation of this report to n f -4- Town Meeting However, we have also thought about how the relationship between Lexington and Waspam will be carried on if our report is accepted For guidance we looked to our senior Sister City Committee in Lexington, the Lexington Sister City Committee that has maintained a relationship with Delores Hidalgo in Mexico for over 20 years This committee is run exclusively by volunteers, yet each year reports to the town on its activities in the Town Book We recommend the same type of organization for the sister city relationship with Waspam Our committee will organize some transitional meetings to establish a volunteer committee to carry out a sister city relationship between Lexington and Waspam, that would be open to all interested Lexington residents We recommend that this committee, through its elected chairperson, report to the Selectmen and the Town on its activities annually through the Town Report Speaking for the committee, I would like to express our appreciation to Town Meeting for the opportunity to investigate the potential for a sister city in Central America on behalf of Lexintgon We hope you will accept our report Respectfully submitted, Toby Sackton Chairman