E/CN.4/2005/18/Add.6 page 5 Introduction 1. The Special Rapporteur visited Nicaragua from 9 to 13 July 2004. In Managua he met the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Norman Caldera Cardenal, the Deputy Minister of the Interior, Mr. Miguel Ángel García, and senior officials of the Ministries of Education, Health and Labour. He also met the Presidential Adviser on Atlantic Coast Affairs, Mr. Carlos Hurtado, as well as the Special Procurator for Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Communities, Mr. Norman Bent. He then travelled to Puerto Cabezas (Bilwi for the local people), the capital of the Atlántico Norte Autonomous Region, where he held meetings with the Regional Council led by Mr. Juan González. His journey to this region also offered an opportunity to visit residential areas and listen to representatives of the various communities living there, including the Miskitos, the Sumu-Mayagnas and the Creoles of African descent. Regrettably, lack of time prevented the Special Rapporteur from travelling to the Atlántico Sur Autonomous Region, whose capital is Bluefields, to study the dynamics of ethnic and racial relations among Creoles, Miskitos, Mestizos, Garifunas and Ramas. However, he was able to gain a general idea of the situation in the region from representatives of the communities living there who came to meet him in Puerto Cabezas and Managua, and from the report of the Centre for Human, Citizens’ and Autonomy Rights he was given.1 The Special Rapporteur’s second journey within Nicaragua took him to San Lucas, in the region of Somoto, north of Managua, where he held a meeting with representatives of indigenous people. 2. The Special Rapporteur thanks the Government of Nicaragua for its cooperation and for the willingness of its representatives to make themselves available. He is also grateful to the regional authorities and the representatives of civil society, in particular the representatives of the indigenous and Creole communities with whom he held meetings. He also expresses appreciation to the office of the United Nations Development Programme in Nicaragua, which coordinated the visit. However, he regrets that he was unable to meet all the representatives of United Nations agencies, as in Guatemala and Honduras. In the light of the meeting he held with the acting Coordinator of the United Nations system, he has doubts concerning the priority assigned to efforts to combat racial discrimination in the programmes of United Nations agencies. I. GENERAL OVERVIEW A. Ethnic and demographic situation 3. Nicaragua, which covers an area of 129,494 square kilometres, has a population of 5,359,759, generally divided into four groups: Mestizos (of mixed Amerindian and White descent) (69 per cent); Whites (17 per cent); Blacks (9 per cent); and Amerindians (5 per cent). The Amerindians are subdivided into six ethnic groups - the Miskitos (the largest group, with over 80,000 members), the Sumus-Mayangnas, the Ramas, the Matagalpas, the Chorotegas, the Maribios and the Nahuatlan. The Blacks are subdivided into Garifunas (2,000) and Creoles (around 30,000). The Amerindian and Black communities live mainly in the Atlántico Norte and Atlántico Sur autonomous regions, along Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast, where almost 10 per cent of the country’s population (500,000 inhabitants) is to be found. A few indigenous communities also live in the north-west.2