Sir.—Concerning Dr Schlenker's letter1 in the May 1985 AJDC, I, too, am one of the "growing number of US physicians who are becoming interested in the medical conditions of our nearby neighbors in Central America." I have not attended a medical conference in Nicaragua nor been on one of the seemingly popular "fact-finding tours" there, but I have spent more than four months in northeastern Honduras, about 40 miles from the Nicaraguan border, working among the Miskito Indian people. The tens of thousands of refugees there have a quite different perception of conditions in Nicaragua than does Dr Schlenker.
The Miskito, the largest of the Indian groups of the Caribbean coastlands, are a devout and independent people. During the revolution, they were originally aligned with the Sandinistas, but, shortly after the Sandinistas took power, the Miskito leaders were gathered together on a false pretext and imprisoned. This was