31 According to oral history, the Awas Tingni Community migrated. The settlement pattern of the communities is a pattern of territorial migration. One of the grounds of the State for denying possession rights to the territory has been to argue that these communities are nomadic. The Awas Tingni Community migrated from the traditional settlement of the Mayagna communities and also of the Miskito communities, seeking better conditions for their subsistence. Since 1990 the State, through its corresponding agencies, has not given any title deeds to the communities. g. Testimony of Brooklyn Rivera Bryan, an indigenous leader He is a member of one of the Miskito communities, Lidaucra Sandy Bay, and he lives in the city of Bilwi, in the Northern Atlantic Autonomous Region in Nicaragua. When he held the position of Minister-Director of the Nicaraguan Institute for the Development of the Autonomous Regions (INDIRA), he coordinated development and social action plans of the State, at an institutional level, in the autonomous region where most of the indigenous communities of Nicaragua are located. At that time, he was aware of the policies and practices of other State institutions regarding the indigenous communities, specifically those of MARENA and the Nicaraguan Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA). In connection with the situation of indigenous peoples and the titling of their lands, he points out that when he was Minister-Director of INDIRA he took steps to oppose the granting of concessions. He first addressed MARENA, in charge of deciding on such concessions. Since he did not obtain an appropriate response, he sent a communiqué to all the other Ministers, who at that time showed no interest. The situation was not dealt with. INRA limited its work to addressing land claims by the cooperatives and landless peasants, granting them a plot of land, 50 manzanas per family, accompanied by technical assistance. INRA did not undertake any responsibility toward the indigenous communities, arguing that the law did not empower them to deal with their claims, and there was no other specific agency to deal with them. INRA transferred the claims of the indigenous communities to INDIRA, but the law did not give it the authority to deal with those specific claims, nor did it do so with MARENA, so the State lacked a legal instrument to address those claims. When there were claims by the indigenous communities, he addressed the authorities at INRA to see how they could be dealt with, and he discussed the matter with high officials in the Cabinet. Even though INRA claimed that it had no authority, it issued certificates of land granted to former military, army and police entities, and the Nicaraguan resistance, lands which were within the territories of most indigenous communities. Subsequently, INDIRA sought other mechanisms, based on the activities of the communities themselves, for which purpose it cooperated in the establishment of the Organization of Indigenous Syndics, who are the legal administrators of the lands of the communities. The Organization of Syndics of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua (OSICAN) was born. This organization prepared a bill through extensive consultation with the indigenous communities, and it was submitted to the National Assembly in 1996. As a result of that initiative, it was decided that the National Committee for Demarcation of Lands of the Indigenous Communities should be set up, and this was done in 1996, but it was not able to attain progress in the tasks entrusted to it.