[News] Honduras: Why Do Garifuna Community Radios Burn?
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Wed Jan 13 10:40:59 EST 2010
Honduras: Why Do Garifuna Community Radios Burn?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/2308-honduras-why-do-garifuna-community-radios-burn-honduran-black-fraternal-organization-denounces-attack-against-their-radio-station
Written by Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña
Wednesday, 13 January 2010 07:43
Translated by Ramor Ryan
Honduran Black Fraternal Organization Denounces
Attack Against their Radio Station
In the early morning hours of Wednesday January
6, the Garifuna community radio Faluma Bimetu
(Sweet Coconut) based in Triunfo de la Cruz was
burnt down by unknown armed individuals who
proceeded to loot the station's radio equipment.
This is not the first time the radio has been
attacked and its equipment stolen.
In 2002 unknown people stole the transmitter and
other key tools for radio transmission. The
Garifuna people have been exposed to a slow
process of assimilation into the dominant culture
through the mass media - monopolies that are in
the hands of figures who are well known
throughout the country as manipulators of information.
Lacking control of our own Garifuna media has led
to an acceleration of loss of our culture, a
process that has become increasingly painful.
Most of the communities with access to television
are confronted by a permanent alienation through
consumerism, acculturation, alienation (soccer,
fashion, soap operas, cartoons and violence) and
media terrorism. We have also seen a decline in
the use of our own indigenous language, which has
become, lamentably, a second language.
Transmission of Radio Faluma Bimetu began in
1997, promoted by the Land Defense Committee of
Triunfo de la Cruz (CODETT), in order to
strengthen Garifuna culture and defend the
ancestral territory of the community.
Triunfo de la Cruz, like other Tela Bay Garifuna
communities, has become a conflict zone since the
intervention of businessmen, politicians and
foreign investors attempting to seize community
land for the construction of mega-tourism projects.
This systematic usurpation at the hands of
outsiders has led the community conducted by
CODETT and the Community Board -- to file a
petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
(IACHR), who accepted the case on 14th March
2006, registered under No. 125-48. For the
powerful ruling elite of Honduras, the staunch
defense taken by the community of Triunfo de la
Cruz of their ancestral territory, is a serious
challenge to their economic interests.
Honduras is renowned for the high level of
poverty for the majority of its inhabitants ruled
by a minority that holds the country under a
feudal regime. The use of mass media by the local
feudal lords has been an effective tool for control and manipulation.
As in the rest of Latin America, the media
monopolies have served to replicate the
distortion of information and thus perpetuate
domination. The community radios of the Garifuna
have been growing strong over the past decade,
setting a precedent among our people. And the
primary goal is the protection of our culture -
which is closely linked to Mother Earth.
Up to the present moment, we have installed four
community radios and in the not too distant
future we envision extending the network
throughout the entire Garifuna nation. The
overarching goal: to strengthen and enrichen our
culture, to defend our ancestral territory and at
the same time, to build early warning systems to
deal with climate change, earthquakes, and diseases.
The attack against Radio Faluma Bimetu can be
simply reduced to the fact that it enrages the
power elite that we, the Garifuna, have been in a
process of cultural resistance that has lasted
212 years. And, specifically, that we have broken
chains by actively participating in the
resistance against the destruction of democracy
in our country, a crime (the June 28th Coup)
committed by the Honduran oligarchy last year -
with the support of the troglodyte right wing of the United States.
Given these facts, OFRANEH (Honduran Black
Fraternal Organization) demands respect for the
right to provide information, as indicated in
Article 13 - Freedom of Thought and Expression,
of the the Inter-American Convention on Human
Human. Specifically, we require a full
investigation into this act perpetrated against
the Garifuna community radio and against of our people in general.
La Ceiba, January 8, 2010
Miriam Miranda
General Coordinator
Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña, OFRANEH
Teléfono (504) 4420618, (504) 4500058
Av 14 julio, calle 19, Contiguo Vivero Flor Tropical, Barrio Alvarado, La
Ceiba, Honduras
email:
<mailto:garifuna at ofraneh.org>garifuna at ofraneh.org
This e-mail address is being protected from
spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
, <mailto:ofraneh at yahoo.com>ofraneh at yahoo.com
This e-mail address is being protected from
spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Also See:
OFRANEH: Urgent! Attack against Garifuna Community Radio in Triunfo de la Cruz
http://hondurassolidarity.wordpress.com/
VIDEO: Radio Faluma Bimetu, antes y después del atentado
http://chiapas.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=172695
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