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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/10/13/indigenous-peoples-like-mine-are-fighting-for-their-homelands/">counterpunch.org</a>
<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Indigenous Peoples, Like Mine, Are Fighting for Their Homelands</h1>
<span class="gmail-post_author_intro">by</span> <span class="gmail-post_author"><a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/author/mrmrnd2992/" rel="nofollow">Miriam Miranda</a></span>- October 13, 2021<br></div>
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<p dir="ltr">On this Indigenous Peoples’ Day, I want to tell you about
my people, the Garifuna. We’re an Afro-Indigenous people, descended from
Arawaks and Africans. Our ancestral territory spans the Caribbean
border of Central America.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Latin American and Caribbean communities like ours are rarely noticed in U.S. media — except when we migrate.</p>
<p dir="ltr">In summer 2021, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris came to Central America and told would-be migrants: “<a title="Do not come" role="link" href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/06/kamala-harris-immigration-guatemala.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Do not come</a>.” More recently, photos of U.S. Border Patrol agents <a title="whipping Haitian refugees in the Texas desert" role="link" href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/immigration/article/U-S-officials-to-look-into-allegations-of-16474306.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">whipping Haitian refugees in the Texas desert</a>brutally drove that message home.</p>
<p dir="ltr">This anti-migrant message is dehumanizing and wrong. But
the truth is, many of us would love nothing more than to stay in our
homes. It’s Washington that’s making it difficult.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The Garifuna are being <a title="forcibly displaced" role="link" href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/they-captured-me-for-defending-our-collective-rights" target="_blank" rel="noopener">forcibly displaced</a> from our beautiful traditional lands along the Caribbean coast of Honduras.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Our livelihoods are <a title="threatened" role="link" href="https://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/2016/04/20361/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">threatened</a> by the <a title="expansion" role="link" href="https://ilas.sas.ac.uk/sites/default/files/reports/Global%20Witness%2C%20%2522Honduras-%20The%20Deadliest%20Place%20to%20Defend%20the%20Planet%2522%2C%20dated%20January%202017.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">expansion</a> of the <a title="global tourist industry" role="link" href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/honduras-now-podcast/ep-6-the-tourist-industry-OFXwCGHAax6/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">global tourist industry</a>, <a title="African palm plantations" role="link" href="https://ejatlas.org/conflict/garifuna-resistance-in-vallecito-land-grabbing-for-palm-oil-plantations-and-drug-trade" target="_blank" rel="noopener">African palm plantations</a>, so-called “<a title="Special Economic Development and Employment Zones" role="link" href="https://nacla.org/news/2021/02/12/private-government-honduras-zede-prospera" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Special Economic Development and Employment Zones</a>” (also called Model Cities), and <a title="drug cartels" role="link" href="https://ejatlas.org/conflict/garifuna-resistance-in-vallecito-land-grabbing-for-palm-oil-plantations-and-drug-trade" target="_blank" rel="noopener">drug cartels</a> that run cocaine through our territories, destined for U.S. markets.</p>
<p dir="ltr">We’re also under threat from <a title="gated retirement communities" role="link" href="https://ricochet.media/en/243/little-canada-displacing-afro-indigenous-communities-in-honduras" target="_blank" rel="noopener">gated retirement communities</a> with <a title="U.S. and Canadian financing" role="link" href="https://www.aquiabajo.com/blog/2017/2/8/one-land-defenders-story-of-repression-criminalization-and-arrest-young-garifuna-woman-arrested-for-reclaiming-ancestral-land" target="_blank" rel="noopener">U.S. and Canadian financing</a>, as well as <a title="mining and hydroelectric projects" role="link" href="https://culanth.org/fieldsights/leave-or-die-neoextractivism-and-the-garifuna-experience-in-honduras" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mining and hydroelectric projects</a>, including <a title="projects with development bank financing" role="link" href="https://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/2016/04/20361/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">projects with development bank financing</a>.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I’m part of a group called the Black Fraternal Organization
of Honduras (OFRANEH, by its initials in Spanish), a federation
representing the Garifuna peoples of Honduras. From our perspective, our
communities are being emptied of people to benefit the Honduran elite
and investors from the U.S. and other rich countries.</p>
<p dir="ltr">When we resist dispossession and refuse to leave our lands,
we are threatened, forcibly disappeared, or murdered — threats made all
the more dangerous by the security assistance the corrupt Honduran
state receives from Washington.</p>
<p dir="ltr">In the last few years, <a title="we have counted 50 assassinations" role="link" href="https://elpais.com/sociedad/2021-07-22/terror-e-impunidad-contra-los-garifunas-de-honduras.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">we have counted 50 assassinations</a> of Garífuna people and dozens of cases of <a title="legal" role="link" href="https://im-defensoras.org/2021/06/whrd-alert-honduras-garifuna-defender-belonging-to-ofraneh-detained-criminalized-and-sentenced-to-house-arrest/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">legal </a><a title="persecution" role="link" href="https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/la-verdad-y-la-justicia-deben-prevalecer-sobre-los-proyectos-econ%C3%B3micos-a-un-a%C3%B1o-de-la-desaparici%C3%B3n-de-los-j%C3%B3venes-gar%C3%ADfunas-de-triunfo-de-la-cruz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">persecution</a>.
Meanwhile our young people are abandoning their communities in droves
as a result of the violence, persecution, and lack of healthy living
conditions.</p>
<p dir="ltr">OFRANEH has been fighting to reclaim the Garífuna people’s
ancestral territory and to improve these conditions through cultural
resurgence and traditional agricultural practices.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Through the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, <a title="we have won important cases" role="link" href="https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/indigenous-rights-win-major-steps-forward-honduras" target="_blank" rel="noopener">we have won important cases </a>that
order Honduran authorities to recognize our traditional lands and
guarantee our use and enjoyment of our territory. But the Honduran
government refuses to implement these decisions.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Instead, since winning these cases, we’ve faced increasing threats, criminalization, displacement, and assassinations.</p>
<p dir="ltr">In July 2020, <a title="four Garifuna youth from Triunfo de la Cruz were" role="link" href="https://soaw.org/take-action-garifuna-land-defenders-forcibly-disappeared" target="_blank" rel="noopener">four Garifuna youth from Triunfo de la Cruz were</a> abducted at gunpoint by men wearing uniforms with the logo of the <a title="Honduran Investigative Police (DPI)" role="link" href="https://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/medidas/garifuna_se_03.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Honduran Investigative Police (DPI)</a> — an entity that has <a title="received U.S. training" role="link" href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/publication/lap_dye_police-english_final.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">received U.S. training</a>.
The four men haven’t been seen since. One of them was the president of
the town council and a vocal defender of Garífuna land rights.</p>
<p dir="ltr">In a country where such crimes usually go uninvestigated,
OFRANEH is taking action. A few months ago, we launched the Garifuna
Investigation and Search Committee for the Disappeared of Triunfo de la
Cruz. Its initials, SUNLA, mean “Enough!” in our language.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Through SUNLA, we are pushing to return the four youth to
their community alive, to protect their families and witnesses, and
fight for truth and justice for this crime. So far, the state is not
investigating seriously. Instead, officials are blaming the four for
their own disappearance, accusing them of being criminals.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Since the 2009 coup, human rights and Indigenous land
defenders have been routinely murdered in Honduras — even high-profile
figures like <a title="Berta Cáceres" role="link" href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/05/berta-caceres-assassination-roberto-david-castillo-found-guilty" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Berta Cáceres</a>.
Yet U.S. support for the Honduran state has continued. Whether we
migrate or fight to stay on our lands, we face tremendous threats.</p>
<p dir="ltr">For this reason, we’re calling for international solidarity
to halt the persecution of the Garífuna people and for SUNLA’s
incorporation into the investigation into these forced disappearances,
as well as for respect for our traditional lands and our
self-determination. This genocidal plan to exterminate our people must
be halted.</p>
<p dir="ltr">We’re also calling for the United States to halt its
support and security assistance to the Honduran regime, which could be
done by passing the <a title="Berta Cáceres Act" role="link" href="https://hankjohnson.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/congressman-johnson-reintroduces-berta-c-ceres-human-rights-honduras-act" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Berta Cáceres Act</a> and the <a title="Honduran Human Rights and Anti-Corruption Act" role="link" href="https://www.solidaritycollective.org/human-rights-honduras" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Honduran Human Rights and Anti-Corruption Act</a>.</p>
<p dir="ltr">On this Indigenous People’s Day, we condemn the assault on
Indigenous peoples throughout our hemisphere — as well as the brutal
mistreatment of migrants seeking safety and opportunity.</p>
<p dir="ltr">OFRANEH and the Garifuna will continue our fight to live
and prosper in Honduras. As for the politicians who would tell us “do
not come,” we call on them to stop backing the regimes that would
displace us.</p>
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<em>Miriam Miranda is General Coordinator of OFRANEH, this
year’s recipient of the Letelier-Moffitt International Human Rights
Award from the Institute for Policy Studies.</em>
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