"INDIGENOUS PEOPLES LIKE MINE ARE FIGHTING FOR OUR HOMELANDS",11 October 2021

The Garifuna are being forcibly displaced from our beautiful traditional lands along the Caribbean coast of Honduras...

Our livelihoods are threatened by the expansion of the global tourist industry, African palm plantations, so-called “Special Economic Development and Employment Zones” (also called Model Cities), and drug cartels that run cocaine through our territories, destined for U.S. markets.

We’re also under threat from gated retirement communities with U.S. and Canadian financing, as well as mining and hydroelectric projects, including projects with development bank financing.

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...

In the last few years, we have counted 50 assassinations of Garífuna people and dozens of cases of legal persecution. Meanwhile our young people are abandoning their communities in droves as a result of the violence, persecution, and lack of healthy living conditions...

For this reason, we’re calling for international solidarity to halt the persecution of the Garífuna people...

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 Berta Cáceres Act and the Honduran Human Rights and Anti-Corruption Act...