Black Lives Matter in Honduras

BLACK LIVES MATTER IN HONDURAS By Beverly bell, September 2020 _Photo above: Miriam Miranda, leader of the Fraternal Organization of Black Hondurans (OFRANEH) and my greatest living heroine. _ — I have not told anyone — that today, more than ever, my life is in danger.” More than just danger... Miriam’s life dangles by a spider’s filament. On July 27, Miriam told Democracy Now, “I feel it is important to tell you Miriam’s statement came after four men from OFRANEH — one elected leader and three more activists — were kidnaped on July 18. Like all OFRANEH members, they are Black Indigenous Garífuna, a people originally from the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent. Their homeland now covers the Atlantic coast of Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua,

though many individuals now reside in the US and Canada. The four who have gone missing, and are presumed dead, bring to 24 the number of Garífuna who have been assassinated or disappeared in 2019 and 2020, with no investigation, arrest, or other form of accountability. All were fighting to defend their lands from theft by the government, private ‘”development” interests, African palm companies, and the organized crime affiliated with both.

Last year was the most deadly to be an environmental and territory defender on the planet since the group Global Witness started tracking. Honduras has made the top of the list, for the highest number assassinated, at least 13 times. Berta Cáceres, killed in 2016 by the government and a dam company 4.5 years ago, is only the best known of literally countless Hondurans. The Berta Cáceres Act in the US congress would prohibit further aid to Honduran police and military until the US-imposed dictatorship improves its human rights record, including taking serious steps to prosecute the killers of Berta and hundreds of others. The US’s own hands are stained with blood. Below are excerpts from an interview I did with Miriam in 2013. But before reading, please sign the petition here, to demand investigation into the disappearance of the four Garífuna activists. Your pressure will also help protect Miriam’s life. Said Miriam, “We are a mix of African descendants and Indigenous Peoples. Without our land, we cease to be a people. Our lands and identities are critical to our lives, our waters, our forests, our culture. The struggle for our territories, our commons, and our natural resources is essential to preserve ourselves as a people. “The Garífuna people, for our way of being, were listed as an ‘intangible cultural heritage’ by UNESCO in 2004. We don’t know what that means exactly, but we suppose it implies that the state must take action to protect and preserve our identity. “What we Garífuna face is largely the same thing faced by people all over Latin America, and in fact the world. Also, the problems of the [global] South are not a problem just for us, but for the whole planet. “If you map out the conflicts that are threatening our country, you’ll see that they reflect exactly where transnational capital is trying to take more resources from Indigenous Peoples. Maybe you believe that Mel Zelaya was ousted in a coup d’état because he was a leftist. [The coup against Zelaya, the last democratically elected president, was co- organized by the US in 2009. Hillary Clinton boasted in her autobiography, “We rendered Zelaya moot.” Honduras has been under US-backed dictatorship ever since.] No. It was because [those with wealth] wanted to take land and resources, which they are now doing. “Look at the search for so-called alternatives to oil, like mining and mega-dams. They’re also taking land that we were using to grow beans and rice so they can grow African palm for agro-fuel, stopping the production of food that humans need so they can produce fuel that cars need. The more scarce food becomes, the more expensive it will become. Food sovereignty is threatened everywhere. “Also, we have a problem of narco-trafficking. A study showed that almost 90% of the drugs going to the North pass through the Atlantic coast of Honduras. We’re exactly in the path of the trafficking and so we’re vulnerable. Honduras has one of the highest levels of crime and violence of any country that is not actually at war. We have to fight not only for the preservation of our community, but also not to be kidnapped by traffickers. “Another of our main challenges is the tourism industry. We live almost on the sea, right on the beach. It’s a blessing, but recently it’s also become a curse, because of course all those with power want to have their place on the beach. The displacement of communities and the loss of cultures that come with tourism are increasing. “We have occupied and claimed ancestral lands that had been taken from us by others. We are also using international human rights law in order to guard our territories. “If the problem is global, we have to have a global response. It’s time for every human being in the global North to take up his or her responsibility in respect to the use of resources, responsibility relative to waste and consumption. “The standard of living that you have in the US is unsustainable. You are the button- pushers. We are trying to resist and find every solution we can, but we ask ourselves: ‘Hmm, are we the ones consuming all this energy? If those in the North are the consumers, why are we in Honduras paying? Why are we being displaced to generate energy for others? What are we supposed to do? Leave the planet to destruct, or make a change for future generations?’ They won’t have land or water or air. The time has come.” Below are photos I took in 2017 in the 6,672-acre community of Vallecito, OFRANEH’s autonomous community that members liberated in 1997 from narcos and from one of Honduras’ richest and most violent families. Miriam and others have been kidnaped, arrested, and more, while obtaining and keeping this land. Today, Vallecito is a homeland for Garífuna who are members of OFRANEH, settlers who come to: reclaim their ancestral traditions, religion, education; create food sovereignty through an agroecological farm; and join their political strength in the fight for their rights and the nation’s democracy. A nursery of yucca and coconut palms, part of recovering Garífuna farming. Many families have come from around the Atlantic coast to live, with dignity, in their own homes, on their own collective land, with their own ancestral people. The housing and infrastructure are improving. The rumpus of children at Vallecito – of which this is a small percentage – live safe and free, with knowledge of, and pride in, who they are. In the community-based schoolhouse, Garífuna teachers educate the kids in their people’s history and knowledge... all in their own language. OFRANEH’S vast recuperated territory ends at the sea. Defending the Garífunas’ lands, as well as their rights as citizens and an Afro-Indigenous people, has cost many lives. Almost certainly, the four OFRANEH activists who disappeared in July are now among the toll of martyrs. OFRAHEH spiritual leaders in ceremony at a demonstration in front of the president’s residence in Tegucigalpa. The Garífuna are a dignified, badass people. Here is another Honduran territory and rights defender, on Honduras Street in San Cristóbal. Azalia’s Zapatista t-shirt reads: “Women with rebellious dignity: When a woman advances, no man can push her back.”