Miriam Miranda: “The Garifuna populations are fighting against extermination”
The Honduran activist, along with 200 Garifuna people, demanded that the State protect their lives. “They illegally entered our communities and instilled a climate of terror that has no respect for life,” Miranda stated
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TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras. To the beat of drums, waving handkerchiefs and wearing traditional clothing, they performed a ritual to ward off bad energies and attract the good ones so desperately needed by vulnerable communities. They danced barefoot to celebrate the coming together of brothers and sisters. This is how more than two hundred men and women defenders of their land gathered at a hotel in the capital to demand that the Honduran state guarantee their lives and end the violence against this group, which is being targeted for extermination by mafias colluding with those in power.
In recent years, Honduras has been labeled a hostile territory for communities constantly struggling to defend their lands and communal resources. Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities face the constant threat of eviction year after year.
The threat is the same in all governments, they assert. This situation demonstrates that traditional politicians use promises in their campaigns as a stepping stone to power. Once they reach the top, they forget about the people and those who brought them there.
The struggle waged by the Garifuna communities is historic. Their sole purpose is to defend their ancestral territories from the threat of expropriation by powerful groups and infiltrated mafias, they denounce.
“They want to wipe out the Garifuna people”
The Garifuna communities living under the shadow of impunity and the constant threat of losing their lives include Triunfo de la Cruz , Punta Piedra , San Juan, Armenia , Guadalupe, San Antonio, Masca, Travesía, Cayos Cochinos , Punta Gorda, and Vallecito, among others. These communities frequently suffer violence, threats, persecution, and intimidation from groups operating in their ancestral territories.
Reporting Without Fear spoke with Yessica Trinidad, coordinator of the National Network of Women Human Rights Defenders (RNNDH) . This Garifuna leader has personally experienced human rights violations. She has been unjustly imprisoned, but despite everything, she continues her fight.
Trinidad stated that from 2020 to date, 3,205 attacks against men and women defenders in ancestral communities have been recorded.
Of those attacks, 25%, or 802, have been against the Honduran Black Fraternal Organization (Ofraneh) . “These attacks reflect the violence and the policy of extermination. They want to wipe out the Garifuna people.”
Photo: Ofraneh
Trinidad stated that this policy of extermination is being carried out through violent deaths and forced disappearances. She also lamented that this systematic and intentional violence is manifested in reprehensible acts.
Among the main actions taken against land defenders are harassment, surveillance, and threats that extend to their children. As a result, these communities live in constant tension.
According to the human rights defender, the Garifuna communities suffer the most persecution, threats, criminalization, and dispossession. These attacks are primarily directed at the leadership groups of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) .
Berta Isabel Cáceres , who perished at the hands of powerful groups in the midst of her struggle, belonged to COPINH
Honduran state responsible for disappearances
Gustavo Alfredo López, representative of the Land Defense Committee of the Triunfo de la Cruz community in Tela, Atlántida, spoke with this media outlet and expressed his indignation that the current government only responds to their demands and concerns with excuses. “Honduras is close to becoming a jungle. Nobody obeys the laws, nor do they respect them. Not even those in power are advocating to protect our lives,” he said.
López asserted that persecution is a daily occurrence in his community and that they live under constant threat if they leave their homes, as if under a dictatorship. “We live in agony. The State has no control over these violations. It's painful to say, but it's the truth. No one will drive me from my land. They'll have to remove me dead, because I will never tire of fighting for what belongs to us,” the leader emphasized, his face showing the weariness of years of struggle.
Regarding the extermination of communities, representatives from the Garifuna Committee for the Investigation and Search for the Disappeared of Triunfo de la Cruz , Sunla, and Ofraneh expressed the same position. They also denounced the existence of a policy of extermination against the Garifuna people through deliberate and direct actions, for which the Honduran state is primarily responsible.
Melissa Martínez, coordinator of Ofraneh in Roatán, spoke with this media outlet and stated that one of the main demands of the State of Honduras is the “stop to the policies of extermination against the Garifuna people.”.
At the same time, he asserted that there is a huge desire on the part of governments to discredit the defense of land and territory
Martínez has been prosecuted by state security forces for leading protests in defense of land and territory. However, she asserted that she will not stop and will defend at all costs what belongs to these vulnerable communities.
Mafias in Xiomara Castro's government
Miriam Miranda, coordinator of the Black Fraternal Organization in Honduras (Ofraneh), told Reportar sin Miedo that mafia groups still operate in Honduras. Although the country has changed political leaders, she asserts that nothing has changed regarding the protection of the rights of ancestral communities. On the contrary, she maintains, Honduras is taking steps backward.
“No one can say anything because today the criminals, the mafias that control this country, are in Garifuna territory. The fact that there is a new government doesn't mean they have stopped this mafia that controls this country. Unfortunately, no one questions that,” he lamented.
According to statements Miranda gave to this media outlet, criminal groups use territories to establish their structures and avoid prosecution, although in the end they all end up being the same, he stated.
“No one questions the mafias that control this country. They are decimating, murdering, and persecuting us. Any Garifuna person who fights for the land is threatened, persecuted, and imprisoned. They already have us identified,” he added.
Photo: Ofraneh
Although the persecution of this population is a daily occurrence, Miranda affirms that she will defend and fight for her communities at all costs. “We fight with our bodies from our ancestral lands. The Garifuna people are fighting against the extermination of our communities every day, yet we still cultivate our lands, despite living in constant struggle for ownership. From these lands, the Garifuna communities and people build life every day,” she asserted.
Ofraneh also condemns the Honduran State for failing to comply with any of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights' rulings. On the contrary, it is demonstrating its racist and patriarchal policies and the territorial dispossession that only perpetuates the exodus of the community population to other parts of the country or, as a last resort, migration abroad.
The government's stance of turning its back on the crisis in the communities, caused by predatory extractivism, only generates one of the most powerful extermination policies that leader Miranda has preferred to call "the emptying of the territories".
The photos are by Ofraneh
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