Miriam Miranda: “The Garifuna people are fighting against extermination.”
The Honduran activist, along with 200 Garifuna, demanded that the State protect their lives. "They illegally entered our communities and instilled a terror that disrespects life," Miranda said.
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TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras. To the sound of drums, wearing scarves and traditional costumes, the ritual to ward off bad energy and attract the good energy that vulnerable communities so desperately need. With barefoot dancing to celebrate the reunion of brothers and sisters, more than two hundred men and women defending the land appeared at a hotel in the capital to demand that the Honduran state guarantee life and end the violence against this group, which the mafias in collusion with the powerful are trying to exterminate.
In recent years, Honduras has been classified as a hostile territory for populations who live in constant struggle for their lands and common goods. Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples experience the anxiety 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 that live under the shadow of impunity and the latent danger of losing even their own lives are Triunfo de la Cruz , Punta Piedra , San Juan, Armenia , Guadalupe, San Antonio, Masca, Travesía, Cayos Cochinos , Punta Gorda and Vallecito, among others. These communities often suffer violence, threats, persecution and intimidation from groups established in their ancestral territories.
Reportar sin Miedo spoke with Yessica Trinidad, coordinator of the National Network of Women Human Rights Defenders (RNNDH) . The Garifuna leader has experienced human rights violations firsthand. She has been unjustly imprisoned, but despite everything, she continues to fight.
Trinidad explained that since 2020 to date, 3,205 attacks against men and women defenders in ancestral communities have been recorded.
Of these attacks, 25%, or 802, were against the Honduran Black Fraternal Organization (Ofraneh) . "These attacks are a reflection of the violence and the policy of extermination. They want to wipe out the Garifuna people."
Photo: Ofraneh
Trinidad mentioned that this policy of extermination is being carried out through violent deaths and forced disappearances. At the same time, he lamented that systematic and intentional violence is expressed in reprehensible acts.
Among the main actions against land defenders are harassment, surveillance, and threats that extend to their children. As a result, communities live in constant tension.
In the defender's opinion, the Garifuna communities are the most vulnerable to persecution, threats, criminalization, and dispossession. The main threats are directed primarily at the leading groups of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) .
Berta Isabel Cáceres belonged to COPINH , but in the midst of her struggle, she perished at the hands of the ruling groups. To this day, there is still no information about those responsible for her murder.
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 some indignation that the current government only knows how to respond to their demands and problems with excuses. “Honduras is close to becoming a jungle. No one follows the laws, nor do they respect them. Not even those in power are advocating to protect our lives,” he said.
López asserted that in his community, persecution is a daily occurrence and that they are threatened if they leave their homes, as if it were a dictatorship. “We live in agony. The State has no control over these violations. It's sad to say, but it's the truth. No one is going to remove me from my land. They'll have to remove me, but dead, from there because I will not tire of fighting for what belongs to us,” the leader emphasized, his face somewhat tired from years of struggle.
Regarding the extermination of communities, representatives of the Garifuna Committee for the Investigation and Search for Disappeared Persons 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, Ofraneh's coordinator in Roatán, spoke with this media outlet and stated that one of the main demands of the Honduran State is to "stop the policies of extermination against the Garifuna people."
At the same time, he stated that there is a huge desire on the part of governments to disqualify the defense of land and territory.
Martínez has been prosecuted by state security forces for holding protests in defense of land and territory. However, she asserted that she will not stop and will defend at all costs what is due to these vulnerable communities.
Mafias in Xiomara Castro's government
The coordinator of the Black Fraternal Organization in Honduras (Ofraneh), Miriam Miranda, told Reportar sin Miedo that mafia groups still exist in Honduras. Although the country has changed political leaders, the leader asserts that nothing has changed regarding the protection of the rights of ancestral communities. Far from that, she asserted, 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've stopped this mafia that controls this country. Unfortunately, no one questions that," he complained.
According to statements Miranda made to this media outlet, criminal groups use the territories to establish their structures and avoid prosecution, although in the end, they all end up being the same, he said.
“No one questions the mafias that control this country. They are decimating, murdering, and persecuting us. Any Garifuna who fights for their land is threatened, persecuted, and imprisoned. They have already identified us,” he added.
Photo: Ofraneh
Although persecution against this population is a daily occurrence, Miranda asserts that she will defend and fight for her communities no matter what. “We fight with our bodies from our ancestral lands. We Garifuna communities are fighting against the extermination of our peoples every day, but we still produce our lands, despite living in a constant struggle for ownership. From those lands, the Garifuna communities and people build lives every day,” she asserted.
Ofraneh also condemns the Honduran State's failure to comply with any of the IACHR rulings. On the contrary, it is highlighting its racist and patriarchal policies and territorial dispossession, which only serve to increase the exodus of the community's population to other areas of the country or, as a last resort, to migration abroad.
The government's stance of turning its back on the crisis in communities caused by predatory extractivism only generates one of the most powerful policies of extermination, which Leader Miranda has preferred to call "the emptying of the territories."
The photos are by Ofraneh
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