by Kari Lydersen
01.15.03

of the San Juan Bautista Garifuna community gather under one of the few remaining trees in a dirt lot next to the emerald waters of the Atlantic. Here, on the north coast of Honduras the Garifuna have lived for over 200 years.

Out of the relative calm and quiet, a sudden spark seems to run through the crowd. There are pointed glances and quick exchanges, and the teenage boys in the group instinctively slide to the outer edges of the group, standing relaxed but at attention. Machetes that moments earlier blended seamlessly with their American-style-clothing are now held prominently in view. Some of Garifuna, including older women, dash off to shrubbery at the side of the field and come back with sturdy branches in hand.

From One Invader to the Next

cenes like this are part of life for the Garifuna community, people of African descent who came to the Atlantic coast of Honduras after being shuffled around various island territories by the French, English and Spanish.

The Garifuna’s ancestors were Africans on Spanish slave ships who ended up landing or washing ashore on San Vicente island in the mid-1600s. From there, they moved to surrounding Caribbean islands and intermarried with local Caribbean people as well as Europeans. They became successful farmers and warriors, even aiding the French in their attempt to fight off English invaders. When the French—and the Garifuna—were eventually defeated and the British exiled about 5,000 Garifuna to the island of Balliceau, many died of yellow fever and hunger. Those who survived were brought to the Honduran port of Trujillo in 1797, and many made their way to Belize, Guatemala and Nicaragua. Today there are about 100,000 Garifuna in Honduras, as well as large diaspora populations in US cities including Miami, New Orleans and New York.

In 1937, the local government tried to roust the Garifuna community from San Juan, massacring 25 people and causing many others to flee. Despite the massacre, the community survived, but the Garifuna have been engaged in an ongoing struggle to hold on to their territory ever since.

Today, they are fighting an army of would-be developers and tourism outfits, who would like to see the idyllic coast lined with five-star hotels, diving operations and the kind of "warm and colorful" Garifuna people advertised in guides circulated to business travelers at airports in Honduras.

What's on paper and what's real

n this afternoon, it turns out the police have been called by someone connected to Saturnina Jeronimo Martinez, the woman who owns these nine hectares of land, or to National Party Senator Dario Munguia, who Martinez is selling the land to for a reported $3.8 million. Martinez was given the land by the municipality in January, as part of 63 hectares that were awarded to the Garifuna in response to their request for legal title to 328 hectares of traditional land. Once Munguia buys the land, the community fears, it will soon be turned into a hotel or resort. Nearby, in the Triunfa de la Cruz Garifuna community, a resort called Marbella stands half-built. The Garifuna stalled the construction of the resort about five years ago through legal challenges, but they know they will not always be so lucky.

One of the poorest countries in Latin America, Honduras has very little in the way of large-scale tourism. The disastrous aftermath of Hurricane Mitch, which struck in 1998, as well as an ongoing drought and a legacy of international debt as old as the country itself, have left the government and speculators desperate for profit.

The Honduran constitution, specifically Article 107, protects the land rights of indigenous people—the Garifuna are generally considered to be indigenous. Among other things, the article stipulates that a foreign company cannot own land within 40 kilometers of the coast. Honduras is also supposed to be bound by Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization, which the country signed onto in 1995. The convention, which was also ratified by Mexico, Argentina, Norway and other countries, gives indigenous people strong rights to their traditional land as well as a say in how the land is used and a share of any profits from the land. But the Honduran government, which has been labeled the third most corrupt in Latin America by the international agency Claritas, has ignored existing laws and found ways to get around them. For example, Saturnina Martinez, the woman who owns the nine hectares, is Garifuna, but leaders of the San Juan community say she is not from the area and that she has a history from other areas of acting as a middle-person in selling land to outsiders.

"The government will buy out indigenous people who don't represent the community or have any contact with the grassroots level, and claim they are acting on behalf of the indigenous people," explains Nathan Pravia, president of CONPAH, the National Confederation of Autonomous Indigenous People of Honduras (Confederacion Nacional de Pueblos Autoctonos de Honduras).

In Garifuna and other indigenous areas, the government has employed the tactic of declaring areas to be protected forest preserves in order to wrest them from indigenous and campesino control. This strategy has been used in Triunfa de la Cruz, where a lush pocket of land on the ocean has been labeled Punta Izopo National Park, bounded by Private Property signs that are becoming more and more common in the area.

On a shack in the park is a banner advertising "Garifuna Tours."

"None of these tours you see advertised are run by the community," says Gregoria Flores, a resident of San Juan and president of OFRENAH, the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (Organizacion Fraternal Negra de Honduras). "This one is run by Italians. These are outsiders coming in."

Bitter and bloody land struggles like those of the Garifuna are raging all over Honduras, unbeknownst to most of the world. At the same time the Garifuna, Lenca, Misquito and other indigenous people are fighting for the right to remain on their traditional land, campesinos, many of whom are also indigenous, are struggling to establish or hold on to communities where they can plant enough food to eke out a meager existence.

Honduras is full of landless peasants, many who end up fighting with each other or with indigenous groups for small areas of farmable land. For example, four tribes of indigenous Tulopane people who live in the high, remote Montana de la Flor area say their land has been invaded by a group of campesinos, many of them also indigenous Tulopane, calling themselves "Los Invincibles." Cipriano Martinez, cacique (or leader) of one of the tribes, says they have been pleading with the government for at least two years to provide them basic health and education resources and emergency food aid, as well as police protection from Los Invincibles and other invaders.

"One of our biggest problems is invasion by people who are settling in the land owned by the four tribes," said Martinez. "They are making it hard for us to live, work and raise our animals. We need a police post in the area and a doctor, but we are ignored. There was a missing person in the area and the body was found, but when we brought it to the authorities, they didn't want to even look into it."

Other campesino and indigenous leaders note that situations like that at Montana de la Flor are complex and hard to negotiate, since there is a scarcity of land available for farming, while much land stands fallow, held but unused by the government or large landowners. Under agrarian reform laws originally passed in the 1960s, land that is not being used for 'production' or 'social purposes' can be legally reclaimed and redistributed by the National Agrarian Institute (INA). In typical fashion, however, the government has been reluctant to carry out agrarian reform. The Modernization of the Agriculture Sector law passed in 1992 and other recent reforms have also watered down the original reform laws.

So it is regular practice for campesinos and indigenous people to take matters into their own hands. Honduran peasants are actually among the most organized in Latin America, with a wide range of campesino organizations supporting groups of peasants in establishing communities complete with homes, farms and schools on unused, "reclaimed" land.

Once they have occupied the land, the campesinos can file for legal title with INA and in many cases they are awarded the deeds. Things are never that simple, however, and often the original owner—be it an individual, government entity or corporation—will resurface demanding the land back. Evictions of the community will then be carried out, usually with the aid of police, often turning violent. According to official sources, at least 38 campesinos and indigenous people have been killed in land struggles since 1985.

On March 28, four campesinos in the Empresa Campesina 1 de octobre organization were murdered by guards hired by Standard Fruit de Honduras, a subsidiary of U.S.-based multinational corporation, Dole, as they walked along a trail to work in the Belfate municipality of the Colon province. The 20 guards, armed with AK-47s, were lying in wait on land owned but largely unused by Dole and occupied since October by the campesino community. In a brief statement issued to press, Standard Fruit said the deaths occurred in a mutual confrontation between armed peasants and the guards. Four guards were jailed for the killings, but were released a week later. COCOCH, the national umbrella organization of campesino groups, has called for the government's human rights commission and the Supreme Court to investigate the killings.

Women at the forefront

ays after the 1 de octubre campesinos were killed, 220 women in the Atlantida state were fearing a violent confrontation of their own. The women, who last June established the country's largest community of all female-headed households on land owned by the CURLA institute of the National Autonomous University of Honduras . Together, these women, mostly single mothers, work together to plant crops and care for and educate 350. CURLA had been in the process of filing for legal title to the 69 hectares of university-owned land which, according to INA, was being used for small dairy and other projects for benefitting local officials. A March 13 letter from INA to Congress notes that the university was using less than a hectare each. The letter stated that the land had been "deficiently managed" and "not fulfilling its purpose" since at least March 2001, leading INA to support the women's right to the land.

But in early April, INA was overruled by the Agrarian Council, another governmental body. The university had filed criminal charges of “usurpation” against 48 members of the community, including minors, resulting in four arrest warrants. Blanca Portillo and other women from the community who visited INA and Congressional offices on April 4 seeking support said they have received numerous death threats and expect there to be violence if the eviction order handed down by the Agrarian Council is carried out.

"This is the first time women have led a struggle like this in Honduras," said Maria Alicia Calles, president of COCOCH (Consejo Coordinadora de Organizaciones Campesinos de Honduras). "This should be not just a local issue but an international issue. We need the solidarity of everyone, especially the percent of the population that are women."

A Continuum of Resistance

s the San Juan Bautista Garifuna community waited for the police to arrive at the disputed lot, they brought out traditional African drums. Soon, tensions morphed into a scene of celebration and resistance as the men and women, boys and girls danced the traditional hip-gyrating punta and chanted in their native tongue. Later in the day six police officers and a government attorney came to the site with an arrest warrant for Flores, who had left earlier to visit with the U.S.-based Pastors for Peace. At a press conference in Tegucigalpa the next day, Flores, a large woman with flowing dreadlocks and bright eyes, vowed to continue the fight for land, echoing the sentiment of the older women who stood in the sun in the lot, legs stolidly apart and faces set in placid determination.

"I'm 82 and I've never sold my land," said a small, wiry woman in a meeting in the San Juan community center, decorated with crepe paper and posters for the Miss Verano 2002 festivities. "And no one's going to take it from me."

(Quotes translated from Spanish).

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