Team WOLA
For more than a decade, the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH) has denounced that there is a genocidal plan against Garifuna communities in Honduras. This plan has become critical in recent months, as Garifuna leaders have been directly attacked, harassed, and threatened by third-party settlers, including owners of extractivist and palm-oil projects, tourism investors, and drug-traffickers.
On March 9, 2024, the owner of the tourist complex “Rosa Negra” publicly harassed and threatened Garifuna leaders with racist, demeaning comments. Two months later, third-party settlers aligned with “Rosa Negra” barred the entrance of the Garifuna community of Triunfo de la Cruz and launched a media campaign aimed at generating divisions among the community.
On May 28, 2024, these third-party settlers, with support from the Tela mayor, Ricardo Calix, held a general assembly to elect a parallel community board, or patronato and, through this board, block efforts by the State of Honduras to comply with the 2015 Inter-American Court sentences which order the State to give back the land stolen from Garifuna communities. Similar tactics have been taken against other Garifuna communities, such as Travesia, where the municipal government is actively destroying the social fabric of the Garifuna community by also electing and imposing a parallel patronato. These acts of systematic violence seek to eradicate the Garifuna way of life and being.
While the State of Honduras is responsible for violating the land rights of the Garifuna people, the United States government, international finance institutions, and multilateral development banks are directly complicit in this violence, which emanates from bankrolling these projects and imposing a neoliberal economic model based on tourism, extractivism and exports. As organizations and individuals who stand in solidarity with the Garifuna people, we join OFRANEH in their demands by:
1. Publicly denouncing the violence enacted by global tourist companies, the U.S.-bound narcotics industry, and foreign-funded palm oil companies against Garifuna defenders and communities.
2. Calling on U.S. Congressional Representatives to support the OFRANEH Resolution (H.Res. 1278), which was reintroduced on June 5, 2024 by Rep. Cori Bush along with Reps. Ilhan Omar, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, Jamaal Bowman, and Jan Schakowsky, which condemns the violence against the Garifuna people, mandates the return of their land, and calls on the US to take responsibility for stopping the financing of projects it is backing.
3. Calling on the State of Honduras to comply with the Inter-American Human Rights Court rulings, which orders the restitution of Garifuna land and guarantees of non-repetition.
4. Calling on the Honduran government to protect the lives and integrity of the Garifuna people.
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