By Ronald J. Morgan
Honduran Garifunas feel their ancestral lands are under government authorized attack in wake of a constitutional reform opening the way for 100% foreign ownership along the Honduran border and coastline.
In what's being referred to as a two-legged Mitch the Honduran Congress approved the reform Nov. 30, 1998 in a late-night session.
The move violated a previous government agreement reached on July 22, 1998 between Congressional President Raphael Pineda Ponce and Black and Miskito groups to put off reform of Constitutional Article 107 until a consensus had been reached with indigenous groups.
The government had also promised to issue 17 new land titles covering Garifuna lands by Nov. 30. Something it failed to do. Black and Miskito organizations have brought a constitutional challenge to the new law before the Honduran Supreme Court in an effort to block its ratification by Congress during the spring 1999 session. If that fails they plan to sue Honduras internationally based on the indigenous rights afforded by the 169 Treaty of the International Labor Organization.
Because of government failure to complete land titling of Garifuna areas and a failure to remove illegal settlers, the new law threatens loss of Garifuna lands held under various titles of occupation or sometimes municipal titles. The jump in value of potential tourism lands will increase rapacious land buying by powerful politicians and military officers.
Garifuna charge Honduras Businessman Miguel Facusse is one of the biggest buyers of Garifuna lands. Facusse heads the Great Project of National Transformation which has become the defacto development agency in Honduras and has received 55 million in World Bank Financing.
"Each day that passes is a day against the aspirations of the AfroHonduran community to achieve its legitimate rights of land tenancy," says a report by the Organization of Ethnic Community Development. Loss of communal lands by the Garifuna will likely lead to marginalization in the poverty belts of the largest Honduran cities.
Currently an estimated 400,000 Garifuna inhabit 53 villages along the Honduran Caribbean coast. They were hit very hard by Hurricane Mitch. Forty-three persons were killed and 15,000 displaced. Some 600 homes were destroyed and 1,000 damaged. The Garifuna also suffered losses to 90% of their crops and livestock. Food supplies were also slow in arriving because of transportation problems.
The Garifuna lifestyle is divided between traditional activities of fishing and farming and the ever more common migration to the United States. Its estimated 200,000 Garifuna work abroad. There are large Garifuna communities in New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., Los Angeles and New Orleans as well as London.
The Garifuna arrived in Honduras on April 12, 1787 after being expelled from the Caribbean Island of St. Vicent by the British. They soon found employment chopping wood and trading along the coast. They worked in the early 20th century banana plantations and during World War II joined the U.S. Merchant Marine in large numbers. Large-scale migration to the United States began in the 1960s as Salvadorans replaced Garifunas in the banana plantations.
Today few Garifuna see work in Honduras as profitable and either travel abroad or subsist on fishing and farming. Garifuna say this is due to both racism and lack of educational opportunities. Only a few Garifuna villages offer more than a six-year primary education.
Despite the migration Garifuna have strong community ties. Projects are carried out in a communal manner and fences rarely divide Garifuna homes. Most Garifuna practice a syncretic Catholicism which includes a number of voodoo like ceremonies. The Garifuna language is a mix of Carib and Arawak Indian
Because of the communal nature of the Garifuna they have demanded a joint-venture approach to tourism. This approach would include lease of land in return for a percentage of tourism profits. The change to article 107 represents a government slap in the face to these long-voiced ambitions.
"These investments (100% ownership) don't meet the requirements that the Garifunas need to subsist. Once they make these investments the Garifuna doesn't have access. He doesn't participate. And there's the danger. We want to be more than waiters and gardeners," says Marcio Thomas, president of the Travesia village council.
The center of the Honduran government's tourism effort along the coast is the Tela Valley Tourism Project. The nearby Garifuna community of Tornabe exemplifies the conflicting pressures as tourism and Garifuna villages attempt to find an acceptable and productive mesh.
In 1992 the Honduran Institute of Tourism struck a deal with the Tornabe governing council to obtain 350 hectares of coast in return for titling of 723 hectares for Garifuna residents. Tornabe residents were also promised a role in tourism projects to be developed.
While the communal land grant was issued by the National Agrarian Institute, pre-existing settlements and vacation homes have yet to be removed and are unsaleable.
Carlos Valerio, president of the Tornabe governing council for the past six years, says non- Garifuna landowners are pressuring for the council to legalize private parcel ownership of various properties included in the community title.
Members of the council were offered bribes in 1997. And in December 1998 death threats grew intense. Valerio and the rest of the council stepped down at the end of the two-years election period this Janurary after a plot had been discovered to have the council killed for 30,000 lempiras.
Pressures on Tornabe are expected to continue. The new Tornabe President Jose Armando Guzman vows to remain streadfast in upholding the original title. "If we sell, our children of the future, those that are just crawling, where are they going to go?"
The path leading to the current land situation has been contradictory. Various administrations have pledged to title and clear illegal squatters from Garifuna lands while at the same time aquiescing as powerful groups buy lands in Garifuna areas.
Up to 1992 Garifunas held only what were termed titles of occupation. Then between 1993 and 1995 the National Agrarian Institue issued 14 definitive titles governing Garifuna lands. Further land titles issued from 1996 to 1998 brought definitively titled Garifuna lands to about 24,000 hectares.
On October 11, 1996 the National Coordinator of Black Organizations carried out a march on the Honduras capital, Tegucigalpa. This resulted in a government agreement to provide $131,000 to the National Agrarian Institute for work on further titling. In addition illegal inhabitants were to be cleared by the government and new additional Garifuna lands provided for growth and development.
When the 200th anniversary of Garifuna arrival was celebrated on April 12, 1997 the government promised 20 new land titles but this never occurred. ODECO says that despite the governmental agreement and additional funding to the INA The titling process slowed as a political will dissipitated.
Behind Garifuna complaints about Article 107 is a deeper sense of the low level of Garifuna political influence in the country. No Garifuna deputy currently serves in the Honduran Congress. Although there is a nonvoting substitute Garifuna deputy. The lack of Garifuna participation is largely blamed on the exclusionary nature of the dominant Liberal and National Parties.
Honduran Black Leader Celeo Alvarez Casildo, who heads ODECO notes: "They are instruments that are managed by the powerful of the country. Instruments that avoid participation. For that reason the Garifuna aren't there."
Alvarez says the Garifuna need a role in national development decisions, better schools that offer bilingual intercultural instruction with Garifuna teachers and access to training and increased financing. The development focus should be on alternative tourism projects and sustainable agriculture with an aim towards integral development of the communities.
Instead he says "the rights of the people have been cut off. They've been made invisible, discriminated against and excluded from all possibility of development."