(Garifuna women breaking in the land).
June 24, 2021
By: Payton
Who Are the Garifuna People?
THE GARIFUNA PEOPLE LEFT SANTE VICENTE searching for a peaceful place to live, free of the oppressive British colonial powers. Three thousand women, men and children sailed across the blue Caribbean Sea, thirsty and hungry. Many perished before reaching the island of Roatan, Honduras, where their new home would be. Today, many of the Garifuna people, an Afro-descendant population in the Caribbean coast of Central America, are still struggling for days of peace, like their ancestors envisioned 213 years ago. It is extremely sad to see an entire nation not be able to live in peace on their ancestral lands for more than 213 years. Hassling to find work in Central America, many of the Garifuna people were able to survive all those years because they refused to separate themselves from their land and culture. Even those who were forced to migrate to a different country to find work and a better lifestyle still stay close to their roots. Many still dream of the day when they are able to return home to the flat coastal lands of Honduras and Guatemala, where the Garifuna have rebuilt their lives by the ocean. For the Garifuna, their culture originated and nourished through their language, and daily connection with the land and ocean, which provides both food and energy. This strong connection motivates the Garifuna people to continue to keep fighting for their land today.
(Garifuna playing their traditional drums).
What is Happening to the Garifuna People and the Land?
LAND CONFLICTS HAVE OCCURRED REGULARLY IN LATIN AMERICA societies for centuries, and they continue to do so despite the trends toward rapid urbanization. Access to land has long been documented to play a vital role in reducing rural poverty. This remains as an important political policy issue in the area for the Garifuna people. Most Garifuna communities in Latin America are still very reliant on access to land for their cultural, economic, environmental and social security. These communities have tried to collectively claim the lands they have inhabited since the colonial era, pressuring national governments to provide them formal title. As a central element of this struggle, rural Garifuna people across Latin America are demanding recognition as distinct ethnic groups and to have group-specific rights, including the land and territory. Here, the distinction between race and ethnicity is important. In Colombia, the land rights of Indigenous descents on the Pacific coast gained constitutional recognition in 1991 as well as the 1998 Constitution of Ecuador granted Afro-Ecuadorians collective rights to ancestral lands. Indigenous groups have often been granted more rights but not to Afro Descendant groups. In Colombia, for example, Indigenous communities were granted not only rights over land but also political, jurisdictional autonomy, so now they have Indigenous governments that are able to govern their own territories. The distinction between the two is that none of these privileges have been granted to the Garifuna Afro Descendant communities. Doesn’t it seem wrong that the Indigenous group in Columbia was able to receive rights to their ancestral land but the Garifuna people cannot? The legal logic behind ethnically based land claims can be both empowering and exclusionary. These complicated issues are now the struggles of Honduras' Garifuna people.
(Garifuna woman on the land that was once hers, Garifuna people protesting about the land).
How Has Colonialism Affected the Garifuna People?
GARIFUNA COSMOLOGY IS A WAY FOR THEIR PEOPLE to show very specific notions about the land and how it is to be treated. With respect to land rights, the Garifuna occupy a complex position. Legal and constitutional terms are often too narrow to acknowledge the diverse ways in which the Garifuna self-perceive and show themselves to others. Although they have been racialized within the categories of black and moreno (dark skinned), the Garifuna see themselves, and are seen, as both a racial and an ethnic group. As a group, they have experienced high levels of discrimination and have been assimilated ever since their arrival in Honduras and have been characterized by the denial of social and civil rights by the government. How is it fair to allow the government, the people who should have the goal to help their people, be allowed to treat people this way? Garifuna people have also sometimes been negatively stereotyped as being too elemental and rural by others. 
(Garifuna women).
What is the Reason Ancestral Land Rights are Unrestored for the Garifuna?
SINCE GARIFUNA COMMUNITIES ARE LOCATED along the country's northern beaches, the growth of tourism takes over their land claim efforts. Tourism has become Honduras' second largest source of foreign exchange. Foreign investment in the tourism sector is necessary around existing land ownership. Honduran constitutional recognition of Garifuna land rights puts valuable lands under a communal titling that is, at least theoretically, immune to market logic. The representative political institutions of Garifuna communities, known as patronatos, hold the communal land titles. These titles grant the community rights to a given area in the state of being. They may not sell the land or transfer its ownership outside the community. How is this fair to the Garifuna people and their land? Improvements, such as houses and other buildings, can be bought and sold within the community, but the land remains deniable. I do not understand why the Garifuna people are able to buy and sell the land but are not allowed to make any changes to the land itself. Why are the Garifuna people being denied their rightful land? Meanwhile, tourism throughout the years and the demand for valuable beachfront property has created incentives for taking land, as well as bribery and outright violence against Garifuna communities. Who is bringing hate crimes and violence against the Garifuna people, is it the government who is taking their land away from them? While other commercial interests have historically threatened Garifuna lands, tourism has greatly amplified the intensity of this threat. Some community members have responded by illegally selling their land to outsiders, often fearing they will lose their land without financial compensation if they refuse to sell. I do not understand why the Garifuna people are living their lives in fear and having to sell their land to outsiders in order to receive compensation for their land. Some patronatos have also engaged in illegal land sales to outsiders and because of these sales, the Honduran political and legal institutions are often ineffective and corrupt, nearly all Garifuna territories suffer from multiple ownership claims. This has made foreign investment in coastal tourism difficult to manage.
Who is Apart of the Change for the Garifuna Land Rights?
THERE ARE TWO ORGANIZATIONS KNOWN AS the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH) and the Ethic Community Development Organization (ODECO), who have both played a key role in pressuring the Honduran government to honor its constitutional commitment to give the title to the Garifuna land. I have never heard of these organizations. Are the government and the media hiding their good work for the Garifuna people because they don’t want the people to know the wrong they are doing to the Garifuna people and their land? They are active in public education and consciousness-raising, political advocacy and community organizing, development work and fundraising. I think that these organizations are doing an amazing thing for the Garifuna people and their land. Both of these organizations are an amazing political advocacy for the Garifuna people and their land conflict with the government. But the struggle is clearly unfinished and the obstacles remain substantial.
(Garifuna people defending their land by protesting).
How Has Canada’s Colonization Affected Indigenous People and Their Land?
LAND ISSUES WITHIN CANADA HAS BEEN AN ONGOING issue since European colonizers came to this foreign land. In Canada all Indigenous peoples have rights that can include access to ancestral lands and resources, and the right to self-government. In addition to the treaties that were made in Canada, which were supposed to protect certain rights to the land, resources and more. The Constitution Act, in 1982, was also made to protect Indigenous rights. The European colonists who came to Canada did not befriend the Indigenous people, they manipulated and lied to them, in order to take what they wanted. An example of this, is that when the European settlers came to Canada they brought over a disease known as smallpox. The smallpox was infested in blankets that European colonizers gave to Indigenous communities, this wiped out Indigenous women, children, and men. The European colonizers wanted the land to do what they pleased with and by doing so they removed the Indigenous people off of their land and homes that they created with their own two hands and forced them to move onto reservations to live in isolation. How is this fair and why isn’t there anything being done for Indigenous people in Canada today and their land? By continuing to attack Indigenous nations’ relationship to the land, settler governments and corporations have attempted to destroy the basis of culture, identity, and sovereignty for entire communities and nations. Colonialism at its core is about erasing Indigenous nations’ sovereignty over their homes and lands.
(Canada's Indigenous people protesting about land issues).
How do the Garifuna People and Women Land Defenders in Latin America Go Through Persecution and Violence?
ACROSS LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN, women land defenders each carry their own stories of persecution and violence. But a transformative multilateral agreement, known as the Escazú Agreement, could provide a promising path forward. Like the Garifuna people, the Amazonian Women Defenders are trying to protect their territories in the Ecuadorian Amazon from extractive industries and Indigenous rights violations. At least 212 land and environmental defenders were murdered, with over two-thirds of killings taking place in Latin America, which is the highest number since the group Global Witness began gathering data eight years ago. Out of this about 40% of those who were killed were Indigenous peoples. When I heard this statistic I was completely and utterly shocked, these people were just trying to protect their ancestral land and lost their lives in doing so. There was an update from Honduras, where the Afro-Indigenous Garifuna community continues to demand the safe return of five Garifuna defenders who were kidnapped by heavily armed men who were reportedly wearing police uniforms and forced into three unmarked vehicles at gunpoint. This was the latest attack against the Garífuna community as they defend their territory from destructive projects fueled by foreign investors and the Honduran government. “We are in danger daily — all the leaders of the Garífuna community, all the defendants of the land in Honduras,” says Carla Garcia, international relations coordinator at the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras. Why should anyone feel like they are in danger when they are trying to protect what is rightfully theirs? The Escazú Agreement is an agreement guaranteeing access rights on environmental matters, and the explicit protection of human rights and environmental defenders. The Escazú Agreement was adopted two years after the murder of Honduran environmental activist, Berta Cáceres, and carries the dedication and spirit of women’s defense of the land. The Agreement aims to carry on the legacy of Berta Cáceres as well as the struggles of thousands of land defenders, particularly women, across the Latin America and the Caribbean, that stand up against extractivism and injustices. Like the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH) and Ethic Community Development Organization (ODECO), these women land defenders are doing amazing political advocacy for their communities and land. A just and ethical person would believe that it is only right to allow the Garifuna people who arrived to their lands centuries ago, deserve the right to live a free and hopeful life on their lands. The Garifuna’s struggle to secure their land rights has led to a series of repression. An attempt to secure land rights, offers a glimpse into the difficulties the Garifuna people face in trying to reclaim their territories. But the struggle is clearly unfinished and the obstacles remain substantial to this day. The people of society need to come together and find ways to help Indigenous people and their communities to take back what is rightfully theirs, like the Garifuna situation. We can do this together, and help the repression end, once and for all.
(Women Land Defenders - Garifuna people talking).
References
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