November 17, 2022
On November 7th, Punta Gorda, the first ever Garifuna community in Honduras founded in 1797, was violently evicted from their ancestral lands in Roatan, the Bay Islands. The community was recovering and protecting land that is illegitimately claimed by the Jones Norman family.
With a judicial order, the Honduran military, police, and the Investigative Police (DPI) (accused of involvement in forcibly disappearing Garifuna leaders in 2020), burned the community’s ancestral structures, beat several leaders seriously injuring 15 people, and arrested six others. Among the six individuals arrested was Melisa Martinez, the Punta Gorda local representative of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH).
On November 8, the six detained individuals (Melisa Martínez, Abot Efraín Sánchez, Richard Armando Martínez, Tishany González, Dorotea Arzú, and Augusto Moisés Dolmo) were released pending an initial hearing, currently scheduled for November 23, 2022. They are charged with aggravated usurpation (aggravated illegal possession of land). The initial hearing will determine whether there is sufficient evidence against the accused to proceed to trial, and whether they will be jailed pending trial or conditionally released.
If found guilty in a drawn-out trial process that could take years, the six Garifuna face 6 to 10 years in prison. The accusations are serious since the narco-dictatorship modified the criminal code in 2021 to classify usurpation, a common accusation used to criminalize indigenous and campesino land recovery efforts, as an organized criminal behaviour.
Currently, all six Garifuna that were originally arrested, have been conditionally released but must sign before a judge every week, avoid going near the disputed land, among other conditions.
Honduras Now and the Honduras Solidarity Network (HSN) are fundraising in support of OFRANEH’s efforts in Punta Gorda. As the community of Punta Gorda with the support of OFRANEH, continues resisting efforts by tourist developers and individuals seeking to steal their ancestral land, emergency supplies are needed to maintain a presence on the disputed land, rebuild what was destroyed, and gather more support to sustain their struggle.
Garifuna communities organized with OFRANEH across the beautiful Caribbean coast of Honduras, have faced serious repression for defending their lands under threat by the global tourist industry, drug trafficking, African palm plantations, among other interests. In October 2022, OFRANEH denounced attacks, threats, and persecution against community leaders in Tela Bay, a site of significant Garifuna land defense, including a ruling won by OFRANEH by the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights requiring the state to return stolen land to the Garifuna community of Triunfo de la Cruz. In August 2022, the Public Prosecutor’s Office announced that they had opened an investigation against OFRANEH Coordinator Miriam Miranda, the Garifuna doctor Luther Castillo, and attorney Edy Tabora of the Justice for the People Law firm. The investigation was announced after OFRANEH held an action in Tegucigalpa to demand that the Attorney General respond to their requests about the forced disappearance of four Garifuna leaders in 2020. In addition to these concerning events in 2022 alone, in less than a year, between September 2019 and August 2020, over a dozen Garifuna, many of whom were community leaders and land defenders, were murdered or disappeared.
Support OFRANEH now and donate to their land defense efforts in Punta Gorda, go to: hondurasnow.org/donate or directly to the donate page for online donations:
For more information
In English:
- An article by ContraCorriente about the eviction: https://contracorriente.red/en/2022/11/07/afro-hondurans-violently-evicted-from-their-ancestral-lands-on-honduras-caribbean-coast/
In Spanish:
- A video of Miriam Miranda on November 9th in Punta Gorda, explaining the situation
- A communique written by the Punta Gorda Garifuna community
- Follow @ofraneh and @baraudawaguchu (Miriam Miranda) on Twitter