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Summary:
On July 18, 2020, Afro-indigenous Garifuna land defenders were kidnapped from their homes and disappeared. This episode goes through the series of events since their disappearance.
For decades, the Garifuna people have been threatened by the global tourist industry and African palm companies that want to take their collectively-owned ancestral lands. The Garifuna have resisted and have faced repression as a result. This episode proposes actions to demand an investigation into the recent disappearances of the Garifuna land defenders.
Transcript:
Karen Spring:
Today I’m going to talk to you about the series of events that have unfolded over the last week related to the forced disappearances of Honduran land defenders. I will outline the actions you can take to help and the context in which this incident is unfolding.
Garifuna Community of Triunfo de la Cruz
Triunfo de la Cruz is a peaceful community in Honduras. It is located on the shores of the Caribbean Sea inside Tela Bay, one of Honduras’ two largest bays on the north coast. Triunfo is the home of thousands of afro–indigenous Garifuna families who settled there in the 1800s. Because of its beauty, its white sand, its turquoise beaches and its prime location along the bay, the lands proudly defended and collectively owned by the Garifuna from Triunfo de la Cruz and other Garifuna communities have long been the target of the global tourists and hotel industry. If you’re standing on Triunfo’s beautiful beaches, looking out at the water to the eastern most point of the bay, you can see Punta Izopo in the distance.
Punta Izopo is a national reserve that is also part of the Garifunas’ collectively owned land. Despite its fragile ecosystem and rich diversity of species, the powerful Honduran Facussé family has planted African palm plantations and built a vacation home in the center of the national reserve. This has been another point of major dispute for the Garifuna communities that live along the bay.
The Forced Disappearances
In the early morning on July 18th, Triunfo’s peacefulness turned to terror. It was a Saturday. At approximately 5:30 a.m, a group of heavily armed individuals wearing bullet-proof vests broke into the homes of at least four Garifuna men.
The men were violently taken from their home at gunpoint and forced into three unmarked vehicles. Some family members attempted to stop them, but backed down when they were threatened at gunpoint by the kidnappers. Then they were loaded into vehicles and the vehicles drove off with the men inside. Their families haven’t heard from them or known of their whereabouts since.
In the immediate aftermath, community members confirmed that the letters “DPI” were written on the vests worn by the armed kidnappers. Within minutes, the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras, or OFRANEH by its Spanish acronym, an organization that represents the Garifuna, responded to the forced disappearance.
OFRANEH immediately published a small note about the incident. In the chaos, worry and fear, it was hard to sort out what had happened and who had been kidnapped, but OFRANEH soon published the names of the men that had been taken. Alberth Snider Centeno, Suami Aparicio Mejía García, Milton Joel Martínez Álvarez, and Gerardo Misael Róchez Cálix. There was a fifth person kidnapped with the men, but few know the man well and referred to him by a nickname, “Pri” [Update on August 3, 2020: The name of this man has since been reported as Junior Rafael Juarez Mejia]. The fifth man is believed to be from Belize and the Honduran police are investigating his identity and getting in touch with his family.
Three of the disappeared individuals are active members of OFRANEH, and are involved in the long-standing defense of Garifuna land in Tela Bay. One of the men, Snider Centeno, has been particularly vocal about the negative impacts of the international tourist industry on his community’s land. Centeno is a Garifuna leader and the elected president of the community Triunfo de la Cruz.
Within minutes of the kidnapping, news spread in the community. Community members came together to stand and support the families. They held a vigil and gathered together to hope for the best, give each other support and wait for any news. Within hours, news spread to the other 45 or so Garifuna communities along the Honduran coast.
By the evening of the same day of the kidnapping, the men still had not turned up. There was no news of their whereabouts. Worried about his son’s well being, Pablo Centeno, the father of Snider Centeno, one of the disappeared men, wrote publicly on his Facebook, “We continue hoping, my son, the wait brings us anguish and there’s so much pain in our hearts, we wait. Your mother, your grandparents, your brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins, friends and your kids are here waiting for you, Suami and Milton and all that were kidnapped from their families. We are waiting. Please respect the physical integrity of each of them, we beg you”, he wrote.
The next day, a Sunday morning, and still no news of the Garifuna men, a team of over 35 people from the community began combing the vast and beautiful lands of Tela Bay. They looked in the rivers, they looked on the beautiful beaches, and in other Garifuna communities that are also located along the bay. They were looking for signs of the men, checking out any locations that may be suspicious, or where people could be hidden. Community members eagerly awaited news from the search team. Families began contacting the morgue, the hospitals and police stations to try and locate their loved ones, but nothing. Throughout Saturday and Sunday, there were several actions from Honduran and international organizations, demanding the release of the men.
The pressure on the Honduran government began to grow. “You took them alive”, people said, “and we want them back alive”, demanded the Garifuna and Hondurans across the country, using a common saying from the 1980s in Latin America, when community members were disappeared by state security forces under dictatorships. In response to the news of the forced disappearances of the Garifuna community members in Triunfo de la Cruz, and to the pressure on the Honduran government to respond, the office of the Honduran Ministry of Human Rights put out a statement the same day of the disappearance, indicating that they had communicated with Honduran authorities, asking them to locate the men and to investigate who was responsible for their disappearance.
By Sunday night, there was still no news. Triunfo de la Cruz, OFRANEH and other communities decided that they needed to take more radical actions to force a stronger response from the state.
On Monday morning, hundreds of miles away, members of the Garifuna community living in the United States organized a protest. They gathered in New York, holding signs and banging on their drums, marching to the building of the United Nations to demand that their brothers be returned alive and unharmed. In Honduras, that same morning, residents of Triunfo de la Cruz went on to the major highway that runs across the entire coast of Honduras, and set up a road blockade. They laid tree branches, burned tires and stood in the middle of the road blocking traffic.
On Tuesday morning, more Garifuna communities along the coast followed Triunfo de la Cruz’s actions and several road blockades were also set up, again, for the second day in a row. By now, the government was feeling the pressure, and they did not welcome the road blockades or show the slightest remorse for the communities’ urgency and anguish. So, like in many dictatorships, the government sent in Honduran military and police to evict the protestors. They began removing the objects blocking the highway and shooting tear gas at the protesters, and they evicted the Garifuna from the road.
This is not the first time men dressed in investigative police uniforms have been connected to kidnappings and disappearances in Honduras. In fact, there are several reports of young people or individuals that have spoken vocally against the government, being arrested in their homes or in the streets by police, military and investigative units. In some occasions, these people have been tortured and dumped off on the side of the road, or at a police station, badly injured and terrorized. And in other occasions, they haven’t been so lucky.
OFRANEH links the disappearances to the fact that the community of Triunfo de la Cruz and other Garifuna communities located in Tela Bay have fought against the Honduran government for stealing their land.
In 2015, the Inter-American Court on Human Rights ruled that the Honduran government had violated the land rights of the Garifuna people. Since then, the Honduran government has done nothing to remedy the violations. Instead, the Garifuna have continued to be targeted, like the disappearances of these young men on July 18th, and others that have been murdered in the last few months.
Later in the afternoon, on Tuesday, Miriam Miranda, the general coordinator of OFRANEH calls into Radio Progreso to give them an interview about the situation. This is Miriam Miranda in an interview recorded and aired on Radio Progreso on July 21st, over three days since the men were disappeared.
[BEGINNING OF EXCERPTS FROM INTERVIEW OF MIRIAM MIRANDA BY RADIO PROGRESO]
Miriam Miranda: We condemn the big campaign to criminalize us, but we also condemn the fact that they are turning our territories and our communities into insecure places. We want to thank all the people, all the organizations and international movements in this moment. Ambassadors, Senators, many people on an international level that are demanding a response from the state about the whereabouts of the Garifuna youth that were arrested in the early morning on Saturday at around 6:00 in the morning. This is an irrefutable fact that the state has not fulfilled its duty to protect and generate security in the region of Tela Bay as was ordered by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
Karen Spring: Then Radio Progreso asks Miriam, “Miriam, can you explain the situation that is unfolding in the Garifuna communities? Because we have seen and heard that in the context of this pandemic there have been several violent incidents that have occurred. We unfortunately heard the news of the murder of Edwin Fernández in Río Tinto, again, located in the municipality of Tela. There was also another Garifuna leader in the region of Iriona in the department of Colón that was killed. How has the crisis of the pandemic been used to continue carrying out violent acts against these Garifuna communities?”
Miriam Miranda: Absolutely. I think that the clearest explanation is that the repressive forces of the state and criminal groups are more able to act and are stronger. Like we have said in other interviews, we need to ask ourselves who has the authorization to be out of their houses during the lockdown? One supposes that no one should be on the highway. Let’s ask ourselves, think about it. We are not just in a health emergency, but also the repression in the country is getting stronger. We need to be clear about that and all Hondurans, we have to work to get out of this situation. To say one thing, I don’t even have the words to classify the permanent terror that we are living in. Our brothers and sisters, our families, anything can happen in this country. Murder, be brutally beaten or killed. This is the context that we are confronting as Hondurans. In the case of the Garifuna people, we cannot forget about the powerful interests that want to control our natural resources and control our territories. We are clear that the purpose of this violence is to generate terror. I want to say that the community is totally terrorized. Unknown individuals keep entering the community and this generates insecurity. This is dangerous for the community because the Garifuna people have always lived in peace, harmony and in sisterhood or brotherhood.
[END OF EXCERPTS FROM INTERVIEW OF MIRIAM MIRANDA BY RADIO PROGRESO]
Karen Spring: Miriam continues in the interview, and I will link to the full interview with Radio Progreso in the show notes.
On Wednesday July 22nd, on the fourth day since the kidnappings and forced disappearances, Honduran authorities announced that one man in Tela had been arrested. The man is suspected to have been involved in the kidnapping, but police officials and the Honduran media did not report any details. They say the case is still under investigation. But what is clear, is whether the arrested suspect was involved or not, he clearly did not act alone. An extensive investigation into police and military involvement in the kidnapping must be carried out, as well as an investigation into the role of the Honduran government that continues to refuse to implement Inter-American Court’s ruling about the land conflicts in Triunfo and in Tela Bay.
These past few days, the Honduras Solidarity Network and several other international organizations have been taking action to help Triunfo de la Cruz and OFRANEH demand that the Garifuna men be returned alive and unharmed to their community. Even though it’s been several days, it’s possible that pressure could lead to these men being released or locate their whereabouts, or force the government to do a much more extensive investigation.
We are asking people to take action. There are two actions that are on the Honduras Solidarity Network’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. We have made it very easy for you to contact Honduran authorities, as well as your congressional or your parliamentary representatives. I will link to these actions in the show notes. The faster we react and the stronger the response, the more likely that these men will be found.
I have been particularly busy these past few days helping with the response to these disappearances. On July 22nd I was asked to participate in an interview with Teri Mattson, who hosts the “What the F is going on in Latin America” program that is part of US organization CODEPINK’s work. I spoke to Teri about the disappearances of these Garifuna men and together we put the incident into context. We spoke about the international financing behind the large tourist developments that Snider Centeno, OFRANEH and the community of Triunfo de la Cruz have been fighting. The following are excerpts from the interview that you can find on CODEPINK’s YouTube channel.
[BEGINNING OF EXCERPTS FROM INTERVIEW OF KAREN SPRING BY TERI MATTSON]
Teri Mattson: So, the other, one of many other, forms of corruption happening in Honduras today is what you and many other activists call “land grabbing”. And I was on a delegation with you, well several delegations with you, to Honduras where that was the specific theme, of land, of the delegation, and we visited Garifuna communities on the Atlantic coast, the Caribbean coast of Honduras. And so, let’s talk a little bit about these four Garifuna community members that were abducted on Saturday and how that all relates to the overall corruption, and I would add the corruption that’s leading to the complete privatization of the Honduran economy.
Karen Spring: One of the things that’s so important, Teri, is that they had these vests on, these DPI bullet-proof vests on when these men were kidnapped. The DPI is a new investigative police unit and it’s been trained several times by the FBI. The FBI was training the DPI in February of 2019 in identification of gangs and thieves and other organized criminal groups. And that was the training that the FBI was giving to this Honduran police force. And so, now you have this Honduran police force that is somehow connected to this kidnapping, and I mean, some people in the government would say, “oh, they were just people that were wearing DPI bullet-proof vests”.
But nobody in Honduras believes that at all, because they know that Honduras is a narco state, and that the military and the police and the investigative police have all been implicated in these sorts of activities. The forced disappearances, of murders, of torture, of people of the opposition.
Teri Mattson: What you’re describing we’re witnessing happen in Portland, Oregon, here in the United States right now. I mean, you were describing, only these police units in Portland, Oregon don’t have any identification on them at all. I mean, you’re describing exactly what we’re seeing in Portland right now, it’s horrifying. It’s really a clear example of US foreign policy coming home to roost. And trained by the FBI, that’s a curious thing we need to investigate here too.
Karen Spring: Yeah, I mean, the FBI gets funding to train Honduran forces and then these Honduran forces go and commit all these abuses. And just like these unmarked vehicles and these unidentified federal police officials or who – who knows who they are? – in Portland are kidnapping people off the streets and it’s been going on particularly since the 2009 coup d’état in Honduras. And so, it’s been a state policy in Honduras for a long time. And so, with this new incident related to these four Garifuna men, Hondurans are very clear that, yeah, they’re not just these individuals that have DPI vests on, this is a state policy of them going after people that are threatening neoliberal interests or threatening the interests of the powerful, and the global economic model which, in this case, in the Garifuna communities is this global tourist model, these global developments in tourism.
And so, Teri, you’ve gone to see with me on the coast exactly what Triunfo de la Cruz is fighting. Snider Centeno, who’s one of the disappeared individuals has been so vocal against these hotel developments in Triunfo de la Cruz, which not only gets support from international hotel investors that are based in the US, but also the World Bank as well. It’s interesting, again, we’re talking about the World Bank and we’re talking about how the World Bank is funding these really problematic figures in a country like Honduras.
And so, I mean, Teri, you went to this resort that Centeno, one of the men that was disappeared, was vocal against, and so, you can describe it, what it was like for you as a US citizen being in this hotel.
Teri Mattson: It was amazing. I went there, I didn’t stay there. We did go there as part of an itinerary item on our delegation with you, and this was the Indura Beach and Golf Resort. I was in shock when we pulled up, much less walked to the property. This was five-star Caribbean resort that you would find on the US Virgin Islands or something. It was not occupied by many people as I recall, but it was this gorgeous lobby overlooking the Caribbean, and if I recall correctly, stairs going down to a tier. The property was terraced going down to the actual beach, and there were swimming pools and outside dining, and swim–up bars, and then all these villas built around the fabulous golf course.
It was shocking, actually, and that experience with you made it really, really clear what global capitalists would want for that coast. When you have these indigenous populations, the Garifuna community living there, in their ancestral way, which is very in favor of community and the earth – at least I think that’s the best way to say it, and then resorts, investors and developers eye this land, this beautiful Caribbean land… So, where’d the money come from? Because when we went, when you took us to Indura it was not a Hilton, I don’t believe it was a Hilton Hotel at the time.
And we were questioning where’d the money come from to build this, and in part we thought it was perhaps drug-laundering money and now you’re saying it’s World Bank money. And perhaps more, I don’t know. And then, did it get sold? Did it get build and then sold?
Karen Spring: I mean, I think there’s a couple of things. So, the World Bank helped finance it, but there’s a whole bunch of different sources of money and investment coming into the hotel. I’m not an expert on the global hotel business and so I’m not really sure how franchises work, but I think that Indura is now part of the Hilton chain, I don’t really know how that works. But the Hilton has its name on the Indura Beach and Golf Resort. And so, the World Bank actually sent money to support the Indura Beach and Golf Resort through a Honduran bank that is called Ficohsa, and Ficohsa is one of the three largest banks in the country. And it’s been implicated in so many issues related to land struggles and struggles related to natural resources.
So, for example, Ficohsa, the executives and one of the families that owns Ficohsa is a family that’s been implicated in Berta Cáceres’s murder. Berta Cáceres is a well-known indigenous activist in Honduras. The World Bank funded Ficohsa to then fund a private Honduran African Palm company named Dinant Corporation that has been implicated in the murder of over 100, if not 150 campesinos or small farmers in another region in Honduras, again, on the north coast.
And so, the private arm of the World Bank, which is called the IFC, the International Financial Corporation, gave $14 million through the Ficohsa Bank, one of the largest banks in Honduras, because a lot of these international institutions work through the banks in Honduras, which are all owned by very wealthy Honduran families. And so, the family that owns Ficohsa, not only do they own the bank, but they probably have their own villas and that’s their vacation home. They probably have like a place where they can land their helicopter close to Indura so that they can enjoy a weekend in the pools on stolen Garifuna lands in the Indura Beach and Golf Resort, and then play a game of golf if they want.
But these wealthy Honduran families need international backing to give their projects legitimacy and also to bring tourists to Honduras in order to stay in these resorts. And so, teaming up with the World Bank is part of legitimizing the economic investments of these wealthy Honduran banks and these families that own the wealthy Honduran banks that then enjoy these tourist developments along the north coast. And it’s also about bringing names like the Hilton as a way to legitimize this tourist industry in Honduras under these really difficult human rights issues that nationally, that are playing out in Honduras, and this narco government.
And so, these four Garifuna men that were kidnapped were coming up against that very powerful global tourist industry, and coming up against these investments promoted by the World Bank. And coming up against the global tourist industry, that doesn’t really care that they’re stealing land from Garifuna people or indigenous people along the north coast, that doesn’t care that the Afro-indigenous Garifuna people never consented to their presence on their collectively owned land, and they don’t care that the expansion of a second phase of their hotel resort or their golf course is actually evicting an entire community.
And we actually went to that community, Teri, I don’t know if you remember, but it was called Barra Vieja. It’s another community, one of the six communities, I think, that are affected by all these tourist developments in this bay. And in the morning we spent in the Garifuna community that was saying, “No, we don’t want, you’re not taking our land for your stupid golf course”. And then we went to the Indura Beach and Golf Resort, do you remember? And Barra Vieja, at that time was, they were basically being forced from their land, so there were few people living there, but there were still people that were like, “no, we’re not leaving, this is our land, we have an ancestral title dating back to the 1800s”. And so, I’m sure you remember that, because the stark difference is quite powerful for people when they see it.
Teri Mattson: Correct me if I’m wrong, right before we went and visited Barra Vieja, was there an attempt to burn that community out or bulldoze the remainder of their homes? Am I remembering that correctly?
Karen Spring: Yes, I think they were trying to evict them, saying that they needed to evict them and get them off the land and get their houses away so that they could expand this golf course.
Teri Mattson: In being there and hearing their story, it’s like the 21st century version of the westward expansion here in the United States. I mean, just brutally removing people from their land for economic interests and development.
Karen Spring: OFRANEH fought for, in the Inter-American Court on Human Rights, and they won and the government of Honduras was found that they had violated the collective property rights of the Garifuna people in order to bring about this global tourist development. And so, the sentencing was in 2015, the ruling, and the government of Honduras hasn’t respected it and there’s been no consequence. There are few tourists, but the tourists keep going to this beach resort. The United States’ government has sent millions of dollars to the Honduran government to sort of deal with all of the insecurity, to make Honduras more secure for Hondurans, but the Honduran state is not responding adequately to find these four Garifuna men.
And so, it’s really concerning and we have a lot of hope that they’re still alive, but I really hope that people get the sense of what these three – because there were members of OFRANEH – were up against, and the very powerful international global tourist industry.
Teri Mattson: What can we, in the United States do, to pressure or put any pressure on our government, on the activist community here in the United States to fight for the release of these four men?
Karen Spring: So, it’s really important that people know that when somebody’s disappeared in Honduras like this, what Hondurans do in an organized manner is they put as much pressure on the government, so that the criminal structures or the government entities that are holding these people feel the pressure, and then are forced to release them. So, action is really important.
Teri Mattson: So, is there anything else? Before I let you go, is there anything else that should be said in our conversation this morning that we’ve not touched on?
Karen Spring: I don’t think so, Teri. Black Lives Matter is a huge issue right now and Garifuna Lives Matter as well, and there’s a lot of links and the Garifuna face a lot of racism in Honduras and the disappearance of these men are part of it so, like I already said, I think the most important thing is that people take action now. We might be able to make these men appear alive and unharmed so, that’s the most important thing, Teri.
Teri Mattson: Great. And thank you for making the connection with Black Lives Matter, that it isn’t just a domestic issue here in the States, it’s an international issue, and really specific to the Global South, but if black lives matter here at home, they matter across the globe as well.
[END OF EXCERPTS FROM INTERVIEW OF KAREN SPRING BY TERI MATTSON]
Karen Spring: That was Teri Mattson and I discussing the global tourist industry on CODEPINK’s “What the F is going on in Latin America” program, aired on July 22nd. You can always watch the full interview where we discuss several other issues as well in Honduras. Check it out on CODEPINK’s YouTube channel.
So, that’s the show for today. If you haven’t already, please take action to demand the release of the Garifuna men kidnapped on July 18th. I will post the action info in the show notes.
The music on today’s episode is by Honduran artist and activist Karla Lara.
This is your host Karen Spring, signing off for today. Thanks so much again for listening.