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This is to certify that the
dissertation entitled

ROOTS, RIGHTS, AND BELONGING: GARIFUNA
INDIGENEITY AND LAND RIGHTS ON HONDURAS’ NORTH
COAST

presented by

KERI ANNE BRONDO

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of the requirements for the

Ph.D. degree in Anthropology

 

 

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ROOTS, RIGHTS, AND BELONGING: GARIFUNA INDIGENEITY
AND LAND RIGHTS ON HONDURAS’ NORTH COAST

By

Keri Anne Brondo

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of Anthropology

2006

ABSTRACT

ROOTS, RIGHTS, AND BELONGING: GARIFUNA INDIGENEITY
AND LAND RIGHTS ON HONDURAS’ NORTH COAST

By
Keri Anne Brondo

This dissertation traces the production of Gariﬁma indigeneity and its
effects on coastal landholding within the context of Honduran tourism
development. The Garifuna are descendants of Africans and Amerindians (i.e.,
Carib and Arawak Indians) who settled along the Central American coastline more
than 208 years ago. Garifuna identity has been created and recreated throughout
their time on the coast - they have been positioned as negro ‘others,’
AfroHondurans, and autochthonous AfroHondurans. Today some groups are
casting the Garifuna as indigenous. Using the community of Sambo Creek as a
case study, I explore the creation and deployment of Garifuna indigeneity as well
as the effects this recasting of identity has on non-Garifuna, who are now
beginning to question their own identity and rights within the nation-state.

This dissertation contributes to research on Latin American indigenous
mobilization in general, as well as makes three speciﬁc contributions to
anthropological discussions. First, this case study contributes to theory regarding
the production of identity categories by looking beyond the effects of identity
construction on the people whose identity is being cast or recast (in this case the
Garifuna) to how the new framing of identity impacts others who live within their
communities (in this case Mestizos). I apply the concept of “place-making”

(Malkki 1997) to show how actors are both producing and responding to Garifuna

indigeneity. Place-making is a tool used by Garifuna organizations and activists to
lay claim to land by rooting the Garifuna, historically, into Honduran territory or
more generally, into the Americas. It also serves as a tool to articulate the
Garifuna place within the world. Place-making serves as a response to the
production of Garifuna indigeneity by Mestizo residents of Garifuna communities
who believe that they too have rights to local land. Some Mestizo residents use
the identity label “indio” to root themselves into Honduran territory by claiming
descent from pre-Columbian indigenous (“indio”) peoples.

Second, I discuss the disjuncture between Garifuna organizational
representation and the interests of Sambo Creek’s residents. Gariﬁma
organizations call for the recuperation of ancestral territories by linking the
maintenance of indigenous identity to the ability to enact cultural traditions, which
in this case frequently means ﬁshing and agriculture. Organizational
representation is problematic for two reasons: 1) Sambo Creek is a mixed
community, comprised of both Garifuna and Mestizos. Representing the
community under an indigenous rights discourse serves to exclude some of Sambo
Creek’s residents; and 2) Sambo Creek’s youth are losing interest in pursing
traditional economic activities that constitute “cultural traditions.”

Third, this case study is one of the ﬁrst that focuses explicitly on the
gendered impact of land privatization in Garifuna communities. Traditional
Garifuna land tenure systems are communal, with use rights passed matrilineally.
In the last twenty-ﬁve years, Garifuna women have lost their ancestral cultivation

plots through privatization to men.

Copyright by
KERI ANNE BRONDO
2006

To my children.
And the children of Sambo Creek.
May your future be as beautiful as your memories of the past.

 

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The most important thanks are to be granted to the Hondurans who enabled
this research. I thank everyone in Sambo Creek, La Ceiba, Tegucigalpa, Corozal,
and San Antonio who shared their time with me. I apologize that I cannot thank
each of you by name, as I wish provide you with the anonymity that I promised,
but please know that your friendship holds a deep place in my heart, as well as the
hearts of my husband and son. For those I can name, I am deeply indebted to
Celeo Alvarez Casildo, Karen Vargas, and Zulma Valencia of ODECO, and
Miriam Miranda and Gregoria Flores of OFRANEH for their roles as research
facilitators and teachers throughout the years. Thank you to everyone in Honduras
who shared with me a piece of your life, and for sharing your wisdom. I hope that
I have done justice to your words and action, and I take full responsibility for any
errors or misrepresentations in the story I have presented.

I also wish to thank various institutions for supporting my research.
Fulbright IIE provided ten months of support for my dissertation ﬁeldwork in
2002. The Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS), the
Women and International Development Program (WID), and the Center for the
Advanced Study of International Development (CASID), all at Michigan State
University (MSU) generously supported me over the years with Foreign Language
and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowships that provided me with the necessary training
to pursue international ﬁeldwork. I also thank MSU’s Department of

Anthropology for awarding me the National Science Foundation Ethnographic

-vi-

Training Grant and CLACS for the Tinker Foundation Travel Grant, both of which
facilitated predissertation work in 2000.

There are many people at Michigan State University who have contributed
to seeing this project to fruition. I am especially grateﬁil to Laurie Medina, my
dissertation chair, who has stood behind me since 1999, watching me develop as a
scholar and aperson. She has continued to provide unwavering support and
practical career advice, and has always been willing to turn material around with
constructive comments in very short notice. Her ability to be steadfastly clear,
concise, logical and as her friends’ say “never mince words,” personally or
professionally, is something I deeply admire. Thank you Laurie for never letting
me settle when you knew I could do more. Anne Ferguson also deserves
signiﬁcant credit for her mentorship. She has always devoted a substantial amount
of time to reading and commenting on my work, and has helped me to complicate
gender analyses beyond stereotypical or romantic visions of ‘womanhood.’ Not only
has she served as a key member of my committee, but she also believed in me
enough to employ me as the Assistant Director of the Women and International
Program (WID). Working at WID was an incredible opportunity for professional
growth, and I am truly thankful to have held this important administrative position. I
thank Bill Derman for our late evening conversations in the hallways of Baker
back in my ‘comp days’ and later on, for our working lunches at the bookstore.
Bill has always challenged me to think in new directions and I will forever be
grateful. I am also grateful to Antoinette WinklerPrins who agreed to join my
committee as the dissertation was reaching its ﬁnal stages. I had appreciated her

critical reﬂections in other arenas (WID, GJEC) and was pleased to beneﬁt more

-Vii-

formally from her knowledge. Scott Whiteford also spent many years supporting
my work and served as a valuable committee member until his retirement. Scott
continues to be an important mentor for me.

I am also grateful for Lynne Goldstein, the Chair of the Anthropology, for
her support throughout my graduate studies, and for recommending me to work for
Marietta Baba, the Dean of Social Science, who has been a real inspiration and
role model. Not only has she provided an endless amount of support and space to
see that this project came to completion, but she exceeded my expectations for a
mentor. Despite her incredibly hectic schedule, I have always been able to walk
into her ofﬁce on a moment’s notice and she treats me with the same respect she
does her peers. She has taught me many important lessons, scholarly and personal,
and it has been a real pleasure to work for her over the years.

I wish to acknowledge all of my fellow graduate students (from the past
and present) for their contributions to my intellectual development. While I cannot
name all of the students who have helped me throughout the years, I would like to
thank my close friends, and in particular, those who have been writing alongside of
me: Sue Schneider, Tara Hefferan, Shannon Vance, and Robert Edmondson; those
who are getting ready to write: Suzanne Kent and Holly Dygert; and those who
will soon be doing their ﬁeldwork: Kate Patch and Jennifer Brewer.

I would also like to mention faculty and friends from Iowa State
University, where I received my Master’s degree, especially Mike Whiteford,
Gustavo Herrarte, and Cameron Walker. And those who saw it all begin, my

undergraduate inspirations at the University of Delaware, Ken Ackerrnan, Norman

- viii -

Schwartz, and Donna Budani. Ken, thank you for becoming a ﬁiend and for
believing that I could somehow “ﬁt” in graduate school. Also in Delaware, I
would like to thank Susan and Jeremy Menson for providing a sense of family and
for encouraging me to pursue a graduate degree.

I am also especially grateful for the insights and advice that my ‘virtual
mentors’ have provided. Mark Anderson, Helen Safa, and Nancie Gonzalez have
helped me at various stages of the process (from proposal to dissertation writing)
and their feedback has always been very helpful indeed. Mark, you shared more
than I would have ever expected (from documents to ideas and advice) and give
great meaning to the word “colleague.” I can only hope that my presentation of
the place and people we independently grew to love comes across even half as
eloquent as yours.

On the most personal level, I must thank my family and extended family
for their support. My parents, Harry and Valerie Brondo, and my grandparents,
Thaler and Brondo, inspired me to become the ﬁrst MA. and then later, the ﬁrst
Ph.D. in our family. Thank you Mom for placing aside your own career
aspirations to raise your children and then for telling us not to do the same,
knowing that both would be possible. Dad, thank you for nicknaming me
“Knowledge” when I was just a babe, and for your continued enthusiasm for my
work, and for reading and re-reading my dissertation drafts so many times. If
anyone deserves an honorary Ph.D., it is most certainly you. Kurt, thank you for
loving Honduras as much as I do, for traveling with me all those years, and for

befriending my Honduran friends. I also want to thank Sharon Vacanti for helping

-ix-

our family out in times of stress and for traveling eighteen hours on short notice to
watch Keegan and Amalie while I wrote.

Keegan, thank you for spending your ﬁrst and second birthday in Sambo
Creek and for dancing the punta before others your age could even walk. Always
remember where your nickname “Kiki” came from. Amalie, your father and I
imagined you on our daily walks along the Caribbean shore, and we were fortunate
to have you join our family months after our return to the States. One day you too
will meet your Sambo Creek family.

Finally, DJ. It is difﬁcult for me to ﬁnd all the right words to tell you just
how grateful I am to you. Each time I almost gave up, thinking “life” was too
much already, you pushed me to continue. Your mantra, “we’ll just ﬁnd a way to
make it work” has proven to be true. Yet I must give credit where it is due: the
“you” part of “we” is really why I have been able to accomplish all that I have
over these last six years. Two children, four extended trips to Honduras, and two
degrees later (yours and mine), I look back with no regrets. We managed to
“remember to laugh” everyday, didn’t we? (even while staring at that famous

calendar!)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION .................................................................. 1
1.1 Neoliberal Development Policy and Agrarian Legislation ...................... 2
1.2 Post-structural Approach to Locating Identity ......................................... 5
1.3 Organization of the Study ........................................................................ 11
CHAPTER TWO: SETTING AND METHODOLOGY ..................................... 15
2.1 A Brief History ........................................................................................ 15
2.2 Introducing Sambo Creek ........................................................................ 20
2.2.1 Local Economy and Livelihood Strategies .................................. 21
2.2.2 Gender Relations and the Traditional Landholding and Land
Use
2.2.3 Infrastructure Changes ............................................................. '....28
2.3 Introducing Honduras’ Garifuna Organizations ...................................... 31
2.4 Data and Methods .................................................................................... 34
2.4.1 Tourism-related Interviews .......................................................... 35
2.4.2 Garifuna Organization Interviews ................................................ 37
2.4.3 Sambo Creek Interviews .............................................................. 38
2.4.4 Participant Observation and Direct Observation ......................... 43
2.4.5 Archival Research ........................................................................ 44
2.5 Data Analysis .......................................................................................... 46
CHAPTER THREE: DEVELOPMENT ON THE NORTH COAST: THE
MAKING AND REMAKING OF THE GARIFUNA SUBJECT ...................... 47
3.1 Garifuna Exclusion: The Black “Threat” and the Emergence of an Indo-
Hispanic National Identity ....................................................................... 48
3.2 Shifts in the Coastal Economy and Population: 19505-1990 ................... 61
3.2.1 Black Autochthony ...................................................................... 63
3.3 Tourism Development in Garifuna Territory: 19903 and Beyond ........... 67
3.3.1 Privatizing Coastal Land ......................................................................... 72
3.3.1.1 The LMA ......................................................................... 74
3.3.1.2 Communal Titling Initiatives .......................................... 76
3.3.1.3 Repealing Article 107 ...................................................... 77
3.3.2 The Case of Tela Bay .............................................................................. 80
3.3.3 Marketing Garifuna Culture ..................................................................... 87
3.4 The Making and Remaking of the Garifuna subject ............................... 90
CHAPTER FOUR: INDIGENEITY, PLACE-MAKING, AND GARIF UNA
LAND RIGHTS ................................................................................................... 93
4.1 The Rise of Indigenous Rights ................................................................. 93
4.1.1 Indigenous Identity and Land-rootedness .................................... 96
4.1.2 ILO 169 ........................................................................................ 99
4.2 Garifuna Mobilization for Land Rights ................................................... 101
4.3 Place-making, History-making .............................................................. 105

-X1-

4.3.1 Place-making at the Organizational Level .................................. 111

4.4 Chapter Summary .................................................................................... 112
CHAPTER FIVE: REPRESENTING THE GARIFUNA ................................... 114
5.1 Positions on Garifuna Land Rights .......................................................... 114
5.2 Competing Notions of Development ...................................................... 123
5.3 Divided communities ............................................................................... 1 3 1
5.4 Indigenous Place-making and the Politics of Morality ........................... 132
5.5 Self-Identifying as Indigenous ............................................................... 136
5.6 Chapter summary ..................................................................................... 139
CHAPTER SIX: SAMBO CREEK’S LAND STRUGGLE ............................... 141
6.1 Mestizo Encroachment and Gariﬁma Sales ............................................. 143
6.2 Women’s Land Loss ................................................................................ 151
6.3 Privatizing Cultivation Land .................................................................... 153

6.3.1 Communal Title, Private Lands ................................................... 156
6.4 Sambo Creek’s Struggle to Recuperate Ancestral Lands ...................... 160
6.5 Changing Livelihoods .............................................................................. 170
CHAPTER SEVEN: ROOTS, RIGHTS AND BELONGING: THE EFFECTS OF
GARIFUN A INDIGENEITY .............................................................................. 182
7.1 Place-making in Sambo Creek ................................................................. 185
7.2 Theoretical and Practical Contributions ................................................... 197
APPENDICES. . . . . . . .. ......................................................................................... 206
APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW SCHEDULES ..................................................... 207

APPENDIX B: INFORME PARA LA COMUNIDAD DE SAMBO CREEK ..220

APPENDIX C: ILO 169 ARTICLES REGARDING TERRITORIAL
RIGHTS ...................................................................................... 238

BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................... 241

-xii-

 

Table I

Table II

Table 111

Table IV

Table V

Table VI

Table VII

Table VIII

Table IX

Table X

Table XI

Table XII

Table XIII

Table XIV

Table XV

Table XVI

Table XVII

LIST OF TABLES

Formal Interviews ....................................................................... 35
Sambo Creek Household Interviews by Ethnicity and Gender ..41
Secondary Data Sources .............................................................. 45
Estimates of Garifuna Population in Honduras, 1797 ~1935 ........ 48
Gariﬁma Titles Issued by the NA, Period 1993-2002 ................ 105

Comparisons of Garifuna Organizations’ Adoption of
Muehlebach’s Generalization #1 ................................................. 133

Comparisons of Garifuna Organizations’ Adoption of
Muehlebach’s Generalization #2 ................................................. 134

Comparisons of Garifuna Organizations’ Adoption of
Muehlebach’s Generalization #3 ................................................. 135

Place of Birth and Socialization for Household Interviewees by
Ethnicity ...................................................................................... 148

How Households Obtained Their Parcel of Residence (n=55) ...150

Homeownership by Gender and Ethnicity for Household Sample

(n=55) .......................................................................................... 152
Type of Parcel for Residence ...................................................... 158
Privatized Residence Plots ........................................................... 158

Contemporary Occupations for Household Sample in Sambo
Creek .......................................................................................... 170

Past Occupations for Household Sample in Sambo Creek .......... 172
Household Interviewee Reasons for Decline in Agriculture ..... 174

Plans for Recuperated Land ......................................................... 180

- xiii -

Figure I
Figure II
Figure III

Figure IV

LIST OF FIGURES

Honduras with Major Cities ......................................................... 2
Lethal Yellowing of Sambo Creek’s Coconut Trees ................... 22
Ethnicity of Household Interviewees by Area ............................. 147
Garifuna Interest in Future Cultivation ....................................... 175

-xiv-

 

CABO

CADEAH

CODETT

CONPAH

ESAF

FHIS

FTAA

HIPC

IACHR

IDB

IHT

INA

LMA

ODECO

OFRANEH

ONECA

PPP

PRGF

UFCO

KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS

The Central American Black Organization

Comité Asesor para el Desarollo de las Etnias Autoctonos de
Honduras

Committee for the Defense of Triunfo’s Land
Confederacion de Pueblos Autoctonos de Honduras
Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility
Fondo Hondureﬁo de Inversion Social

Free Trade Area of the Americas

Highly Indebted Poor Countries
Inter-American Commission for Human Rights
International Development Association
Instituto Hondurefio de Turismo

International Monetary Fund

The National Agrarian Institute

The Law for the Modernization and Development of the
Agricultural Sector

La Organizacion de Desarrollo Etnico Comunitario
La Organizacion Fraternal Negro Hondurefio

La Organizacién Negra Centroamericana

Plan Pueblo Panama

Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility

United Fruit Company

-xv-

 

UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientiﬁc, and Cultural Organizations

USAID United States Agency for International Development

-xvi-

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

On August 14, 2003, after two years of Garifuna mobilization efforts
ranging from a community-led land invasion to petitioning of the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights, the Honduran government turned illegally
acquired ancestral lands back over to the Garifuna community of Sambo Creek.
This act was the result of the successful production of indigenous rights on an
international scale. The Garifuna are descendants of the intermixture of Africans
and Amerindians (i.e., Carib and Arawak Indians) who settled along the Central
American coastline more than 208 years ago. Throughout their presence on
Honduras’ north coast, Garifuna identity has been created and recreated. The
Garifuna subject has been positioned as negro ‘others,’ AfroHondurans, and
autochthonous AfroHondurans, and the recasting of their identity is linked to shifts
in the coastal economy. Today some organizations and activists are casting the
Garifuna as indigenous. In this dissertation,l trace the production of Garifuna
indigeneity and its effects on coastal landholdings within the context of tourism
development. Casting the Garifuna as indigenous justiﬁes both their right to land,
as well as has the potential to bring economic beneﬁt to the nation-state, by selling
‘indigenous culture’ to tourists. Identifying as indigenous is a relatively new
casting of Garifuna identity and this identity construction is only just beginning to
ﬁlter out from Garifuna organizations, activists, and intellectuals to ordinary
residents of Garifuna communities. Using the community of Sambo Creek as a

case study, I explore the creation and deployment of Gariﬁma indigeneity as well

as the effects this recasting of Garifuna identity has on non-Garifuna, who are now
beginning to question their own identity and rights within the nation-state.

Figure 1. Honduras with Major Cities

 

      
 
   
     

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1.1 Neoliberal Development Policy and Agrarian Legislation

The Latin American development programs of the last twenty-ﬁve years
have been labeled neoliberal because they are economic models rooted in classical
liberalism, replacing state-led development programs with market-friendly
approaches that emphasize free trade on a global market (Chase 2002). Many
Latin American countries, Honduras included, racked up heavy external debt in the
19705 and 1980s. The World Bank and International Monetary Foundation

suggested neoliberal programs to reduce state spending and address their debt

crisis. These programs included the privatization of national industries, the
encouragement of competitive efﬁciency in agriculture, and the push for the
production of nontraditional export crops and other products (e.g., materials
produced in maquiladoras), among others (Chase 2002). Part of Honduras’
neoliberal development policy is to generate revenue through foreign investment
in coastal tourism development.

According to Deere and Leon (2001), one of the major thrusts of neoliberal
development policies in Latin America is the governmental goal of “getting
agricultural institutions right.” This entails two processes: 1) dismantling the
effects of the agrarian reform of previous decades, and 2) creating the conditions
to enliven the land market (Deere and Leon 2001: 34). In an effort to “get their
agricultural institutions right,” the Honduran state passed new agrarian legislation
in the 19905 to enable foreign investment in coastal land. The Garifuna claim a
signiﬁcant portion of the land affected by the agrarian legislation as their ancestral
territories, but for much of their history, they have not held formal titles to those
tenitories. The confusion over coastal land tenure has made it difﬁcult to attract
investment because foreign companies are hesitant to invest in regions with
insecure tenure systems. Beginning in the 19905, the nation-state started to issue
communal land titles to Gariﬁrna communities; these titles created legal
boundaries (i.e., titles that could be upheld in court) between Garifuna territories
and areas of potential investment. Yet the Garifuna argue that the titles are

insufﬁcient in that they leave out signiﬁcant tracts of ancestral cultivation and

 

harvest land. This situation has produced a struggle to recuperate land in many
coastal communities.’

The community of Sambo Creek provides a lens into the coastal land
struggle. Sambo Creek is a nationally deﬁned “Garifuna community” and was
granted a communal land title in 1997. While the community is historically
“Garifuna,” there are a signiﬁcant number of non-Garifuna people (Mestizos and
foreign immigrants) living within the borders set up under the 1997 land title as
well as within the community’s ancestral territory. These Mestizo and foreign
immigrants include Canadian hotel owners, wealthy and politically connected
Mestizo landowners and cattle ranchers, as well as poor Mestizo immigrants who
migrated from the interior of the country in search of labor opportunities. Facing a
severe land shortage for quite some time, the community spearheaded a movement
to recuperate their lost ancestral lands. National Garifuna organizations assisted
the community in their reclamation process.

There are two main organizations that represent Honduras’ Garifuna: 1)
the Honduran Black Fraternal Organization (La Organizacién Fraternal Negro
Hondureﬁo or OFRANEH) and 2) the Organization of Ethnic Community
Development (La Organizacién de Desarrollo Etnico Comunitario or ODECO).
Each organization has a different outlook on how the Garifuna should interact with
development policies and the land struggle. ODECO’s approach draws more on

inclusion and integration into development planning and programs, while

 

’ The struggle to recuperate ancestral territories includes more than just land, and the sea does hold
signiﬁcant meaning for the Garifuna. While there are also debates over rights to sea, my data
collection centered on land disputes and I therefore focus solely on land in the dissertation.

OFRANEH emphasizes resistance to Honduras’ neoliberal economic development
model. OFRANEH’s approach is part of what I consider to be a social movement
critiquing one of the ideological bases of hedlibefalism, aprhilosophy that
emphasizes individualism and equality amongst citizens as opposed to collective
and communal rights. Otero and Jugenitz (2003:504) have recently published on
these types of social movements, stating that the goal of these movements is to

redeﬁne national agendas that privilege individual rights and ownership over

collective rights and practices in a way that recognizes cultural autonomy. As I

(X

will show in later chapters, the discourse of indigenous rights provides the basis

for this type of movement. While I believe both organizations are against

individual landholding, only OFRANEH has embraced the discourse of indigenous
rights to make their argument about Garifuna rights to coastal territory. In Sambo

Creek, most residents preferred to work with OFRANEH on land issues.

1.2 A Post-structural Approach to Locating Identity

I have applied a poststructural approach to understanding identity and
rights. Rather than taking Garifuna or Mestizo identities as primordially deﬁned
(i.e., emerging as an essence of being from within (6. g. Geertz 1973; Issacs 1975)),
I am approaching identity as a social product (Medina 2004; Laclau and Mouffe
1985; Foucault 1979). Conceptualizing identity in this fashion means that
peoples’ identities are created through their interactions with others as situated and
symbolic beings. Individuals become “subjects” by occupying positions with

meanings attached to them and recognizing the meaning attached to that identity

category. For example, individuals who occupy the subject position of

 

 

“Garifuna,” a category that is recognized as unique and “cultural,” begin to take
meaning from their positioning within that identity category, as well as transfer
meaning back to that identity category. These processes ﬁrrther validate the notion
that “being Garifuna” means something signiﬁcantly different than “being
Mestizo” or “being Honduran.”

Medina (2004:12-13) argues that the process of identity formation involves
the creation of subjects through discourse. Discourse refers to the practices that
create the conceptual frameworks that inform people’s thoughts, words, and
actions. The production of discourse happens through systems of control and rules
of exclusion and inclusion (Foucault 197 3). I am applying these concepts to look
at the effects of theproduction of indigenous rights in the Garifuna struggle for
coastal territories. The successful production of indigenous rights has served to
reinforce and legitimize some identities while de-legitimizing others. Indigenous
identity and indigenous rights are further legitimized each time ‘indigenous
claims’ are recognized. Such claims are made possible via the backing of
international conventions that verify the entitlement of indigenous peoples to
particular resources. Each time the Garifuna make statements as indigenous
peoples, and the more their claims are acknowledged because they are indigenous,
the more indigenous they become. 0

Some Honduran Garifuna have recently embraced an indigenous identity,
and they are now attempting to create a consensus that that they have rights to

coastal resources that others do not. Categories of people, who are identiﬁed and

 

positioned in particular ways, receive differential access to resources and
opportunities (see also Medina 2004: 13). Garifuna activists are attempting to
position the Garifuna population in a way that will increase their access and
control over coastal territories.

This dissertation shows how Gariﬁrna identity categories have shifted over

time, and how these shifts are linked to the changing economic development
approaches pursued in the coastal region. Both Garifuna and non-Garifuna have
been involved in the creation of the Garifuna subject. Their identity categorization
has changed over time, and their positioning has determined their ability to access
and control local resources. The Garifuna were excluded from Honduran national
identity for a signiﬁcant part of their time in the nation-state. They lived in a
region (i.e., the north coast) where the people were not considered “Honduran;” its
population was a mix of “foreigners” (or non-Hispanics) who were involved in the
banana industry in one form or another. Currently there are efforts to integrate the
area and its people into the Honduran nation because both are seen as having
economic potential. The area’s natural landscape and the Garifuna “culture” are
being cast as tourism attractions.

Banks’ discussion of locating ethnicity aids in our understanding of the
casting and recasting of the Garifuna subject. Banks argued that there are three
basic analytical approaches to ethnicity and each is located differently. The
primordialist approach treats ethnicity as an innate part of a human’s identity. The
instrumentalist approach regards ethnicity as adopted strategically to achieve some

speciﬁc end or as resulting from a set of historical and socioeconomic

circumstances. Banks argued that under both the primordialist and instrumentalist
approaches, ethnicity is located within the ethnographic subject. Primordial
ethnicity is located in the hearts of those studied, whereas instrumental ethnicity is
located in their heads (Banks 1996:185). The third location for ethnicity is in the
observer’s head, and Banks’ argues that this is the most honest approach a
researcher can take. In these cases, ethnicity is an analytical tool that has been
“devised and utilized by academics to make sense of or explain the actions and
feelings of the people studied” (Banks 1996: l 85). The analyst then diaries
whether or not ethnicity is a useful tool for making sense of the actions of the
people they study. Banks’ further points out that the concept, once merely a tool
for social analysis, is now mainstream and available for individuals and groups to
appropriate for their own purposes. Those who were once the objects of studies -
those who possess “culture” or were “ethnic” — have access to these concepts and
are readily using them. These concepts have become instrumental in arguments
about rights to resources.

In early studies of Garifuna society, the concepts of culture and ethnicity
were located in the analysts’ heads, and were used to help explain the actions of
the people they were studying. In early Gariﬁrna ethnography (e.g., Taylor 1951,
Coelho 1955, Gonzalez 1959, 1969) anthropologists conceptualized culture as an
adaptation or survival mechanism. In the 19805, anthropologists began to
recognize that the concept of culture was also located in the heads of the Garifuna
and that it could be asserted to achieve speciﬁc ends. Gonzalez (1986: 63, 73)

WI'OICI

There is reason to believe they may be moving toward a conscious

development of their ethnicity in order to enhance their power within the

body politic. . . [they] have been reﬁning and redeﬁning their ethnicity for

300 years. It really doesn’t matter to them, nor to many others, that many

of their “traditions” were born yesterday...

Gonzalez’s commentary was informed by shifts in the ﬁeld in the mid-
19805. Anthropologists were beginning to question structuralist approaches that
assumed “a reality” could be located and documented by uncovering unconscious
patterns of human thought (e.g., Levi-Strauss) or by analyzing economic structures
(e.g., Marx), for example. Such approaches placed the “structure” at the center of
analysis, claiming that it is what produces meaning, not individual actors. Practice
theorists and poststructuralists, on the other hand, recognized that individuals,
through their actions, shape the social and political structure, as well as take
meaning from the system. With respect to analyses of Garifuna ethnicity and
culture, poststructural writing has treated Garifuna identity as multiple, ever
changing, and inﬂuenced by historical circumstances.

Anderson (2000) draws upon poststructural critiques of the notion of
modernity and the newly placed emphasis on agency and auto-representation, to
emphasize the way in which individual actors accept, inhabit, perform, and
negotiate the social categories of “modernity” and “tradition.” He writes:

My own approach. . .attempts to offer an ethnographic understanding of

how the categories of the modern and the traditional are signiﬁed,

occupied, performed and negotiated by social agents. . .No less than race,
modemity and tradition are social categories through which social agents
become interpellated and evaluated. Ethnographic analysis needs to
examine how individuals or groups position themselves in relation to these
categories, attending to the tensions and contradictions occasioned by the
possibility of occupying and performing both, of “being” both traditional

and modern. Current forms of identity politics among the Garifuna directly
engage the categorical distinctions and associations surrounding modernity

and tradition. Garifuna have (re) “invented” their status as a traditional
people, deploying and performing that identity to assert their cultural and
territorial rights as “autochthonous” people within the nation. . .Discourses
and performances of modernity and tradition overlap and crosscut one
another in more complex ways than mutual negation... (Anderson 2000:
42-43)

Anderson (2000) details how a “new Garifuna identity” as something that is both
“modern” and “traditional” is created and deployed for strategic reasons — in this
case, to assert their cultural and territorial rights. When an identity diverges from
“tradition,” poststructural approaches remind us that it is important to look at the
historical circumstances responsible for these alterations, as well as to think about
the implications for the people who identify as part of the “ethnic subject” that is
being represented. The more the ‘new Garifuna identity’ is expressed through
ordinary interactions and public expressions, the more valid that identity becomes.
The question for anthropologists then becomes: who wins and who loses from
these identity constructions? I agree with Anderson that contemporary Garifuna
identity is both “traditional” and “modern,” but I would like to take his analysis
further and document how the production of the Garifuna subject as ‘traditional’ or
‘indigenous’ (which is how some Garifuna are currently positioning themselves)
reinforces and legitimizes that identity, while leading others to recast their own
identities in response to the newly constituted Garifuna subject.

As this case study shows, some Honduran Garifuna are beginning to make
claims to resources as “indigenous peoples.” With indigeneity comes increased
rights, but it also produces new subject positions for Garifuna as well as non-
Garifuna. Other (non-Garifuna) subjects in the Honduran state are beginning to

frame their identity in response to the Garifuna “indigenous subject.” As Garifuna

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attempt to reclaim ancestral territories that have fallen into Mestizo hands, Mestizo
residents of “Garfuna communities” begin to question their own identity as
subjects within the State. Do Mestizos have equal rights to coastal land? Some
Mestizos argue that yes they do, explaining that they occupy a “truly indigenous”
position, while denying the indigeneity of the Garifuna.

I employ the notion of “place-making” (ala Malkki 1997) to show how
individuals and organizations territorialize their claims to coastal territories
through stories of ancestral access, use, and control over those resources. The
coastal land struggle is closely tied to notions of “belonging,” which is
demonstrated through one’s ability to trace roots within the community in
particular, and the national territory in general. Individuals and groups trace roots
through identity construction, and the rights associated with particular identity
discourses (e.g., mestizaje, indigeneity). “Identity” is a resource available equally
to everyone. Therefore, individuals and groups with few economic resources, such
as subjugated indigenous groups or poor “indies,” have equal access to its utility
as do individuals with many economic resources, like politicians, Mestizo cattle
ranchers, and Canadian hotel owners. As a result, individual actors can identify in

strategic ways at speciﬁc times and places in order to strengthen their positions.

1.3 Organization of the Study

The dissertation consists of seven chapters, including this introduction.
Chapter two describes the study area and methodology. It provides an overview of

Garifuna origins and settlement on Honduras’ north coast. I introduce the

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community of Sarnbo Creek, my primary ﬁeldwork site, and OFRANEH and
ODECO, the two principal organizations in which I collected data. In addition to
serving as a descriptive introduction to the ﬁeld site, the chapter details the
methods used throughout the study, from data collection to analysis.

Chapter three provides the historical context for understanding
contemporary identity politics as they interact with development policy on the
coast of Honduras. In this chapter I trace shifts in the positioning of the Garifuna
subject to the coastal economy. I show how the fruit industry and labor movement
played a key role in deﬁning the Garifuna place (or lack thereof) within Honduras’
racial-ethnic hierarchy. I then describe how in the decades following the decline
of the banana industry, the Garifuna became involved in recasting their identity as
an AfroHonduran autochthonous people. Finally, I review current efforts to
develop the coastal tourism industry and describe the changes to agrarian
legislation that have enabled investment in this industry. I show how this shift in
development policy is linked to the formation of Garifuna indigeneity.

Chapter four is a toolbox. In it the reader will ﬁnd both my conceptual
tools and those employed by the actors in the study. Indigenous rights and a (near)
global consensus that cultural survival is linked to access to traditional territories
have informed the Garifuna struggle. I review how the indigenous movement
facilitated struggles for land rights by linking indigenous identity to the
environment and to geographic space. I also develop the concepts of “place-
making” and “history-making” which are strategies that organizations and

individuals use to demonstrate their rights to coastal territories.

-12-

Chapter ﬁve looks at how the Garifuna have responded at the
organizational level to coastal development strategies and the associated land
struggle. I compare and contrast the two main organizations that represent the
Gariﬁma, showing that each differs in its approach. I explore these distinctions
through the comparison of organizational statements regarding the land struggle. I
show that while both organizations are informed by global discourses of human
rights and equality, OFRANEH is the only one that taps into the indigenous rights
dialogue. I apply the notion of “place-making” to show how OFRANEH is
articulating an indigenous place with the Honduran nation, and in so doing, they
are resisting the forces of neoliberalism.

Chapter six puts a microscope on the Garifuna land struggle, looking
speciﬁcally at the case of Sambo Creek and its struggle to recuperate ancestral
lands. Within this chapter, I describe the processes through which land once held
in common by the Garifuna has been transformed into private plots held by non-
Garifuna. I emphasize the gendered impact of land privatization, showing that the
land struggle is not just about Garifuna losing land to non-Garifuna, but about
women losing land to men. Garifuna land is generally passed matrilineally, but in
recent years, women have been losing their land through sale, theft, or trade to
men. This chapter is also the place where I provide the details of Sambo Creek’s
land invasions and the reasoning behind them. I conclude the chapter with a
discussion of how changes in local livelihood strategies (do or do not) map onto
the way in which Garifuna organizations represent contemporary interactions with

land.

-13-

Chapter seven concludes the dissertation with a discussion of the effects of
Garifuna indigeneity. I show how notions of race, culture, history, and “roots”
feed into individual and group claims to land. Garifuna organizations and
individuals employ “place-making” strategies to demonstrate their right to coastal
resources based upon their cultural and/or indigenous identity. The successful
production of international indigenous rights and passage of several international
conventions that support those rights has enabled the Garifuna to make claims to
coastal territories that others cannot. The notion of Garifuna indigeneity is taking
on more validity at the international and national level, and it is beginning to ﬁlter
out to communities. I demonstrate how the production of the Garifuna subject as
indigenous reinforces certain rights, while causing other coastal residents to
question their rights. Some non-Garifuna individuals are responding to the new
Garifuna subject by drawing upon other identity discourses (e.g., an indo-Hispanic

mestizaje) in order to “place-make” on equal footing with the Garifuna.

-14-

CHAPTER TWO
SETTING AND METHODOLOGY

This chapter describes the data, methods, and setting drawn upon in this
dissertation. I begin the chapter with an overview of Garifuna origins and
settlement on the Atlantic coast. Next, I describe Sambo Creek, my primary
ﬁeldwork site, with special attention given to transitions in livelihood strategies
and Garifuna traditional land tenure patterns and gender relations. I follow with a
brief introduction to ODECO and OF RANEH, the two organizations that represent
the Garifuna in Honduras. Finally, I review the methods for data collection, the

sources of primary and secondary data, and the way in which I analyzed the data.

2.1 A Brief History

Garifuna origins are traced to the native Amerindians that inhabited the
Greater Antilles and parts of the South American mainland as early as 200 BC.
The two main groups of Amerindians were the Arawaks and Caribs from South
America. While the Arawak economy was based on cassava (i.e. yuca) farming,
hunting, and ﬁshing, the Caribs were ﬁsherman and warriors, but not
agriculturalists. By around 1,000 AD, scholars theorize that resource scarcity
forced some of the Arawaks to moved down the Sambo Creek River to the
Caribbean Sea and its islands. The Carib Indians later followed the path of the
Arawaks, ﬁrst trading with them, and then eventually conquering the Arawak-
speaking groups that were already living on the islands (Gonzalez 1988). The

Caribs pushed the Arawaks onto smaller islands, taking Arawak women as wives

-15-

and either killing or enslaving the Arawak men. Descendants of the ensuing
generations of Carib men and Arawakan women became known as the Island
Caribs (Cayetano 1997).

There are at least three accounts of how Africans were integrated into
Carib society: 1) as shipwrecked slaves, 2) as early explorers before Columbus,
and 3) gradually over time as escaped slaves and free blacks. Many contemporary
Garifuna leaders trace Garifuna descent to speciﬁc shipwrecks in the mid-17th
century, including many who I have encountered. For example, I heard Santos
Centeno Garcia, a Garifuna historian, cite a Portuguese shipwreck during his
speech at the 205th anniversary celebration of Garifuna presence on the coast at
ODECO’s headquarters. The advocates of this theory claim that the shipwrecked
Aﬁicans who were destined for slavery swam to freedom on the island of St.
Vincent where they became integrated into Carib society. The dates and the
origins of the shipwrecks vary in all accounts that I have seen or heard, but what is
important is that proponents of this theory point out that the Garifuna escaped
slavery.

Some Garifuna scholars and intellectuals draw on Van Sertima’s (1976)
work to argue that the Garifuna were present on the islands of the Caribbean even
before Columbus’ arrival. Like the shipwreck account, the pre-Columbian account
affords the Garifuna a history different than other Africans in the Americas: one in
which they were never enslaved.

Ethnohistorians deny that there was a singular shipwreck that brought

Africans to interrnix with the Island Caribs. Gonzalez’s (1988) research shows

-16-

that soon after their initial contact with Europeans, the Island Caribs began to
absorb both European and African individuals into their society. These individuals
were either captured or simply adopted into the Island Carib society. Gonzalez
argues that the adoption of “others” was probably simply an extension of how they
interacted in the past with other Amerindian groups. The extent of this integration
eventually led to the creation of a new society that appeared to be racially and
culturally distinct from the Island Carib. By 1700, or perhaps slightly earlier, this
new society and culture began to be referred to by the British as the “Black
Caribs,” as opposed to the “Red” or “Yellow” Caribs (Gonzalez 1988). The
Black Caribs shared customs of the Island Caribs and interrnarried with them. The
Carib language served as a lingua-franca for the Africans, who came from several
different tribes in Africa. From this base, the Black Caribs incorporated Yoruba,
French, and English words into their Arawak-Carib vocabulary, producing the
Garifuna language. Spanish words were later added into the Garifuna language.

The fertile land of St. Vincent attracted both the British and the French,
who each wanted to establish plantations on the island. In 1719, French settlers
began to set up small tobacco, cotton, and sugarcane plantations on the island, but
did not attempt to force the Caribs off their land. The British wanted to set up
large-scale plantations, which required removing the Caribs from the land. This
conﬂict over land led to 32 years of war, with the French partnering with the
Caribs against the British. By 1795, the British overpowered the Caribs, burning
their homes, canoes, and crops, and in 1796, they ﬁnally surrendered. Upon

surrender, the British separated the Caribs according to color, sending the “yellow”

-17-

(lighter-skinned) people back to St. Vincent, and deported slightly less than 2,000
Black Caribs (darker-skinned) to Roatan (an island off the coast of Honduras),
likely separating family members from one another. The British made this
distinction because they believed the lighter Caribs were of a different political
and ethnic group than the Black Caribs, and thought them to be basically benign
(Gonzalez 1988:23).

A large percentage of the Black Caribs who were deported to Roatan soon
chose to cross to the Central American mainland, arriving ﬁrst in Trujillo. Trujillo
had been destroyed by English and Dutch pirates in the mid-17th century and
remained nearly deserted for many years. By 1799, they had established their ﬁrst
two mainland settlements nearby the city of Trujillo (Rio Negro and Barrio
Cristales). When the Black Caribs (now known as the Garifuna) arrived, there
were over 340 blacks from other areas (including 300 “French Negroes” from
Santo Domingo, 40 “English blacks” who were freed slaves, and other “free
coloreds” perhaps from Grenada), as well as about 700 Mestizos and whites
(Gonzalez 1988:53). At ﬁrst the Spanish welcomed them because they offered
labor potential, but they soon began to perceive of them as a security threat
believing they might ally with the English and Miskito and the Spanish governor
even recommended their expulsion (Gonzalez 1988). However, early on the
Garifuna established themselves as anti-British as well as excellent warriors,

boatrnen, and workers; they united with the Spanish to defend the coast (Gonzalez

1988)

-18-

 

From Trujillo, the Garifuna spread along the Atlantic coastline and
established settlements in Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize. Gonzalez
(1988) cites the move from Roatan to the mainland as the point of Garifuna
ethnogenesis. She claims that as they moved about seeking a better life, they
absorbed other people’s culture traits and emerged as a “neoteric” society.
Gonzalez’s work reveals a more complex genealogy than that offered in the
aforementioned accounts in that she makes a case for intennixture with West
Indian, Miskito, and Mestizo peoples of Central America, in addition to their
mixture with the Island Caribs.

Today, Honduras has the largest Garifuna population in Central America,
estimated at approximately 250,000, or two percent of the country’s population.
Forty-eight2 Garifuna communities dot the country’s north coast. The Garifuna
were present in the La Ceiba area (where Sambo Creek is located) by 1810
(Williams 2001). La Ceiba is Honduras’ third largest city and the capital of the
Department of Atlantida. The city’s population is roughly 127,000. Today, the
city serves as the heart of the tourist trade, having transformed from a banana

exporting port to a link to the popular tourist destination of the Bay Islands.

 

2 I have seen a variety of statistics on the number of Honduran communities. For example,
ODECO documents report 51, OFRANEH reports 48, and Anderson (2000) reports 53.

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2.2 Introducing Samba Creek

Sambo Creek is the located on the North coast of Honduras, 20 kilometers
from La Ceiba. The community traces its history to 1862. Most Garifuna with
whom I spoke relayed the same story of the community’s founding: In 1862, the
ﬁrst Garifuna arrived by boat. They originated from the communities of
Guadalupe and Santa Fe in the Department of Colon, traveling ﬁrst to the Cayos
Cochinos (Hog Islands), and then to what is now Sambo Creek. Local oral history
recounts that upon arrival, the Garifuna came across one man (a Miskito man),
whom they asked permission of to clear the land stay. Following this story, the
man agreed, and so the community of Sambo Creek was born. Other Garifuna
followed later, and it is estimated that 95% of the Garifuna population’s parents
have originated ﬁom other coastal communities like: Santa Fe, San Antonio,
Trujillo, Iriona, Corozal, and Triunfo de la Cruz (this history is also documented in
CCARC Inforrne 2002).

With its proximity to La Ceiba, Sambo Creek has witnessed signiﬁcant
changes in infrastructure, demographics and land tenure. The population has
grown steadily over the last few decades. In 1981, McCommon (cited in Anderson
2000:88) reported a population of 1,196, stating that ninety percent were Garifuna
and ten percent were Mestizo. In 1996, Anderson (2000:88) reported a population
close to 2,500, with Mestizos comprising between thirty and forty percent. At the
time of my research, Sambo Creek’s population was estimated by the Central
American and Caribbean Research Council to be roughly 5,000, at least forty

percent of whom were Mestizo (CCARC 2002). This estimate included both

-20-

Sarnbo Creek residents living in country as well as those living abroad. At the
time of my research (2002), the population currently residing in Sambo Creek was
roughly between 2,000-3,000. My estimate is supported by a 2005 community
census that reported 607 households and a total population of 2891 (Scheerer

2005)

2.2.1 Local Economy and Livelihood Strategies

Local economic opportunities have substantially decreased in recent
decades. Throughout much of the 20’h century, many of Sambo Creek’s residents
were employed by the Standard Fruit Company, working on its docks, railroads,
on its ﬁelds, and as mechanics or carpenters in its workshops. But these jobs
largely disappeared after the company restructured its labor force in the 19605 and
then moved its shipping facilities out of La Ceiba in the 19805 (Anderson 2000).
While ﬁshing and agriculture had been important local economic activities of the
past, they are now on decline. There are a variety of factors contributing to this
decline including a growing remittance economy, lack of available land, and
enforced ﬁshing regulations in the Cayos Cochinos.

The Cayos Cochinos are a set of island keys located four hours away by
cayuco (dug-out canoes) and one hour by motorboat. The area has historically
been an important source of subsistence and cash economy for the Garifuna of
Sambo Creek. In 1993, the government declared the area as a biological reserve
and ﬁsherman can now only ﬁsh with hook and line. There are now only about

thirty men in Sambo Creek who are dedicated to ﬁshing. Other employed men

-21-

work in construction, as hourly wage laborers in La Ceiba, and in the newly
constructed hotels as wait staff.

For women, employment opportunities have become limited by the decline
in agriculture, the abandonment of the banana plantations, and more recently with
the lethal yellowing disease that followed Hurricane Mitch in 1998 and destroyed
many of the coast’s coconut trees (see Figure II).3 These factors have narrowed

the products and spaces available for women to sell.

Figure [1. Lethal Yellowing of Sambo Creek’s Coconut Trees

 

Photo by Keri Brondo, 2002.

Vending had been an important economic activity for local women, who

sold various products (e.g., fruits, casabe, coconut bread, and coconut pastries,

 

3 Phytoplasma (“lethal yellowing”) follows wind damage and high humidity and is carried by
insect hosts. Once infected, coconut and other palms die within three to six months of ﬁrst
symptoms (http://www.cicy.mx/dir_aead/cicly/main.htm1). There have been replanting efforts in
some coastal communities, but at the time of my research, much of the coast looked like the image
in the picture.

-22-

drinks) out of their homes as well as on the banana plantations. Some women
continue to vend on a small-scale basis; others work in San Pedro Sula’s
maquiladoras, as household help in La Ceiba, or as kitchen and cleaning help in
the local hotels. Yet all in all, economic opportunities at the local level are few
and far between, and the vast majority of residents either rely on remittances from
their families members who have migrated abroad or migrate themselves in search
of labor.

Migration has long been a part of Garifuna society, beginning with
seasonal migration in Central America in the 18005 and early 19005, and
expanding to include migration to the United States since the 19505 (England
2000: 93). Research on Garifuna migration (e.g., Kems 1983, Gonzalez 1988,
and England 2000) suggests that poverty was not a motivating force behind their
labor migration until recent decades. Rather, the Garifuna have used migration to
obtain industrial goods and supplement their already adequate subsistence
economy (England 2000193). However, in recent decades, neoliberal economic
reforms have resulted in uneven distribution of land, which has negatively
impacted the Garifrma subsistence economy. The subsequent result is that
transnational migration is now necessary and in many cases remittances from
abroad are the sole income for Gariﬁma families remaining in Honduras. The
Patronato (i.e., village-level government) estimated that remittances from abroad
serve as the only source of income for approximately ﬁfty percent of households in
Sambo Creek. Still others supplement wage labor with remittances. The

Patronato’s estimate is aligned with the data I collected: 59.57% of the households

-23-

I interviewed were receiving money from family members who had migrated to
one of Honduras’ major cities (i.e., Tegucigalpa or San Pedro Sula) or to the
United States. In Scheerer’s 2005 household census, she found that 49.9% of all
households in Sambo Creek were receiving remittances on a regular basis, and
94.6% of the remittances were coming from the United States (Scheerer 2005).
Ethnographic studies on the Garifuna diaspora and transnational linkages
show that Garifuna who do migrate abroad for work retain deep attachments to
their natal communities (England 2000). Like the Garifuna immigrants England
(2000) met from other areas of Honduras, Sambo Creek immigrants to New York
City have formed a hometown association and soccer league. It is quite common
for Garifuna to spend their working years in the United States, and return to their
natal community upon retirement, and many elder Garifuna residents of Sambo

Creek did just that.

2.2.2 Gender Relations and Traditional Landholding and Land Use

The migratory process in which more men leave natal communities than
women has strongly inﬂuenced Garifuna society and culture such that women play
important roles in the local economy, subsistence activities, and religious
practices. Women are also responsible for teaching the language and cultural
practices to future generations. Although it is generally expected for women to
remain monogamous, men frequently have sexual relations with more than one
woman, and it is not unusual for a man to have children by two or more women.

Thus, many of the Garifuna homes in Sambo Creek consist of generations of

-24-

women and their children. The matrifocality of Garifuna homes and communities,
with women forming the stable core of households and extended families (Kems
1983, Gonzalez 1970), has meant that women have become central in Garifuna
society.

Women have become central, perhaps by default. They seem not to have
been so on their arrival in Central America, though that may only reﬂect
the male biases of the eighteenth century European chroniclers. On the
other hand, if one were deliberately to set out to “feminize” an entire
sociocultural system, there could be no other way than to remove the
institutionalized male functions. In the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, men alone hunted and ﬁshed, served as religious leaders, as
warriors and as headmen. In the earliest days of migratory wage labor
(eighteenth century) it was also a masculine endeavor, and one which led to
both economic success and personal glory. But bit by bit these roles have
been either removed from the Garifuna culture completely, or, as in the
case of migration and religious leadership, women now participate as well.
As one male informant put it in 1975 — there is nothing a man can do that a
woman can’t do as well or better. . .A basic feminist argument today is that
the overall status of women in a society is related to the nature of the roles
that they are allowed to ﬁll. The Garifuna case is almost a mirror image of
what has more often happened to women since the onset of the industrial
revolution. That is, the roles assigned to men have been deleted or diluted
to the point that men as a class seem somehow less important than women.
The general situation which remains has struck many observers,
themselves members of a different kind of social order, as being
“matrifocal” (Gonzalez 198828-9).

Within Honduras, Garifuna organizational leaders support Gonzalez, clarning that
Garifuna gender relations surpass Mestizo gender relations. In 2002, Thorne (nd.)
was told by OFRANEH leadership that, unlike ladino men,
Garifuna men ‘respect’ the views of women and work in a mutually
supportive way around community issues. . .that when Garifuna women
meet, men are not excluded, but are often present, playing a supporting role
and encouraging women’s involvement.

Although it is true that women do hold a relative degree of power within the

community, Sarnbo Creek has yet to have a female President of Patronato. Outside

-25-

of the political sphere, women do serve as the core of the community and children

become obligated to their mothers more so than to their fathers. In Anderson’s

(2000:76) description of gender relations in Sambo Creek, he notes:
When husbands are present, women still maintain their own spheres of
social and economic power, particularly when their children become
working adults. Children (male and female), typically develop close
relationships to their mothers, maternal grandmothers and aunts and
acquire obligations to support them through ﬁnancial or practical means
(i.e., helping build or repair a house, clearing a garden plot). They almost
always speak in terms of sending money to their mother or building a

house for their mother rather than for their parents, or, certainly, their
father.

Anderson’s observations are in line with the data I collected ﬁve years later, with
people speaking almost exclusively of mothers and grandmothers when providing
me with home and property histories (these patterns are discussed in detail in
chapter six).

A signiﬁcant amount of scholarly research has focused on Garifuna
women. Topics of research include their roles within the household structure
(Gonzalez 1969, 1988, Helms 1981, England 1998), their participation in religious
rituals (Jenkins 1983, Kems 1983, Chemela 1991), and the impacts of migration
on women’s lives (Gonzalez 1969, 1988, England 2000). Signiﬁcant emphasis has
been placed on documenting and understanding Garifuna domestic organization,
which according to Gonzalez (1969, 1988) adapted in response to the diverse
economic activities of the Garifuna.

The division of labor had historically been that men ﬁsh and/or seek wage
labor while women remain in communities and work in agriculture. As noted

above, the search for wage labor has increased dramatically over the years and it

-26-

 

almost always necessitates migration. Although women also migrate in search of
work, the fact that they assume primary responsibility for childcare means there
are more women remaining in coastal communities than men. The women who
remain in communities traditionally maintained responsibility for agricultural

production, using the products for subsistence and occasional sale.

Historically, the Garifuna have practiced shifting agriculture, using ﬁelds
for a certain number of years, and then leaving them fallow while the soil recovers
and becomes fertile again (Bonilla and Paulaya, n.d.). The traditional gendered
division of agricultural labor is as follows: men are typically responsible for
preparing the soil through tilling, slashing, and burning, while women sow, care
for and harvest the crops. That said, in practice, some men in Sambo Creek also
participated in sowing, caring for, and harvesting the crops. Once harvested,
women are solely responsible for the two-day processing of yuca, which involves
peeling, grating, drying, and baking into casabe (i.e, cassava bread). Some women
in Sarnbo Creek, most of whom were older, participated in cassava processing.
Casabe production has as much social and cultural utility to the women’s groups
as it does economic or nutritional. Because relatively few people cultivate land in
Sarnbo Creek, yuca is often purchased for the production of casabe. Lack of land
and youth disinterest are of the two main reasons behind the decline of yuca
cultivation.

The traditional land tenure system in Garifuna communities is communal
landholding. All land, including that occupied by houses or other structures and

cultivation land, is held under the patronato and use rights are passed through

-27-

 

inheritance. Little is written on Garifuna inheritance patterns, but the information
shared by Garifuna residents in Sambo Creek suggests that use rights historically
passed through the matrilineal line.

Honduras’ Constitution recognizes Garifuna land rights under communal
land titles. While improvements to the land (e.g., houses or other buildings) can
be bought and sold by individuals within the community, the land remains
inalienable and theoretically cannot be sold. However, land ownership in Sambo
Creek is common. This is because much of the community’s ancestral cultivation
and harvest land does not fall under the constitutionally protected land title and
therefore been transformed into private plots. Men have been the principal actors
behind this transformation. Sambo Creek’s residents speak of these ancestral
lands as plots that were once held by their mothers or grandmothers. Today,
Garifuna men, Mestizos, and foreigners possess private titles to many of these
plots. This transformation calls into question traditional inheritance patterns - will
Sambo Creek’s women equally inherit land now that it has taken on a higher
economic value? Chapter six elaborates this shift from matrilineal inheritance of

use rights to private ownership.

2.2.3 Infrastructure Changes

In 1982, Carolyn McCommon (cited in Anderson 2000: 85) described
Sambo Creek as a:

...traditional, rural, Black Carib village. . .there is no electricity, telegraph

lines or sanitation service. Few houses have latrines or adjacent outhouses.

Water is obtained from the river and hauled to homes in pans carried on
individuals’ heads.

-23-

 

 

In 2002, community members remembered these days well. Within the last two
decades there have been maj or infrastructure changes. In the 19805, the road was
paved between La Ceiba and Trujillo, and La Ceiba subsidized electricity for the
community. In the early 19905, the municipality of La Ceiba built a potable water
and sanitation system (Anderson 2000:86). Moreover, the majority of traditional
manaca houses (mud walls with palm-thatched roof) began to be replaced with
homes constructed of bloque (cinderblock). These new homes were typically
ﬁnanced through remittances. At the time of my research, the existing
infrastructure included a paved stone street, health center, primary school, middle
school, two Catholic churches and seven Evangelical churches,4 one communal
center constructed with support of members of the community that live in the
United States, a hotel in the urban area,5 and three hotels in the rural areas, two of
which are on the coast. In March 2002, two months into my dissertation
ﬁeldwork, Barcélo, a major Spanish resort chain opened a resort location on the
beaches of Roma, which is less than two miles from Sambo Creek, and just
slightly past the community’s ancestral limits.

Despite these advances, there were still communication and travel
limitations in 2002. Taxis from La Ceiba did not service the community. Most
community members were reliant on the bus service to get to La Ceiba or

elsewhere, although there were households that had their own cars or trucks. One

 

’ The role of religion and churches is not something I have sufﬁcient data on and do not discuss in
this dissertation. However, I will note that the inﬂux of Christian (non-Catholic) churches in the
area is likely linked to the decline in the practice of dugu, the ancestral religious rituals.
Catholicism is tolerant of dugu, but other denominations ﬁnd ancestral rites to be sacrilegious.

’ I use urban to refer to the paved road area, where the bus from La Ceiba services.

-29-

 

landline phone serviced the entire community; some people did have cell phones.
Almost all households owned a television with cable.

There are also serious health concerns within the community. Despite the
arrival of potable water, Sambo Creek still lacks facilities to treat the water with
chlorine. Thus, a signiﬁcant portion of community residents suffer from health
problems directly related to deﬁcient sanitation infrastructure. And although the
community has a health center, it is not a 24-hour clinic, and the closest hospital is
in La Ceiba. Malaria, gastrointestinal diseases, and other infectious diseases are
prevalent in the community.

Constant migration has fed the rapid spread of communicable disease
within the community, and HIV/AIDS is affecting the population. The Garifuna
population as a whole has one of the highest levels of HIV/AIDS in the Western
hemisphere. In Honduras, HIV prevalence in adults between the ages of ﬁfteen
and forty-nine years of age exceeds eight percent, and the rates in adults in their
twenties are twice as high (UNAIDS 2004). Honduras’ Garifuna organizations
cite Sambo Creek as one of the most heavily affected communities, estimating that
more than one-third of the community is infected. Despite efforts to increase
awareness of the disease and how it is spread, shame and denial persist in the
community. Although I did not include a focus on the disease in my interviews,
many community members did note its prevalence to me. The HIV/AIDS
epidemic has impacts on all facets of Garifuna life, including land use and
management. The impact of HIV/AIDS on the Gariﬁrna population has yet to be

thoroughly explored and is an important area for future research.

-30-

 

2.3 Introducing Honduras’ Garifuna Organizations

I afﬁliated with both OFRANEH and ODECO, the two organizations that
represent the Gariﬁrna in Honduras. OFRANEH is a grassroots support
organization that was formed in 1977 and received ofﬁcial recognition in 1980.
While it was formed to represent “AfroHondurans,” a category that includes
English-speaking blacks and the Garifuna, its leadership told me that it has since
been transformed into an organization that focuses exclusively on Garifuna
representation. According to literature from the organization, it stands for self-
deterrnination, autonomy, and protection of Garifuna territory and culture.

ODECO is a non-govemmental organization (N GO) that serves as an
intermediary between international aid agencies and Garifuna communities.
ODECO was formed in 1992 (and received ofﬁcial recognition in 1994) by a
group of ex-OFRAN EH members who left the organization due to “differences in
philosophies.” ODECO represents both Garifuna and non-Garifuna
AfroHondurans and has as its principal objective the “integration of
AfroHondurans into the development process.” Although ODECO does claim to
represent non-Garifuna AfroHondurans, much of their programs are focused on the
Garifuna. ODECO’s leadership frequently noted their goal to transform the
Garifuna from development ‘objects’ to ‘subjects’ actively engaged in the
development process. The orgarrization’s strategies to achieve this goal include

the empowerment of AfroHonduran communities and the advancement of local

-31-

 

abilities through education, capacity-building workshops and training, and the
development of strong and efﬁcient institutions.

Both of these organizations are also involved in transnational coalitions,
through which they articulate their experiences as “blacks” who share the struggles
of other African American communities. La Organizacion Negra
Centroamericana or ONECA (the Central American Black Organization or
CABO) is an example of this type of transnational alliance building. ONECA is
an alliance comprised of 16 black organizations from across the Americas,
representing seven different countries (Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, Nicaragua,
Panama, Costa Rica, and the United States).’S

While both OFRANEH and ODECO operate within Garifuna communities,
ODECO excels in its international reach and funding. ODECO’s resources are far
more robust than OF RANEH’s, which enables them to employ highly educated
Garifuna staff. However, ODECO’s international recognition does not mean that
they hold the most national and local power. It serves to note that OFRANEH’s
international reach is on the rise, especially as of late. Both organizations have
played a key role in pressuring the Honduran government to honor its
constitutional commitments to grant Garifuna communities land titles. Both

organizations are also involved in public education, consciousness-raising,

 

6 These organizations are: the National Garifuna Council of Belize, the National Creole Council of
Belize, La Organizacién Negra Guatemalteca (ONEGUA) of Guatemala, the Black Woman’s
Organization of Guatemala, Asociacidn de Mujeres Garrﬁmas Guatemaltecas of Guatemala, the
Nicaraguan Garifuna Organization, Asociacién de Desarrollo y Promocidn Humana de la Costa
Atlantica (ADEPHCA) of Nicaragua, the Afro-Latin American/Afro-Costa Rican Woman’s
Network, IN SCA of Costa Rica, the Caribbean Project of Costa Rica, the Association of Friends of
the Ethnic Caribbean Museum of Bocas del Toro of Panama, the Afro-Panamanian Response, the
Afro Panamanian Woman’s Network, the Southern Diaspora Research and Development Center of
Panama, the Coalition Garifuna US, and Hondurans Against AIDS of the United States.

-32-

 

political advocacy and lobbying. At the community level, the two organizations
frequently compete with one another for support, and it would be incorrect to
claim that one is more powerﬁrl than the other (see also Thorne n.d.).

While both organizations hold regular elections to constitute their board of
directors, OFRANEH’s leadership actually changes far more frequently than
ODECO’s. Since its foundation, Céleo Alvarez has maintained the President’s
seat in ODECO. Alvarez is a very strong leader and all other staff are answerable
to him. ODECO also has women serving in very high-proﬁle positions, and the
organization’s legal advisor is a woman. Karen Vargas is responsible for all
ODECO’s legal support work surrounding land rights and reclamations in
Garifuna communities. I had the opportunity to interview both of these important
leaders on multiple occasions, as well as to interview other staff within the
organization. I also interviewed the top leadership of OFRANEH, as well as other
staff members. Notably, women ﬁll OFRANEH’s two topmost positions.

My ﬁrst contact with both organizations was in 2000, when I was present
in La Ceiba to study the Garifuna language. In later years, ODECO supported my
grant application for a Fulbright IIE, as well as gave me the names of some of their
supporters in Sambo Creek to serve as entry points into the community. Both
organizations are based out of La Ceiba, which made it relatively easy for me to
visit them for interviews and the solicitation of archival documents because I was

based out of Sambo Creek.

-33-

 

 

 

2.4 Data and Methods

The data I have drawn upon in my analyses was collected during thirteen
months of ﬁeldwork between June 2000 and October 2002 and over ﬁve years
(1999-2005) of monitoring the Internet. Multiple methods of data collection were
used, including interviews following a semi-structured protocol, unstructured
interviewing, archival research, direct observation, and participant observation.

This dissertation draws upon 91 interviews with the following groups of
people: Garifuna and Mestizo community members in Sambo Creek, tourism
operators, hotel owners and staff in La Ceiba and Sambo Creek, organizational
leaders and activists from ODECO and OF RANEH, ofﬁcials from the Honduran
Institute of Tourism, and ofﬁcials from the regional ofﬁce (i.e., La Ceiba) for the
National Agrarian Institute. The majority of interviews were not tape-recorded,
and therefore many of the quotations offered in this text are not verbatim and were
transcribed from handwritten notes. Table 1 details the groups of interviewees, the

interview location, format, and sampling method.

-34-

Table 1. Formal Interviews

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interviewee Interview Number of
Group Location Samplin Interviews
Honduran Institute of
Tourism Tegucigalpa Targeted 2
President of Patronato and
Elders Sambo Creek Targeted 6
Every 5th
Community Members Sambo Creek household 55
Hotel Owners and Staff Sambo Creek Targeted 9
ODECO and OFRANEH
Leadership La Ceiba Targeted 5
Coastal Garifuna
communities
(including
Community Activists Sambo Creek) Targeted 5
National Agrarian Institute La Ceiba Targeted 2
Tour Operators La Ceiba Targeted 3
Tourism Marketers /
Council of Tourism La Ceiba Targeted 2
Resort Management Roma / La Ceiba Targeted 2
Total
91

 

2.4.1 Tourism-related interviews

 

The Gariﬁrna land struggle is situated within the context of actual and
proposed coastal tourism development. In an effort to understand the perspectives
of the various actors behind the promotion of tourism development, I conducted
both interviews and archival research on coastal tourism development. I spent my
ﬁrst two weeks of ﬁeldwork in the capital city of Tegucigalpa where I visited the
Honduran Institute of Tourism (IHT) (formerly part of the government as the
Ministry of Tourism). I interviewed two ofﬁcials from the IHT and collected

documents on the government’s plans for coastal tourism development as well as

-35-

 

copies of the social and environmental impact assessments for the proposed
development around La Ceiba, Tela, and Trujillo (i.e., the main coastal cities
surrounded by Garifuna communities). The interviews with IHT personnel were
open-ended and guided by a list of topics on which I wanted to learn more. These
topics included: the history of the IHT (i.e., why it was no longer a ministry of the
state); government efforts to promote tourism; coastal resort recruitment; speciﬁc
tourism initiatives in areas nearby Garifuna communities and Garifuna responses
to those initiatives; Garifuna mobilization against Article 107; Decree 90/90 (i.e.,
a law that enables foreigners to buy land for tourism development); the World
Bank’s involvement in tourism promotion; and social and environmental impact
assessments.

I also interviewed sixteen individuals directly involved in the tourism
industry in the La Ceiba area, nine of who were the owners, management, or staff
at hotels in or within walking distance of Sambo Creek. Examples of the topics I
covered with hotel owners include: why they chose to operate a business within or
near Garifuna communities; how they involved community members in their
tourism operations; and, how they obtained land in the area. Staff members were
interviewed to garner information about their background, wages, and opinions
about the impact local tourism development has on their home communities.

Within La Ceiba, I interviewed the area’s main tourism operators and local
tourism council, collecting pamphlets and other public publications at these
locations. These interviews were also all semi-structured and open-ended and were

focused on the marketing aspects of tourism on the coast, the government’s role in

-36-

at... Jail-Fri

 

promoting tourism; and the variety of activities for tourists on the coast, among

other topics (see Appendix A for an example of a guided question list).

2.4.2 Garifuna Organization Interviews

I interviewed ofﬁcials from ODECO and OFRANEH on multiple
occasions. The interviews always followed a semi-structured, open-ended
interview schedule and I always requested to tape-record so that I could accurately
represent organizational stances. ODECO leadership was not comfortable with
recording, while OFRANEH was. The topics of my queries changed throughout
the course of the research. Early interviews centered around gaining insights into
the organizations’ histories, objectives, programs and projects, stances on tourism
development, and their mobilization against Article 107. As my research
progressed, my questions became more nuanced inquires into Sambo Creek’s land
struggle (see Appendix A for examples of these questionnaires). I also requested
documents from both organizations on multiple occasions, and took whatever they
chose to share with me. The types of documents I requested included clippings on
Gariﬁma mobilization against Article 107; organizational statements and
communications with the INA regarding the land struggle; court proceedings;
maps and titling information for Sambo Creek, etcetera. I maintained contact with
both organizations throughout my time in Honduras, although ODECO extended
invitations to their functions more often than did OF RANEH. I also visited the
regional INA ofﬁce in La Ceiba, conducting brief interviews with two staff

members.

-37-

lama... arts-Ii

 

2.4.3 Sambo Creek Interviews

I conducted seventy-three formal interviews with residents in Sambo
Creek, but I spoke informally with signiﬁcantly more. This total (73) consists of
six interviews with the President of Patronato and community elders, ﬁfty-ﬁve
household interviews, three interviews with local activists, and nine with hotel
owners and staff. I began the formal community interviews by seeking out the
President of Patronato so that I could introduce myself, discuss my study’s
objectives, and talk about what I could provide for the community as a way to
thank my hosts for their accommodation.’ I asked the President of Patronato to
suggest ﬁve individuals who he considered knowledgeable about the community’s
history and important people for me to talk to before I began to sample the
community.

After these initial six interviews, I sampled each geographic section of the
community, interviewing an adult member of the household in approximately
every ﬁfth house, completing ﬁfty-ﬁve household interviews. I chose to sample in
this way because I was seeking representation from every section of the
community, not necessarily a representative sample of adults. What I wanted to
know was how individuals living in different geographic areas of the community

experienced and thought about the land struggle. This was of interest because the

 

7 I planned to make a monetary contribution to the community’s primary school, but the school
director was concerned that cash would put undue suspicion on the school administration and
suggested the transparency offered by donating actual supplies would better serve the community.
Taking suggestions from the head of the parent’s group in Sambo Creek, 1 equipped the school
with a substantial amount of basic supplies (e.g., paper, pencils), art supplies, and musical recorders
so that the school could implement new courses in art and music. (I also made a monetary
contribution to the Garifuna organizations, asking that the funds be earmarked to aid in the land
struggle.)

-33-

 

 

various settlements expressed class distinctions, but also because the surrounding
areas of the community had unique histories in their transformation from
cultivation land to living space. For example, La Libertad was donated to the
community by the government and then the patronato distributed plots to families
without homes; some areas of Colonia Suazo that were once cultivation land were
purchased and privatized by well-off community members; and, areas of Corinto
were usurped through Mestizo encroachment and are now home to Mestizos of
varying wealth.

Within these household interviews, I sought representation by age, gender,
and ethnicity. The way I enlisted participants was by approaching every ﬁfth
household and asking to speak with either a man or woman (rotating at each
household) within one of three age groups (also rotating categories at each
household). The age groups I sought to represent in the sample were: ages 20-29;
ages 30-50, and over 50 years of age. In the end, I spoke with 11 individuals
between the ages of 20 and 29, 24 individuals between 30-50 years of age, and 20
individuals over the age of 50. Let me provide the reader with an understanding
of how the interviewee enlistment worked in practice. At the ﬁrst household I
approached, I asked to talk with a woman between 30 and 50 years of age. At the
next house, I asked for a man from the same age group. At the third house, I asked
to talk to a woman over 50, and in the forth house, a man over 50. At the ﬁfth
house, I asked to talk with a woman between ages 20 to 29, and then at the sixth
house, to a man between 20 and 29. I then repeated the process throughout the

entire community. Only two households did not agree to participate and in these

-39-

H11: 1 .

 

 

events I approached their irnmediate neighbor to continue my sampling. When a
household did not have an individual in the age group I was interested in talking
to, I asked to speak with a person of the same gender in a different age group.8
Despite my attempt to rotate between men and women adult members of the
household, Sambo Creek has far more women permanent residents than men, and I
ended up with more women in the sample (35 women and 20 men). This is
because in certain areas of the community there were several consecutive houses
without a male resident. Rather than leaving out large sections of the community,
I decided to interview the woman head of household.

Of the ﬁfty-ﬁve participants, forty-two were Garifuna, ten were Mestizo,
two were of mixed ancestry (Garifuna and Mestizo) and one was an English-
speaking Black.9 I did not purposefully sample for ethnicity. I believed that since
Sambo Creek is ethnically diverse, sampling every ﬁfth household would
accommodate my interests in obtaining representation by ethnicity. This strategy
proved successful, as evidenced in Table II, which illustrates the household

interviewees by ethnicity and then sorts ethnicity by gender.

 

8 Many households did not have individuals under the age of 30 (usually because they had migrated
for work), which explains why my sample included only 11 individuals under 30, while it had a
more balanced representation in the other two age categories.

9 “English-speaking blacks” are an ethnic group recognized by the Honduran state.

-40-

 

Table II. Sambo Creek Household Interviews by Ethnicity and Gender

 

Sambo Creek Household Interviews by Ethnicity (n=55)

 

 

% Garifuna % Mestizo % English-speaking % Mixed Total
Black Ancestry
76% (n=42) 18% (n=10) 2% (n=1) 4% (n=2) 100%

 

 

 

 

 

Female Household Interviewees by Ethnicity (n=35)

 

 

% Garifuna % Mestizo % English-speaking % Mixed Total
Black Ancestry
74% (n=26) 20% (n=7) 3% (n=1) 3% (n=1) 100%

 

 

 

 

 

Male Household Interviewees by Ethnicity (n=20)

 

 

% Garifuna % Mestizo % English-speaking % Mixed Total
Black Ancestry
80% (n=16) 15% (n=3) 0% 5% (n=1) 100%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interviews with community members followed a semi-structured interview
protocol that allowed for open-ended responses, and only two were tape-recorded.
The topics I explored in these interviews included household demographic
information; personal and community land use and land ownership history;
knowledge and opinion of land laws, community land title, and the land struggle;
interactions with and opinions of ODECO and OFRANEH; questions about
community history, Garifuna history, and Garifuna culture; and questions
regarding tourism development, among others (see Appendix A for a complete

protocol). When interviewees brought up topics not treated on the protocol that I

-41-

 

believed would add to my understanding of the community, I pursued these topics
with them by asking related follow-up questions. The interviews lasted between
one and three hours, and took place in the interviewee’s home or patio area. Due
to the sensitive nature of my questions, I did not ask to tape-record the household
interviews.

I employed a ﬁeld assistant to aid with the majority of the community
interviews. There were two reasons I selected my ﬁeld assistant: he spoke good
Spanish and he was of mixed ancestry. Rene (a pseudonym)10 was the son of a
Mestizo woman and Garifuna man, both of whom have ancestral links in the
community of Sambo Creek. Rene was as “neutral” as one could get in a
community land struggle that at times was divided by racial-ethnic lines, and at
other times, by class distinctions. Both sides of his family were well-liked, and
neither side was politically active. He was also not well off, supporting his wife
and ﬁve children on approximately $100 a month (salary plus tips) and he did not
receive remittances. Employing him to assist with the interviews did not seem to
evoke too much envy amongst community members. After each interview (or
series of interviews), I would return home immediately to transcribe the data. I
would later meet with Rene to compare our notes and we would work to ﬁll in any
gaps.

After the household interviews, I conducted three additional interviews
with members of the Land Defense Committee and Patronato. I also interviewed

two local activists from nearby Garifuna communities who worked closely with

 

'° I have assigned pseudonyms to all community members referenced from Sambo Creek, except
for those who were identiﬁed within the news media.

-42-

 

Sambo Creek’s patronato, OFRANEH, or ODECO. The point of these additional
interviews was to gain more detailed knowledge of Sambo Creek’s land struggle
and organizational support for their land claims from individuals active in the
reclamation processes. All of these interviews were open-ended in which I used a
topic sheet to guide our discussions. All were conducted without an assistant, and

three of the ﬁve were tape-recorded.

2.4.4 Participant Observation and Direct Observation

In addition to conducting the community interviews, I also gathered data
regarding positions about the land struggle through conversations with individuals
I beﬁiended in the community. My spouse and young son accompanied me to the
ﬁeld, and we rented a cabana within the limits of Sambo Creek, a ﬁve-minute walk
down the beach from the urban center. Living in the area with a child enabled
strong friendships to grow with the women of the community. I kept a ﬁeld
journal in which I recorded daily events and conversations. I also participated in a
variety of community events as an observer and participant observer and took
notes during and after these events. Examples of the types of activities in which I
utilized participant observation as a method of data collection were baking pan de
coco, hiking the mountain with friends to look for shrimp, and attending the local
feria with my family. I employed direct observation in the community as well by
taking notes on visual observations as I walked the community boundaries and
when I attended the music and dance practices of a local dance troupe. I also

attended a number of events organized by ODECO, including the 205th

-43-

 

anniversary celebration of the Garifuna arrival in Honduras. I took notes
throughout the speeches at these events and wrote up ﬁeldnotes regarding the

conversations I had with other attendees.

2.4.5 Archival Research

The collection, review, and analysis of secondary data were essential parts
of the dissertation work. Since 1999, I have been collecting documents on a
variety of topics including changes in Honduran land legislation (and in particular,
Article 107 and its’ reforms and amendments); Garifuna activist statements
regarding the land struggle and tourism development; tourism programs supported
by the World Bank. These archives have come from a variety of sources,
including Honduran newspapers, Internet articles, and documents given to me
from ODECO, OFRANEH, Sambo Creek community members, the National
Agrarian Institute (INA), and the Honduran Institute of Tourism (IHT). Table HI

details the array of secondary data I have analyzed, when and how I received it.

_44-

 

Table 11]. Secondary Data Sources

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

of
Eecondary Data Time gathered Archived by Topic of Data
ewspaper Clippings from
onduran Papers 2000-2003 Self Tourism
Newspaper Clippings from Garifuna
lHonduran Papers 2000-2004 Self Communities
Newspaper Clippings ﬁ'om
onduran Papers 1999-2001 ODECO Article 107
rPamphlets, Advertisements, and Coastal Tourism
Promotional Booklets 2000-2002 Self Advertisements
Organizational
Objectives and
ODECO Internal Publications 1999-2002 ODECO Activities
ODECO/
Sambo Creek's
National Agrarian Institute lPatronato/ Sambo Creek's Land
ocuments 2002—2005 OFRANEH Title and Maps
pommunity History,
Sambo Creek Economy, Land
Community Lnforme by CCARC 2002 Patronato Problems, etc.
Sambo Creek's Land
Public Court Documents 2001-2005 OFRANEH Struggle
Impact Assessments
for Tourism
Development in La
Social and Environmental Irrrpact Ceiba, Tela, and
lysis Reports 2002 IHT Trujillo
llnternet Postings / Listserve Garifuna Land
Communications 1999-Present Self Strum
ODECO/
Sambo Creek's Statements on Sambo
lPatronato/ Creek's Land
blic Communications 2002-2005 OFRANEH Struggle
temational
Conventions Drawn
nternational Conventions and upon by Garifuna in
IlCovenants 2002-2005 Self Land Struggle

 

-45-

 

2.5 Data Analysis

I typed ﬁeldnotes on a daily basis and transcribed all interviews before
leaving Honduras in October 2002.” Once I returned from the ﬁeld, I transferred
all of the ﬁles into Atlas-tin“, a data management program. I coded the data
thematically, both inductively and deductively, and then generated content reports
(i.e., long lists of cross-referenced quotations), which I used to write the
substantive chapters of the dissertation. Examples of the themes I coded
deductively were descriptions of the Garifuna land struggle in general, as well as
speciﬁcs about Sarnbo Creek land invasions; opinions about Garifuna
organizational representation; comments about Garifuna history and culture;
thoughts about tourism development within the nation in general, and in the
boundaries of Sambo Creek, in particular. Examples of themes that emerged
during the data analysis process are those surrounding gender and land use. In
particular, it was during my analysis that I began to note patterns in how
landholdings were transformed from communal to private and how gender played
into these transformations, and so I began to code for references to matrilineal
inheritance, among other topics. I also used Excel as a means to quantify the

results of interview questions.

 

11 Before leaving the ﬁeld, I also wrote an informe that provided an overview of the data I had
collected from corrrmunity members (see Appendix B). I left this with the President of Patronato
for Sambo Creek and Corintu, the President of the Land Defense Committee, my research
assistants, ODECO, OFRANEH, and three community members who requested a copy.

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CHAPTER THREE
DEVELOPMENT ON THE NORTH COAST: THE MAKING AND

REMAKING OF THE GARIFUNA SUBJECT

This chapter provides the context for understanding contemporary Garifuna
struggles for land on the coast of Honduras. As I indicated in the introduction, it is
only recently that the coast and its population have become valued by the
Honduran State. For much of Honduras’ history, the region was marginal to
Honduras and the Gariﬁrna were excluded from the nation-state. There are three
time periods treated in this chapter. Each corresponds to shifts in Gariﬁrna subject
positioning. First, I review the rise of the banana industry, Garifuna involvement
in the industry, and how the Gariﬁrna became positioned as ‘other’ or non-
Honduran as a result of an explicitly anti-black labor movement. Next, I discuss
shifts in coastal landholding and control, explaining the processes through which
the coast was populated by a signiﬁcant number of Mestizo peasants. I describe
how the Garifuna recast their identity during this time period, making explicit their
uniqueness as AfroHonduran and autochthonous. Finally, I describe current
initiatives to develop coastal tourism and changes in agrarian legislation that have
enabled that development. This contemporary shift has created motivations for the
Garifuna to redeﬁne themselves. Both the Honduran state and the Garifuna
themselves are involved in the making and remaking of the Gari funa subject.

Today, they are being recast as indigenous peoples.

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3.1 Garifuna Exclusion: The Black “Threat” and the Emergence of an

Indo-Hispanic National Identity

The Garifuna populated Honduras’ Caribbean coastline soon after the
British deported them from St. Vincent in 1797. As noted in the last chapter, they
traveled from Roatan to the mainland by canoe, arriving ﬁrst in Trujillo and then
migrating via land and canoe both east and west along the coast. They were
therefore present in Honduras twenty-four years before the nation’s 1821
independence. Table IV is a reproduction of data reported by Euraque (2003: 242)
and provides estimates of the early Garifuna population. Drawing upon Honduran
historical documents, Euraque estimates that the overall percentage patterns of
Garifuna in the country ranged between one and ﬁve percent of the total

population between 1797 and 1935.

Table IV. Estimates of Garifuna Population in Honduras, 1797-1935

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Year Estimate % of Hondurans
1797 2,000 1
1 801 4,000 3
1816 8,000 5
1910 14,466 3
1930 1 8,092 2
1935 22,979 2

 

 

 

 

Until the mid 20’h century, the Atlantic coast was not easily reachable from
the highlands, which was where the vast majority of the population and the
governmental seat were located. This geographic isolation ﬁom the highlands
contributed to the lack of political involvement and national investment in the

region. Instead, the most important economic players in the development of the

-48-

 

Atlantic coast came from outside of the nation. For much of its early history, the
coast was essentially a separate economy, and the state did not exert much
inﬂuence over the region.

In the 18905, the coast began its transformation into a central seat to US-
owned banana companies and their plantations. In 1899, the United Fruit
Company (UFCO) added Honduras as a new supply site for banana production,
with the intention that the country would serve as an important link and spread the
industry throughout Central America. The three major fruit companies that
eventually came to dominate the Honduran coast were Cuyarnel Fruit, which
operated in the region of Puerto Cortes; the Vaccaros Brothers in the region of La
Ceiba; and the United Fruit Company near Tela and Trujillo. The government
granted them huge land subsidies for each kilometer of railroad track they
constructed. While the government expected that the companies would eventually
build a national rail system that linked the capital with the largely inaccessible
Caribbean coast (Merrill 1993), they instead used the railroads to reach new
coastal lands and transform them into expansive plantations. By the start of World
War I, the banana companies had been granted 416,500 hectares (about 1,029,194
acres) of fertile land on the north coast (Ruhl 1984: 39). As a result, the three
companies eventually came to control the majority of good land on the Caribbean
coast, owning 75% of all Honduran banana groves. Bananas accounted for 66% of
all Honduran exports in 1913, making the companies extremely powerful players

in Honduran politics. During the ﬁrst half of the 20th century, managers of the

-49-

United Fruit Company and the Standard Fruit Company were perceived of as
exerting as much power (if not more) as the Honduran President (Merrill 1993).
The coastal region was difﬁcult to transform into a primary source for
bananas for a number of reasons. The area _was full of swamplands that had to be
cleared, lacked a labor supply, and was seen as lawless and isolated (Echeverri-
Gent 1992: 277-79). Other than the Garifuna, few others lived in the region where
the banana plantations were established. (Miskito settlements were in southeastern
Honduras, bordering Nicaragua and not near the territories that were transformed
into plantations.) The Garifuna, who had a reputation for being industrious,
strong, and hard working, were incorporated into the fruit industry, hired to work
as plantation laborers, dockworkers, and in railroad construction (Gonzalez 1988).
As the industry grew in success, corrupt ofﬁcials on the coast began to
expropriate large tracts of lands to either keep for themselves or sell to foreign
companies. Burns (2005) cites an example from Trujillo in which Colonel
Gustavo Alvarez, a local military commander, expropriated 2,000 hectares (apx.
4,942 acres) of Garifuna lands and distributed them amongst wealthy landowners
despite Garifuna protests. I was told similar stories in Sambo Creek, which give a
sense of how Garifuna territorial control was usurped during the 19205 and 19305.
Between the 18705 and the 19305, the north coast territories experienced
major population growth. By the 19305, twenty percent of the country’s
population resided in coastal departments (compared to less than ﬁve percent
during the 19th century) (Euarque 1998:155). The Garifuna communities near the

plantations soon began to suffer from Mestizo and foreign encroachment, as

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people moved to the area in search of job opportunities. The companies also
attracted foreigners from a variety of locations. British were hired into
management, Arabs and Armenians became involved as merchants, and West
Indians were hired as laborers.

The Black British West Indian population grew signiﬁcantly in the late 19th
and early 20th century, when the fruit companies expanded. People of Aﬁican
descent were considered the most effective workers in the industry because of their
resistance to diseases like malaria, and they were known for having superior
strength and endurance (Anderson 2000:131). The fruit companies favored West
Indians because they were already skilled in banana cultivation, spoke English,
had higher literacy levels, and were already acclimated to white authority and
racism (Bourgois 1989). As such, West Indians were turned to in order to fulﬁll a
perceived labor shortage, and they soon became the majority of Honduras’
plantation workers. According to governmental reporting, in 1929, there were
about 10,000 West Indian workers in Honduras (Echeverri-Gent: 1992: 283).
Moreover, British ofﬁcials noted that companies actively recruited more workers
than they could employ, resulting in a labor surplus and competition between
workers of different identities and nationalities (Anderson 2000).

Work in the banana industry soon became a critical area of employment for
Hondurans, and the national elite began to pressure the banana companies to hire
Hispanic Hondurans. When mining, one of the nation’s other principal export
industries (albeit quite small in contrast to banana exports), declined in 1910, the

pressure to ﬁnd jobs for Hispanic Hondurans increased (Echeverri-Gent

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1992:298). The overabundance of West Indian immigrants became a point of
contention between the Hispanic Honduran population, the Honduran government,
and the fruit companies. With the companies recruiting more West Indian workers
than they could employ, the Hispanic Honduran population began to perceive of
them as stealing jobs from the “sons of the nation” (Anderson 2000:132). This
growing resentment created a racist labor movement in which Hispanic Hondurans
pushed for anti-West Indian policies (Echeverri-Gent 1992: 298).

The movement grew throughout the ﬁrst half of the 20’h century, becoming
a widespread campaign against the immigrant blacks employed by the US. based
fruit companies. Honduran papers were ﬁlled with letters and editorials protesting
the presence of foreign blacks and calling for an immigration law to prohibit their
entrance (Anderson 2000: 112-113). British colonial ofﬁcials who were stationed
in Honduras documented the growing anti-black sentiment. For example, in the
British correspondence reviewed by Echeverri-Gent (1992: 300), British ofﬁcials
reported Hondurans declaring, “if the government doesn’t get rid of [West Indian
workers] they won’t hesitate to do it themselves in bloodshed.” Another document
noted:

...feelings on the North Coast are very strong against these coloured men,

and a very strong article was recently published against the unwelcome

immigration of coloured people, who, so the writer wished to point out

work for less wages than the native workman, and consequently was

robbing him of employment (Echeverri-Gent 1992: 300).

All levels of society singled black workers out; even artisans in

Tegucigalpa protested against their presence (Echeverri-Gent 1992: 304). Froylan

Turcis, an elite from Tegucigalpa published a series of editorials about the

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“unnecessary immigrants” that cited the “danger” of racial mixture (Euraque 2003:
243). The concern over immigration centered on the perceived moral and physical
threat that blacks represented as a ‘race’ (Anderson 2000). The following quote
from one of the well-respected Honduran intellectuals of the time who was
involved in the campaign against black immigrants is illustrative of this sentiment:

But there is something worse in this African importation. There exists,

each time more effective, each time more growing, the danger that over the

course of years Honduras will be nothing but a nation of mulattos.

Because the herd of blacks that the companies import, today in one form,

tomorrow in another, making use of all kinds of excuses, are degenerating

in alarming manner the Honduran race (“Protecion a los Nacionales,” El

Pueblo, March 10, 1931) (quoted in Anderson 2000:113).

The national racist messages from the capital ﬁltered down to the local
level on the coast, inﬂuencing local ofﬁcials and police in particular, who
frequently harassed black workers (Anderson 2000:135). Echeverri-Gent’s
(1992) historical review found reports of targeted racial violence. Great Britain
maintained Foreign Ofﬁces in coastal towns to oversee their West Indian colonial
subjects. While British authorities documented a series of abuses, they seem to
have offered little direct (physical) protection to the West Indians. For example, in
the 1910 “La Masica” incident, a Honduran ofﬁcer and the men under his
command gratuitously killed three and wounded three other West Indians who
worked for Vaccaros Brothers. In 1912, a West Indian who refused to do forced
labor in La Ceiba had a dead body “tied to his neck and both were dragged along
by chain fastened to his hands” (British Report quoted in Echeverri-Gent 1992:

299). British authorities pressed these cases and formally demanded compensation

for the death of its Colonial Subject in the latter incident. The case was submitted

-53-

to the King of Spain for arbitration and in 1917, the King ruled in favor of Great
Britain (Echeveni-Gent 1992: 299). The courts found Honduran ofﬁcials and the
fruit companies at fault for the death. Great Britain likely expected that the
Honduran government would suffer political and economic costs, which in turn
would lead it to pressure local ofﬁcials into improving their relations with the
British West Indian labor. But the ruling did not have this outcome and the
racially charged violence continued.

Moreover, several administrations attempted to curb West Indian
immigration altogether as a means to eliminate the racial tensions. In 1914,
British correspondence reported that the Honduran government planned to stop
labor recruitment from the West Indies. In 1916, they threatened to deport West
Indian workers, and in September of that year, the Ministry of War issued orders
that no black workers were to disembark (Echeverri-Gent 1992). Then in 1917,
the Honduran government requested that the UFCO repatriate its black labor force.
The company refused, telling the Honduran government that if they wanted to
deport the black workers, they would have to do so themselves. In 1921, President
Lopez Gutierrez prohibited the entry of black British subjects, stating that they
were unfairly replacing Honduran labor (Echeverri-Gent 1992: 300-30).

In 1923, the Federacio'n Obrera Hondureﬁa (Federation of Honduran
Workers or F OH), which was established by artisans from Tegucigalpa, introduced
legislation which sought to prohibit the importation of Negroes, Aﬁicans, and
coolies (East Indians), deport all those who had been brought in by the companies,

and to issue identiﬁcation cards to all “Negroes” and “coolies” (Euraque 1998:157,

-54-

2003: 244). The banana companies and embassies of the US. and Britain opposed
the bill as well as subsequent bills that were introduced, and all failed to pass.
However, Honduran ofﬁcials supported the anti-black movement and the
deportation of West Indians, and in 1924, several ships with West Indian
immigrants were sent back to their ports of origin without allowing them to dock
(Echeverri-Gent 1992: 301)

The movement against blacks gained signiﬁcant momentum in this decade
due to massive immigration of Salvadorans who came to Honduras in search of
land and jobs. By the end of the decade there were over 12,000 Salvadoran
immigrants, representing ten percent of the labor force. These immigrants were
incorporated into the labor movement, serving as key activists united with Mestizo
Hondurans as Hispanic Central Americans against West Indians. By the mid-
19205 the movement became violent, resulting in armed mobs in the streets of
Trujillo in July 1924. Strikes broke out on plantations with Mestizo workers
threatening black workers with machetes if they did not leave the country. Two
black workers were killed and many others were stabbed. British foreign ofﬁcials
began patrolling the area in an attempt to protect the black workers, because
according to British historical records, these violent outbreaks appeared to have
received support from Honduran local ofﬁcials. The support of local ofﬁcials
made it difﬁcult for the banana companies to pacify the strikers. In an effort to
avoid a massacre, the companies boarded over a thousand black workers onto a
Norwegian steamboat (Echeverri-Gent 1992). Tensions continued and in 1929,

Hispanic Honduran laborers began organizing to “take matters into their own

-55-

hands” (British ofﬁcial quoted in Echeverri-Gent 1992: 303) in Trujillo, Tela, and
La Ceiba.

By the 19305, although racism did not disappear, two events caused the
inﬂux of “new blacks” to slow. First, the 1929 Immigration Law institutionalized
racism by restricting the arrival of a variety of identiﬁed “races,” (negro, arabe,
china, turca, siria, Armenia, palestina, coolie) by charging the immigrants heavy -
and therefore unaffordable - entrance fees and deposits (Anderson 2000; Euraque
2003). At the same time, the depression and banana disease caused recession
among the fruit companies, ﬁrrther slowing immigration. In the 19305, much of
the West Indian population was reduced; many returned home or migrated to other
countries (Anderson 2000:136). However, the discrimination that was present
against West Indian blacks on the coast certainly had an impact on the treatment
and representation of the Garifuna. Unfortunately, despite the fact that the
Garifuna played a major role as workers for the hit companies, historical
accounts of their relationship to the banana enclaves — as growers and landowners
- are relatively few. Euraque’s (2003) research attempts to address this absence.

According to Euraque’s (2003) review of historical documents, the
Garifuna were important pioneers in the coastal communities of Tela (the seat of
UFCO administration), La Ceiba (the home of Standard Fruit operations), and
Trujillo (a major United Fruit center) and were actually some of the earliest banana
growers. He draws on new research that shows that by 1900, the Garifuna owned
ejidal (community) land in Tela and it remained in Garifuna hands into the 19105.

Moreover, historical records ﬁ'om Tela cite some Garifuna by name as early

-56-

Ind-.5. iii

“capitalists,” owning much of the land occupied by other Garifuna and West
Indians in the black area of Tela (Euraque 2003: 23 8). Similar reconsiderations of
La Ceiba’s history have found that Garifuna also held signiﬁcant economic power
there from the 18705 through the early 19205.

According to Euraque, the Garifuna were the ﬁrst stable black population
employed by the banana companies and their labor remained critical for longer
than most other historical records suggest. Euraque states that although the
Garifuna probably did not make up the majority of the 4,000 or so workers in the
banana economy between the 18905 and 19105, given their numerical presence on
the coast, it is likely that their numbers in the industry were higher than early
records stated. Speciﬁcally, he argues that the banana companies probably
confused black West Indians with Garifuna in their ofﬁcial counts. In her account
of Garifuna ethnohistory, Gonzalez (1988) also notes their importance in the
banana economy between the 18905 and 19305, but claims that in those later years,
the Garifuna left plantation and dock work and returned to their communities,
leaving the work to the newly recruited West Indians, Indios, and mixed-race
Hondurans. Euraque agrees that there probably was an exodus of Garifuna labor
beginning around the late 19105 and early 19205, as it coincided with the
Salvadoran immigration.

Euraque (2003:239) argues that given their coastal numbers, the “black
threat” articulated in the 19205 labor movement and directed towards the British
West Indians was likely an outgrth of the internal and local threat posed by the

Garifuna population to the national elite. Speciﬁcally, he argues that as the

-57-

original occupants of the rich coastal lands, the Garifuna were perceived of as a
threat to the Hispanic Honduran growers who sought to extend their holdings in
the 19105 and 19205. Euraque claims that the threat of limited access to the
coastal economy was one of the causes behind the creation of an Indo-Hispanic
nationalist identity discourse in the 19205.

In an earlier publication, Euraque (1998) argued that the creation of this
indo-Hispanic nationalist identity was a reaction by Honduran elites to US
domination of the coastal economy and the inﬂux of foreign laborers.

The triumph of a Mestizo Honduras by the 19305 was the ideological result

of a process of social and economic change that brought foreign capital and

foreign immigrants to Honduras’ north coast and threatened, on many
levels, the elites’ domination of their country. Elites and the Honduran
state were too weak politically and economically to challenge or reject
foreign capital; thus they attempted to reassert their dominance, at least in

the ideological sphere, by asserting a national unity based on a

homogeneous Honduran Mestizo race and excluding, in particular, the

West Indian immigrants brought in by the banana companies but also the

indigenous north coast Garifuna populations ...[and] by early twentieth

century, Mestizo slowly came to represent a particular kind of “mixed”
person, that is, a person of “Indian” and “Spanish” miscegenation and
hence different from the broader range of miscegenation suggested by the

term ladino (Euraque 1998:152,155).

In 2003, Euraque expanded his reasons behind the construction of this national
identity to argue what I shared above: that it was also in response to the threat
posed by the Garifuna as original occupants of coastal tenitories. The newly
created national identity categories purposefully excluded blacks (West Indians
and Garifuna) in order to maintain the position of power for Hispanic elites.

Two key symbolic events signaled this re-imagining and re-categorization

of the nation’s populace. First, in 1926, the Honduran legislature named the

national currency the Lempira, after an indigenous leader who died resisting the

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.0.

H01

111d:

Hor

Conquest, thus making an Indian a national hero and symbol of Honduran identity.
Then in 1930, Honduras reﬂected this transformation in its ofﬁcial census data,
declaring that the maj ority of the population was Mestizo. For Euraque (1996),
these two events signaled the state construction of an indo-Hispanic nation,
introducing a new pride in having an indigenous racial heritage and separating
Hondurans as a uniﬁed group ﬁom both US and British elites. Irnportantly, this
indo-Hispanic mestizaje denied and negated the presence of blackness within
Honduras. Given their historical control over coastal territories, the State’s
positioning (or exclusion) of Garifuna subject identity in this fashion makes sense.
Since the beginning of the 19th century, the Garifuna had control over
signiﬁcant tracks of land in the coastal region. With the onset of the banana
plantations, blacks — both the Garifuna and the imported British West Indians —
held the comer on the coastal labor market because the US ﬁ'uit companies
perceived them to be ‘better workers.’ Anti-black resentment grew as Hispanic
Hondurans felt they were passed over for employment in favor of ‘non-
Hondurans.’ While elite Honduran politicians had an interest in seeing coastal
land remain available for the banana companies (because they received economic
support in return), they also had an interest in unifying the nation against the US
companies who dominated the region. Euraque argues that the emergence of an
indo-hispanic mestizaje that negated the presence of blackness in the Honduran
Mestizo identity, while highlighting the contributions of Indians, was linked to
elites attempts at exerting their power and control over the coastal economy. Once

the coast became a major source of revenue, and other industries such as mining

-59-

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incl

44"“

began to decline, elites turned their attention to the region. The Garifuna became a
threat to elites because they owned prime resources, and because they shared
phenotypic similarities with the black West Indians, they suffered discrimination
from Hispanic Central Americans who were competing with them for high paying
jobs in the banana industry. The denial of blackness in the Honduran national
identity gave reason to deprive the Garifuna of land and commercial opportunities
in coastal towns like Tela and La Ceiba. As blacks, they were not considered to be
true members of the Honduran state. They did not ‘belong,’ and therefore did not
have rights to the land.

The way in which the fruit companies classiﬁed the Garifuna further
supported the notion that they were not true Hondurans. Employee statistics
included ﬁve categories of workers: Hondureﬁos, Morenos, Italianos,
Americanos, Negros Americanos y de Jamaica, and Diferentes Naciones; the
Garifuna were included as Morenos. This categorization meant that they were
identiﬁed as a group separate from the Honduran nation, not as a sub-category
(such as Moreno Hondureiio) or as having a nation of their own (Anderson
2000:139). Hence, they were positioned in an ambiguous state, neither ﬁrlly
Honduran nor fully foreign (because their natal country was unclear to Mestizo
Hondurans).

With the denial of a national identity and given the typical conﬂation of
Gariﬁina with other blacks and the association of blackness as a signal of
backwardness and a threat to the Honduran nation, the Garifuna occupied a

precarious position of racial-cultural ‘other’ within the Honduran nation. They

-60-

remained at the bottom of both the racial and class hierarchies on the coast, below
the racial-cultural class of the Mestizos and foreign immigrants who ran commerce
and industry, and in a lower labor class than the West Indians within the fruit

companies (Anderson 2000:140).12

3.2 Shifts in the Coastal Economy and Population: 19505-1990

Although the banana companies, local elites and military did dominate
signiﬁcant tracks of coastal lands, the Garifuna were still able to continue
cultivating their individual plots for the better part of the 20‘h century because the
area’s population density remained relatively low. During the 19505, changes to
the Honduran economy and corresponding population movements altered Garifuna
territorial control. The banana companies began returning some of their lands to
the government, while continuing to market the bananas grown by small farmers
and peasant cooperatives on the returned lands. This arrangement both avoided
the politics associated with direct ownership and placed all the risk of crop failure
on the small growers, enabling the companies to simply make proﬁts (Burns
2005). By the early 19505, Honduras’ economy began to diversify and for the ﬁrst

time in over half a century, bananas accounted for less than ﬁfty percent of export

 

’2 There has not been sufﬁcient research on how the Garifuna viewed their position in this time
period. In his unpublished dissertation, Anderson (2000:142-144) cites a letter written by a
Garifrma man named Sixto A. Cacho in which he identiﬁes commonalities between the Garifuna
and the Mestizo population. Cacho writes that the Garifuna share a history of racial interrnixture
that dates back to the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas. His letter emphasizes the shared
oppression of Garifuna and Mestizos (“Iatinos”) under the fruit companies, and advocates
solidarity of Hondurans against foreign domination (Anderson 2000:143). He points out that
despite phenotypic similarities, the Garifuna share more in common with the Mestizo worker than
with the West Indians, who were the “preferred workers” by the foreign companies and received
the better jobs. Like Mestizo Hondurans, Cacho asserts the Garifuna as authentic Hondurans, and
argues that they are entitled to the same rights and privileges.

-61-

 

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becan

reach
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land ;
mare

comt

1984
land]

naﬁo

 

 

earrrings (Menill 1993). Other agricultural products, such as coffee and cotton
became signiﬁcant export crops.

Between 1930 and 1961, the Honduran population more than doubled,
reaching 1,875,000. Between 1945 and 1969, 300,000 more Salvadoran peasants
(about 7 percent of the Salvadoran population) migrated to Honduras in search of
land and labor. By the late 19605, these Salvadorans constituted twelve percent or
more of the Honduran population. The mountainous nature of the country
combined with the fact that a signiﬁcant number of Hondurans relied on
agriculture because there were very limited labor options, meant that Honduras
began facing a land shortage by the 19605. Families were forced to subdivide their
plots for their children, and farmers with smaller plots were then unable to leave
their ﬁelds fallow, which reduced the soil fertility and lessoned productivity (Ruhl
1984: 39). By 1965, 63,120 rural families (26% of the total rural population) were
landless. Land conﬂicts with the Salvadoran immigrants grew in the west of the
nation, resulting in a brief war in July 1969 (Norsworthy and Barry 1994).13

In addition to the population growth, commercial agriculture began to
expand in the 19605 and 19705. Beef and sugar became major exports, causing
land pressures to intensify (Ruhl 1984: 40). Cattle production more than tripled in
the country between 1950 and 1980, and elite landowners expanded their coastal

landholdings, exacerbating land inequities.

 

'3 The war became known as the "soccer war" because it was triggered by abusive treatment of the
Honduran team during a World Cup qualifying game in San Salvador. Although the war only lasted
ﬁve days, it had serious effects, including Honduras’ withdrawal from and the subsequent collapse
of the Central American Common Market, as well as continued border incidents.

-62-

Without any govemment-directed land reforms in place in the early 19705,
poor Hondurans turned to illegal squatting as a means to gain land. There was
growing unrest in the highlands as thousands of landless peasants engaged in
illegal occupations on unused lands, attempting to push the govemment into
resurrecting its agrarian reform laws that were passed in the early 19605 to
redistribute land. In 1974, Hurricane Fiﬁ destroyed 60% of Honduras’ agricultural
production and the banana companies abandoned many more of their plantations.
The north coast became a resettlement area for landless and jobless Mestizo
peasants, and the region experienced a major population increase.

Thousands of peasants were brought to the coast via the INA’s Bajo Aguan
colonization project. The banana companies abandoned the Aguan River Valley in
the 19305, and the INA brought 45,000 families to the region to work in
cooperatives dedicated to bananas, pineapple, grapefruit, and coconut (Jones
1990). By 1978, nearly 30 percent of the 45,000 families had abandoned the area
(U SAID 1978), and many of them settled on land in the Cordillera Nombre de
Dias region (Jones 1990). This mountain range is located in the department of
Atlantida, bordering the coastal Garifuna communities. Sambo Creek’s Garifuna

residents, for instance, cultivated mountain land as recently as 1980.

3.2.1 Black Autochthony

Beginning in the 19505, the north coast became a center for newly created

labor unions and political parties that centered on protecting the proletariat class

-63-

(Anderson 2000:164).14 The newly deﬁned labor movement championed
workers’ rights against foreign capitalist domination It was at this point that the
negro (Garifuna and English-speaking blacks) gained a voice in the labor
movement (Centeno Garcia 1997; Anderson 2000).

In 1958, Honduras’ ﬁrst black organization, La Sociedad Cultural
Abraham Lincoln, was formed. This organization closely identiﬁed with the civil
rights movement in the United States and focused on combating racism in schools,
public places, and in the workplace (Centeno Garcia 1997:84). The organization’s
identiﬁcation with the United States political climate demonstrates the close ties
Honduran blacks had with the United States. Garifuna migration to the United
States grew immensely after the decline of the banana production, and returning
migrants brought ideas back with them to the Honduran coast.

Unfortunately, the achievements of La Sociedad Cultural Abraham Lincoln
were short-lived, as a military coup in the early 19605 forced “leftist”
organizations to disband. However, its leaders continued to remain politically
active on an international basis, forming transnational alliances on the basis of an
African diasporic identity. Civil rights and black identity had become powerful
political tools, and it was around this time when Honduran Garifuna began to
identify and represent themselves as “AfroHonduran.”

In 1977, former key leaders of the Sociedad Cultural Abraham Lincoln

formed OFRANEH, one of the two Garifuna organizations discussed in this

 

” The 1954 Great Banana Strike is often cited as igniting popular organizing in Honduras. The
strike began when Honduran banana workers for United Fruit were refused overtime wages for
loading a boat on a Sunday. Nearly 30,000 workers at other American-owned enterprises later
joined them The strike lasted for three months and eventually shut down 60 percent of the national
economy (Norsworthy and Barry 1994).

-64-

 

dissertation. Garifuna activists began to call attention to the discriminatory
practices of the Honduran political and economic elite, noting how the national
elite had positioned the Garifuna as ‘other’ or non-Honduran, thus limiting their
access to resources and opportunities. These activists began to recast the Garifuna
subject in a way that made explicit their unique identity category (as ‘black’ and
‘native’) and their historical presence in Honduran territory.

In the 19805, Garifuna identity took on a new form, and Garifuna activists
began to cast the Garifuna as both ‘black’ and ‘autochthonous.’ Most dictionaries
deﬁne autochthonous as either “native” or “indigenous,” thus complicating
analysis of the differences between the two. However, the Oxford English
Dictionary gives a more elaborate deﬁnition of the word, explaining that
autochthonous beings are “any of the earliest known dwellers in a region” or
“human beings living in his or her place of origin.” In Spanish, the word has the
same connotations of deep rooted-mess to a particular place. An autochthonous
identity signiﬁes a “native” identity, but does not have the same racial
connotations as indigenous, in that “indigenous” is typically used to describe the
descendants of the original inhabitants of the Americas (i.e., those encountered by
Columbus) (see also Anderson 2002:201). By the late 19805, Honduran Garifuna
realized that by asserting an autochthonous identity, they could make primordial
claims similar to those of indigenous groups, while still maintaining their racial
identiﬁcation as black.

From this time period on, autochthony served as an umbrella identity under

which all native peoples, regardless of phenotype, origin, and identity, can (and

-65-

 

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do) unite to make demands upon the government. The proposed Law for the
Protection of Autochthonous Ethnic Groups provides an example. In July 1987,
Garifuna, Miskito, Xicaques, Pech and English-speaking blacks proposed this law.
Within it were a series of demands, including the reclamation and titling of lands,
the right to control resources located within their territories, the right to bilingual
and bicultural education, recognition of traditional forms of organization, and the
guarantee of political participation in the National Congress (Anderson 2002: 199).
Although the Law for the Protection of Autochthonous Ethnic Groups did not
pass, it outlined the key struggles of Honduras’ autochthonous groups. The
Garifuna experience as marginalized “other” is similar to that of indigenous
groups, and therefore all groups share common goals and positions vis-a-vis
national and international powers. The successful recasting of the Garifuna as
black autochthonous peoples was solidiﬁed through the creation of institutionally-
recognized government committees, including the Comité ASesor para el
Desarollo de las Etnias Autdctonos de Honduras or CADEAH (i.e., the Council
for the Support of the Development of Indigenous Groups in Honduras) and the
Confederacién de Pueblos Autdctonos de Honduras or CONPAH (i.e., the
Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Honduras), which was formed in 1992.
A5 I demonstrate in the coming pages, the Garifuna subject is being recast
again. Today, some Honduran Garifuna are asserting that they are indigenous, as
opposed to merely autochthonous. The production of this new subject identity is

in response to both the effective production of an international indigenous rights

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discourse and shifts in the Honduran economy that led the nation~state to adopt

development policies that encourage the privatization of land.

3.3 Tourism Development in Garifuna Territory: 19905 and Beyond

It sounds like a strong statement, but Honduras is a country that does not
have its own economic policy. The real policy comes from the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the Inter-American
Development Bank (IDB) and the three main bilateral aid agencies, among
them the U.S. Agency for International Development (U SAID). Economic
debate. . .is not part of Honduran democracy... (Cadleron, et. al. 2002:10).
Throughout the 19805, Honduras was largely a puppet of Washington and

US-directed policies. The state was Surrounded by turmoil in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and

Guatemala, and it was selected to serve as a stable platform for U.S. interventionism in the
region (Norsworthy and Barry 1994). Huge sums of US aid and military troops flooded the country,

serving to maintain economic stability in Honduras, while enabling the US to conduct

counterinsurgency operations to destabilize Nicaragua. When the United States withdrew
their aid in 1989, Honduras’ economy plummeted.

The economic mess that President Rafael Leonardo Callejas (1990-1994)
inherited forced his administration to turn to multilateral lending institutions to ﬁll
the gap left by the withdrawal of US aid. The acceptance of these loans required
that the Callejas administration cut the size of the public sector work force, lower
the deﬁcit, and enhance revenues from taxes. Despite his economic reforms,
Callejas’ administration grossly overspent in their ﬁnal months of ofﬁce, and the
nation's ﬁscal deﬁcit ballooned. The subsequent administrations of Carlos
Roberto Reina (1993-1997) and Carlos Roberto Flores Facusse (1998-2002)

continued efforts to meet the demands of multilateral lending agencies, and during

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their terms, inﬂation and government spending reduced and economic growth was
restored (Merrill 1993).

Although the country had made some gains in economic recovery in the
late 19905, Hurricane Mitch reversed these strides, crippling the national economy
at the close of 1998. 7,079 people died in the hurricane, 10,072 disappeared, and
1,960,000 were displaced. 800 kilometers of road were destroyed, as were 169
bridges and 171,378 homes. 147,912 homes and 71 bridges were damaged.
Ninety percent of the banana crops were lost. Poor rural households lost 30-40%
of their crop income and poverty levels immediately increased from 69.2% of
households to 74.6% (Morris, et. a1. 2001). Garifuna communities were severely
impacted by Hurricane Mitch. Six hundred homes were completely destroyed and
1000 were partially destroyed, affecting more than 15,000 families. Ninety-ﬁve
percent of Garifuna crops were destroyed, and the majority of coconut trees died
ﬁ'om the Lethal Yellowing disease that arrived in the wake of the hurricane
(ODECO 2002). The economic cost to the country was $3,308,000 or 59.8% of
the country’s current gross domestic product (Gass 2002). Thus, as Honduras’
entered the 21St century, its economy remained weak, and the country still suffered
from huge external debt.

Honduras turned to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
for help. In 1999, Honduras was declared eligible to receive bilateral debt relief
under the IMF’s Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative. In order to
achieve this relief, Honduras signed the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility

(ESAF) (which is now known as the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility

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(PRGF) Agreement) with the IMF. These programs focus on reducing state
spending and encouraging foreign revenue through new development initiatives,
including tourism.

Tourism has become Honduras’ second largest source of foreign exchange.
President Maduro’s administration has made tourism development one of its
priorities. 2001 was named the “Year of the Tourist,” and since then the budget
for the Honduran Institute of Tourism has been increased threefold. The
government projected a more than 5% annual increase in tourism, and believed it
would attract one million foreign tourists and generate 30,000 direct and 40,000
indirect jobs between 2002 and 2006 (Thorne 2004). The country began
advertising tourism as the key to the advancement of the nation’s economy, and
the government established a joint police-military force to patrol the streets in
major tourist destination cities. This special police force, known as “Balam” (or
Jaguar),15 is one of President Maduro’s “Zero Tolerance” initiatives aimed at
reducing the massive crime problem that has resulted from the growing destitution
of most of the population, and serves as a serious deterrent to attracting potential
tourists. On the Ministry of Tourism’s web page, President Maduro is quoted as
saying:

Tourism has become one of the world’s largest industries, and the revenues

it generates have grown increasingly important for the global economy.

That is why my administration has made tourism a priority, believing that

the industry will not only beneﬁt the country by creating new jobs and

bringing in foreign currency, but also by strengthening our national

identity, increasing development and competition, and giving Hondurans a
higher standard of living. Our country is privileged to have an

 

'5 The jaguar symbolized the guardians of ancient Maya temples.

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extraordinary natural and cultural heritage. . .there are beaches of singular

beauty, exuberant scenery, colonial towns and living cultures throughout

the country...

Until tourism development became a priority, the north coast did not really
factor into the State’s consideration as an area capable of generating substantial
revenue beyond that brought in through bananas. Honduras’ tourism opportunities
are commonly advertised under three broad categories: 1) the nation’s “living
cultures,” which includes the archeological Maya ruins and Honduras’ seven
indigenous and ethnic groups, 2) coo-adventure opportunities, and 3) beachﬁ'ont
“fun and sun.” The north coast is a region in which tourists can experience a
variety of Honduras’ best attractions: Caribbean beaches, eco-tourism in the area’s
mountain ranges, and Garifuna “living culture.”

One of the initiatives funded under the World Bank’s Honduran Poverty
Reduction Strategy is the Sustainable Coastal Tourism Project, a four-year
program approved in July 2001 aimed at “strengthening local and municipal
capacity to manage and beneﬁt from coastal tourism” (World Bank 2001). The
project promotes a “participatory process” and local capacity building “through
skills training in environmental management, tourism management, and
entrepreneurship” (World Bank 2004). The objectives for local participation
include the restoration of a “cultural tourism site” and the creation of “business
opportunities, i.e. handicrafts, tour operations, and adventures travel” (World Bank
2004). As the principal ethnic group living in the coastal territories slated for this

tourism development project, the Garifuna should theoretically have participated

heavily in the development project, both in its planning and management, as their

-70-

territories (land and sea) and their “culture” are what are being appropriated for the
economic betterment of the Honduran nation. Yet this has been a classic case of
“participatory development” where the individuals most affected by the proposed
development are invited to participate but the parameters of participation have
already been established ﬁ'om above (see also Woost 1997 and Cooke and Kothari
2001)

I question the extent of Garifuna participation in light of the fact that
World Bank funds are provided to municipality governments, n_ot local governing
structures (i.e., Patronatos). A municipality is essentially a city government,
having its own democratically elected representative leadership. Several local
communities (Garifuna, Mestizo, and mixed communities) fall under the
jurisdiction of each individual municipality, and the Garifuna have little voice
within this level of governing. The municipality holds the right to make decisions
about Garifuna territories. Therefore, if a municipality wishes to turn Garifuna-
occupied land into a national park, it can do so without consulting the Garifuna
population. This has in fact happened along the coast, with the example of Tela
Bay provided below. Moreover, despite the fact that Garifuna communities wish
to maintain control over development processes within their territories (and
communities now hold titles to some of their land), they are not given the means to
manage local resources. Rather, the coastal municipalities of Tela, Omoa, La
Ceiba, Trujillo, and the island governments of Roatan and Utila are receiving
funds and direction ﬁom the central government and international agencies to

“develop” and “manage” the resources found within Garifuna communities, and

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“sell” those resources and local culture to tourists, while the community Patronatos
and residents receive nothing more than the possibility of low-level income

generation.

3.3.1 Privatizing Coastal Land

Before 1992, none of Honduras’ Garifuna communities held deﬁnitive land
titles. The ﬁrst titles to be granted to Garifuna communities were titles of
occupation, issued by the INA in the 19705. However, titles of occupation are not
secure documents; they merely state that a group of people occupies the land, but
they do not grant ownership of that land to those people. Titles of occupation
include only the areas in which homes and community infrastructure are
constructed. Thus, cultivation lands, harvest lands, and territories of spiritual
signiﬁcance are not included in the titles.

As detailed in this chapter, Garifuna territories have suffered from severe
Mestizo encroachment. Mestizo cattle ranchers, politicians, and landless peasants
have all moved onto lands once utilized by Garifuna communities. Yet although
the Garifuna had been slowly losing control over their traditional land, it was still
somewhat protected under Article 107 of the Honduran Constitution. Article 107
of the (1982) Honduran Constitution states the following:

The land belonging to the State, the municipalities, communities or private

property located in the areas bordering other states, or in the littoral of both

seas, in an extension of 40 kilometers inland and in the islands, keys, reefs,
sand banks, (etc.) may only be owned, possessed, or had under any title, by

Hondurans by birth or by companies formed entirely by Honduran

shareholders and by institutions of the state... (Author’s translation from
Spanish).

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Because the lands occupied by the Garifuna all fall within 40 kilometers of the
coast or keys, the article, by default, protects them from the threat of foreign
ownership over that land. Yet savvy investors still get around this by pursuing
joint ventures with Honduran partners. ’6
In 1990, recognizing that the constitutional prohibition of foreign property
ownership was a barrier to the development of tourism and the economic potential
of Honduras' coastal and island areas, Congress passed Decree Law 90/90 which
enabled foreigners to purchase properties in areas designated by the Ministry of
Tourism to be tourism zones. Under the decree, foreigners were authorized to
purchase up to 3000 square meters for residential use in urban areas and unlimited
amounts in urban or rural areas for tourism or other development proj ects.17 Since
the passing of Decree 90/90, the purchase of land in coastal zones and the Bay
Islands has boomed. People have also found legal means to get around the limit

on 3000 square meters for residential properties, such as forming Honduran stock

corporations in which they name Hondurans as the original shareowners. These

 

'6 While Garifuna organizations and their media supporters often talk about Article 107 as if it was
written to protect Gariﬁrna lands, this constitutional article was not established to protect Garifuna
lands. More likely, it was created to protect the nation’s sovereignty after a century of wars with
neighboring countries. Within the last century, Honduras has been at war with all three of its
neighbors, the most recent of which was the infamous "Soccer War" in 1969. The constitutional
prohibition against foreign ownership is therefore not new, existing in both the 1956 and the 1965
constitutions.

'7 Individuals purchasing land for residential purposes must register their purchase with the
Ministry of Tourism and complete construction of the residence within 36 months from the date of
purchase or pay an annual penalty worth 20 percent of the value of the property until the
construction is complete. Foreign individuals or companies interested in purchasing property for
tourism or other development projects must corrrplete an application with the Honduran Tourism
Institute (IHT) at the Ministry of Tourism. The application procedure includes personal
information, proof that a contract to buy a speciﬁc property exists, proof that said property is
registered with the Honduran Tourism Institute, and a plan on how the proposed development
project will generate economic beneﬁts for Honduras.

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Honduran owners then later endorse their shares over to the foreign owner and
simultaneously appoint them as the sole administrator or president of the board of

directors of the company.

3.3.1.1 The LMA

The passage of Decree 31-92, the Law for the Modernization and
Development of the Agricultural Sector (Ley Para La Modernizacion y Desarrollo
del Sector Agricula or LMA) in 1992 further facilitated the privatization of coastal
lands. The LMA promoted foreign and domestic investment in agriculture by
accelerating land titling and enabling land cooperative members to break up their
holdings into small plots to be sold as private lands. The LMA was originally
drafted by USAID, and had three principal objectives: 1) to eliminate state
intervention in the agrarian sector; 2) to limit expropriations and promote private
ownership; and, 3) to promote new foreign and domestic investment in agriculture
(because the law was intended to increase the amount of secure (legally-titled)
land available on the market). As a result, many small landowners suffering from
economic hardship chose to sell their land to wealthier landowners and to the giant
banana producers, who desperately wanted to expand their landholdings
(Norsworthy and Barry 1994). The companies needed additional land to increase
production and meet an anticipated new demand from the European Union (Merrill
1993)

The LMA clearly sums up Honduras’ economic goals in this era, and

deﬁnes the government’s outlook on small farmers and access to resources. The

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passage of this law effectively ended agrarian-reform legislation of the 19605 and
early 19705 that regarded agricultural resources as fulﬁlling a social function,
privileging instead the law of supply and demand. Juan Ramon Martinez, the
former president of the INA who resigned from his post in opposition to this law,
argued that it is:

. . .fundamentally a counter agrarian reform designed to halt land access by

campesinos, derailing the capacity to develop their organizations either as

unions or economically, and passes the management of the agrarian
conﬂict from the government to private individuals (quoted in Norsworthy

and Barry 1994278).

The LMA legalized the process of land privatization in favor of
investment, providing an impetus for increased privatization of Garifuna lands by
foreigners interested in tourism and housing development. According to Gariﬁma
activists, the lack of deﬁnitive property titles led national and international
businessmen, military, and politicians to harass Garifuna into abandoning their
lands as well as strategically declare ancestral harvest and cultivation lands for
tourism develOpment (ODECO 2002). (Titles to Garifuna lands only began to be
issued in 1993.)

The landholdings of Miguel F acusse, a Honduran businessman and the
uncle of former President Carlos Facusse Flores, provide an example of the
struggles and violence surrounding coastal lands. Facusse has taken control over a
signiﬁcant portion of ancestral Garifuna territory. During President Reina’s term,
Garifuna organizations got the INA to sign an agreement for agricultural

cooperatives in Limon. Despite this legal agreement, when the Garifuna of Limon

attempted to use their land (about 80 acres), a man stopped them saying he “was

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taking care of the land for Miguel F acusse,” who had African palms planted in the
area. When the Garifuna went to court to remove Facusse’s watchman from the
land, Facusse submitted a request for injunction in the courts to stop the Garifuna
from removing him. The Garifuna retaliated by reporting the case to the Attorney
General for Ethnic Affairs (F iscalia de las Etnias), only to be met by four death

threats and one murder attempt on the mayor of Limon (Grifﬁn 1999).

3.3.1.2 Communal titling initiatives

Also in the 19905, the Honduran government began to support the issuance
of communal titles to Gari funa communities (discussed in more detail in chapter
four). These land titles were n_ot a goodwill effort of the State. Land titles are seen
as leading to enhanced security of land tenure, thus promoting investment and
rejuvenating the land market. Formal land titles are crucial because without
security of land rights, it is difﬁcult to attract foreign investors to enter new
markets. Economists studying Honduran agricultural development (e.g., Lopez
and Sanders 1992) have argued that the disincentive to invest in land that is not
securely held translates into production inefﬁciency, meaning that the land is not
meeting its potential in terms of market output. For Honduras to increase foreign
capital investment in their coastal areas, they needed to rectify the coast’s insecure
land tenure. As part of the Sustainable Coastal Tourism Project, the World Bank
offered technical and legal support to address the problem of titling communal

lands. In 2004, the World Bank increased their support, funding a $25 million

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Land Administration Prograrn, which focused on massive regularization and

registration of Honduran land.

3.3.1.3 Repealing Article 107

On June 8, 1998, in an effort to spur more foreign investment in coastal
lands, the Honduran government announced its plans to amend Article 107 yet
again. Garifuna organizations, fearing that they would lose both their occupied
and unoccupied land, were outraged. On October 12, 1998 (Columbus Day),
approximately 5,000 indigenous and Garifuna people protested outside of the
presidential palace to block the potential amendment. They further demanded the
release of imprisoned peasant activists, resolutions to a dozen murders of
indigenous people reputedly killed by landowners, and their right to receive titles
for their land (Grifﬁn 1999). Police broke up the demonstration with tear gas,
batons, and rubber bullets, injuring at least six. Two weeks later, Hurricane Mitch
hit Honduras, wiping out entire communities, and further devastating the country’s
already weak economy.

Government ofﬁcials used the economic impact of Hurricane Mitch as the
ﬁnal push to lead Congress to meet in a special night session on November 30,
1998. In this night session, while the country was still in turmoil from the
hurricane and living under curfew, Congress voted to repeal Article 107. As
would be expected, this repeal was met with severe protest from the Garifuna
community. On January 25, 1999, several hundred indigenous and Garifuna

people traveled yet again to the capital and protested outside of Congress against

-77-

the amendment. This protest received signiﬁcant media attention, reaching beyond
national viewers to international audiences. Garifuna organizations and supporters
were able to capitalize on the international spotlight, highlighting the impact of the
hurricane and linking the land struggle to global discourses on human rights and
racial discrimination. Both print and web media featured stories of the reform of
Article 107 and the counter-mobilization.18
While the Garifuna were receiving signiﬁcant support for their
mobilization efforts, Honduran government ofﬁcials were dumbfounded. Ofﬁcials
from the Honduran Institute of Tourism told me that they could not understand
why the Garifuna felt threatened by the reform in the ﬁrst place. In an interview,
one ofﬁcial said to me:
The reform of 107 was just to make ﬁrings easier, so that if you wanted to
sell, you could sell immediately, with no approval process [from the
Ministry of Tourism]. It [the reform] didn't obligate the Garifuna to sell.
No one said they had to. Because they already have their lands and the
lands are communal, not individual. So if someone wanted their lands,
they would need to get everyone to agree.
The ofﬁcials I spoke with at the IHT thought the mobilization was unnecessary.
They believed that the communal titles possessed by Garifuna communities were
sufﬁcient protection against the privatization of land. Although it is true that the
majority of communities held communal titles, they represented signiﬁcantly less

land than the communities traditionally used; ancestral harvest and cultivation

lands were therefore “unprotected” or “open” to foreign purchase.

 

'8 In fact, this was how I ﬁrst heard of the Garifuna land struggle — reading an Internet posting
about the impacts the repeal of Article 107 could have on Garifuna territorial control. I later saw an
article about it in Chicago Streetwise, a paper that I was handed on the street during the 1999
American Anthropological Association’s annual meetings.

-73-

Gariﬁina organizations continued to mobilize through media and letter-
writing campaigns. They used their position against both presidential candidates
for the 2001 elections, ﬁrst arguing that if Congress did not un-reform the
constitution, they would inﬂuence their constituency to vote for the opposite
party’s candidate. Thus, on October 12, 1999, Rafael Pineda Ponce, who at the
time was the Liberal party’s presidential candidate and President of Congress, and
fearing he would lose the 2001 election, succumbed to pressure from the Gariﬁrna
organizations and authorized Rodrigo Castillo Aguilar of the National Congress to
sign an Act of Compromise with the Garifuna. This compromise declared that the
proposed reforms for Article 107 would not be incorporated into the Legislative
Agenda, and thus Article 107 would not be ratiﬁed. However, once the
compromise was signed, Garifuna organizations did not switch their support to
Ponce, arguing that there would be nothing to keep him from reforming Article
107 post-election. Throughout the presidential campaign, Ricardo Maduro, the
National Party’s candidate never wavered from this stance that he would not
reform Article 107 during his presidency, which signaled to the Garifuna that his
administration was not backing privatization and investment in coastal lands to the
extent that Ponce’s administration was. Maduro was elected President on
November 25, 2001, and he has not gone back on this promise. Since becoming
President, Maduro furthered his commitment to the Garifuna by signing an
agreement with ODECO declaring his promise to make the Garifuna land problem

a major priority. Yet despite the President’s official commitment to not reform

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Article 107, his administration has encouraged development initiatives that are

further accelerating Garifuna land loss, such as the Tela Bay project.

3.3.2 The case of Tela Bay

Tela is the on again, off again, proposed location for the famous “Tela
Bay” project. The Tela Bay saga provides a clear example of the direct negative
impact the changes to agrarian legislation in the 19905 have had on Garifuna
territorial control, while ironically promoting Garifuna culture as essential to the
project’s success.

Since the early 19705, the Honduran government has championed a
proposal for a large-scale luxury hotel project modeled after Cancun. The
objective of this $450 million project is to construct 8 hotels with the capacity for
1600 guests, 124 residences, and 100 condos to rent, through investment by
Canadian, Mexican, and Honduran businesses (TN 2000). According to the
Honduran Institute of Tourism (Instituto Honduren'o de T urismo or IHT)
brochures, the high point of this development scheme will be the nearby Garifuna
villages, especially Miami, which is currently a quiet Garifuna ﬁshing village
without electricity, roads, or latrines, and where the children still speak mostly
Garifuna (in contrast to most other communities where the youth prefer to speak
Spanish).

The Tela Bay project has been surrounded by controversy and conﬂict
because the government secured the land slated for development through a series

of abuses of power. One measure the government has taken was to re-classify the

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land as national park land such that the government can now enforce regulations
on land use; this has already occurred in Miami. Another way in which the
government has secured land was through Decree 90/90. This amendment to
Article 107 made it possible for the municipality of Tela to annex parts of
Tomabe, Triunfo de la Cruz and San Juan as part of their urban area (despite
strong protests of the Garifuna living there). Tela has since sold 220 hectares
(about 543.64 acres) of what was once land held by these three Garifuna
communities.

The Committee for the Defense of Triunfo's land (CODETT) ﬁled a
complaint with the Attorney General for Ethnic Groups against Tela for abuse of
authority and for selling forty-eight acres of their land to Inversio'n y Desarrollo El
T riunfo, a Honduran company interested in investing in the Tela Bay project. The
land reportedly sold for sixty centavos (i.e., less than .02 cents) a square yard for
beachfront property, which is clearly less than real value (Allison 2004). After
ﬁling the lawsuit against the City of Tela, three Garifuna leaders were killed, the
houses of local activists involved in the land struggle were burned down, and
Alfredo Lopez Alvarez, a Garifuna activist outspoken on this issue, was arrested
on charges of narcotic possession and trafﬁcking. On December 13, 2000,
OFRANEH ﬁled a petition on behalf of Mr. Alfredo Lopez Alvarez with the Inter-
American Court Commission on Human Rights, accusing the State of false arrest
for a crime he did not commit. The court admitted the case but has yet to reach a

conclusion.

.3].

In 2002, ofﬁcials from IHT reported to me that the Maltwood Cooperation,
a Canadian company and the project’s main investor, had pulled out of the project.
I speculate that this may have something to do with the area’s continuing turmoil
over land, although I have no evidence to conﬁrm this opinion. Despite the 2002
withdrawal, according to recent newspaper publications, the project is once again
back on:
The on again off again Tela Bay Project now seems to be back on track
after years of false starts and dashed hopes. The mega sustainable tourism
project seeks to build a comprehensive, low impact, high end tourism
development on state lands between the town of Tomabe and the village of
Miami which borders the Punta Sal National Park. The mixed use
development is seeking to attract major international resort players like
Barcelo, Melia and Hilton. Time will tell whether the project actually sees
the light of day. But one thing is certain...for the ﬁrst time the project
seems to have the full support of the executive branch of government
which has made a decision to push along and support the project as part of
its strategy to convert tourism into a major generator of jobs and hard
currency for the nation (Allison 2004).
The Tela Bay project found new investment to move forward under the
Plan Pueblo Panama (PPP). The PPP consists of massive infrastructure projects
that are intended to serve as the foundation upon which free trade can be built and
expanded to encompass the geographical area of the Free Trade Area of the
Americas (FTAA), including the expansion of highway systems, hydroelectric
dams, maquiladoras, and tourism. The rezoning of the area under Decree 90/90
provided a legal loophole through which foreign companies could invest in this
project.
In February of 2004, Roy Medina, the General District Attorney for the
Public Ministry, contested Decree 90/90 in the Supreme Court, arguing that it

violated Article 107 by creating a loophole through which Garifuna tenitory could

-32-

be purchased. This legal struggle had stalled the advancement of the Tela Bay
project, which is proposed for untitled ancestral Garifuna territories. In January
2005, the Supreme Court declared it was not in violation of the constitution, thus
sending a signal to the Garifuna that despite their visible resistance, the State was
pushing forward with its development initiatives — initiatives that rely on the
appropriation and exploitation of Garifuna land, sea, and ecological knowledge.
Moreover, the decision reafﬁrmed the government’s push for land privatization as
a means to spur economic development. Garifuna leaders were outraged, and in
their written responses they equated the impact this decision will have on Garifuna
communities and culture with the 2005 Asian Tsunami. The following excerpts
are from a statement by Miriam Miranda, OFRANEH’s Vice President, which was
published in Honduras This Week, a Honduran English newspaper. ’9
the Supreme Court ruling concurs with the corrupt political party - the
same party that 14 years ago harmed Article 107 of the National
Constitution, by introducing the Decree 90-90. . .The re-initiation of the
sacking of Tela by businessmen and politicians on lands expropriated from
the Garifuna community once again demonstrates the corruption that
prevails in the present administration.
The declarations of. . .the current Minister of Tourism. . .that “without the
approval of Decree 90-90, there wouldn’t be foreign investments,” are
totally false. Examples include Cuba and Mexico, where, without selling

their national territory, strong investments in tourism have been achieved.

The abundance of irony is revealed in the Minister’s statement that, “this
decision shows that in Honduras, laws are respected because it is a country

 

'9 The original statement reads as if it was translated from Spanish, but the English translation is of
poor quality and the original Spanish version is not available. I therefore re-edited the English
excerpts. The original English translation of this editorial appeared in Honduras This Week '5
January 17, 2005 Online Edition 3, by Miriam Mirandez. It can be located at:
http://www.m§rrder.com/htw/editorial.htm

-33-

of rights.” It seems that he lives in a fantasy country, where foreign
investments will be respected, while the nationals hope that the law will not
only be applied to common citizens, but also to those who have stolen from
the national State Treasury, but yet remain protected by the justice system.

.. .The aberration committed by the Supreme Court is part of the prelude of
an economic tsunami that approaches Honduras, guaranteed by the Free
Trade Agreement with the United States, where, in order to encourage the
grth of maquiladoras, they give away the nation’s land to the north...

the Garifuna community prepares itself to undergo the attack of
politicians and businessmen, who urge the auction of Honduras’ beaches.
With the unavoidable arrival of the Free Trade Agreement with the United
States, we can see how the national territory has become part of the real
estate market for foreign investors who are eager to acquire coastal land at
low prices and in protected areas and biological corridors. . .

The ﬁctitious concept of development, which they deﬁne in terms of
mega projects and the Free Trade Agreement, is not based upon the
equitable distribution of the wealth. On the contrary, in spite of the
economic growth obtained the previous year, there are signs that poverty is
increasing every day, especially among the rural population.

Despoliation such as that in the Bay of Tela will be replicated throughout
the North coast of Honduras, a country rich in biological and cultural
diversity, and a country that has undergone an ill-fated destiny at the hands
of a handful of foreign and unimaginative elite who are dedicated to proﬁt
and the systematic destruction of the natural resources.

Although the National Agrarian Institute has issued a series of titles to
Garifuna communities, they are not a true guarantee of our territories since
they do not include our functional habitat on which our subsistence
depends. The farce perpetrated by the State in company of some supposed
Garifuna leaders, has created a distorted reality of the legal situation of the
communities. Despite the fact that the amount of Garifuna territory is so
meager, Garifuna communities still suffer from multiple invasions by
individuals who want to exploit the beaches for market income and the
authorities do not prohibit these invasions or enforce respect for
community titles.

OFRANEH has maintained a clear policy regarding our territories, which
we consider to be something more than merchandise. In our Cosmo vision,
the mother earth is something not negotiable and belongs intrinsically to
the Garifuna community... We fear that the philosophy of individualism,
which is expounded through Neo-liberalism, calls for the dissolution of our
collective titles and the imposition of the concept of individual property,

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and that this will intensify the pressures oriented towards the sale of the
coastal strip.

OFRANEH’s stance against neoliberalism, privatization, and market-oriented
development initiatives based on concepts of free trade could not be more explicit
than that expressed in the above statement. Two weeks later (on February 10,
2005) a second statement, this one authored by Wendy Gissela Velasquez,
appeared in Honduras New York, a Spanish online newspaper.

In case you did not know it, it is true, a Tsunami or tidal wave in Japanese
language, has occurred in the Afro descendant communities of Honduras.
Luckily, this tidal wave has not cost the hundreds of thousands of lives as it
did in Asia, but it could in the future. This tidal wave comes ﬁ'om the
Honduran government.

As if it had not been enough to remove all blacks from government ofﬁce,
or to remain indifferent to what is happening in our communities, but now
the harm to black communicates has been conﬁrmed with the ratiﬁcation of
decree 90/90. .. Article 107 already establishes that it is not possible sell
lands within 40 kilometers of the borders to foreigners. Now with the
ratiﬁcation of 90/90 anyone can buy those lands, which puts us in a ﬂank
disadvantage against the rich and powerful.

Being that our authentic beaches are pearls of nature, it won't take long for
the buyers to impose their reign with their dollars out in front.

Our Aﬁo descendant communities do not have the capabilities to defend
themselves against these millionaires. That means the coasts of Honduras
will be wiped out, just as the Tsumarri destroyed Asia’s coastline.

...it is important to remember that Honduras is a signatory of Convention
169 of the International Labor Organization, which declares protection of
all indigenous and Aﬁ'o descendant communities.

Moreover, the government knows well that they have lost control of the
seas and the coasts, which is where the drug trafﬁcking empire prevails.
With 90/90, the government not only remains with their arms crossed,
watching this happen, but also promotes and provokes it. With 90/90, the
government also promotes contraband, because every millionaire will now
have more than just his doors open. It hurts to know this is the type of
government that we have, but thus it is. (Author’s translation).

-35-

What these two statements show is 1) that OFRANEH and their
transnational allies are explicitly against the development directions that are being
pursued by the Honduran nation-state; 2) that they ﬁnd the underlying
philosophies of neoliberalism (i.e., individualism, privatization, and market-
oriented growth) to be in direct conﬂict with Garifuna cultural survival, and 3) that
they are involved in transnational alliances that enable them to share information
and rally support beyond Honduras. In efforts to spread their cause, Honduran
Garifuna are speaking tri-lingually (in Garifuna, Spanish, and English), both
within and outside of the nation. They are calling upon global discourses and legal
conventions with regard to indigenous and Afro descendant rights to make the case
that the Honduran nation’s actions will lead to cultural ethnocide, which according
to UN conventions is the equivalent of genocide. Thus, according to these
Garifuna activists — who notably, are both women - the future for Honduran
Garifuna looks as severe as that which faces Asia’s tsunami victims.

I bring out the fact that these activists are women in light of a statement
Francesa Gargallo (2005) made about gender and Garifuna politics. She writes:

we, as women, feel slightly apprehensive about politics because we

identify it with practices of representative democracy ﬁ'om which we are
left out. In fact, politics for Gariﬁrna women rather than being a “man’s
thing” has a different feeling; it is a way to organize through actions that
belong to a world that is neither feminine nor truly Garifuna. It is
interesting to note that Garifuna women regard “politics” (or the dominant
values that identify with it) only as something useful, such as a possibility
to work or to showcase their artistic activities, and only after they have

ﬁnished their work at home (Gargallo 2005: 154).

Gargallo suggests that Garifuna women avoid “politics” because it is an arena that

they do not identify with, ﬁnding themselves more closely associated with matters

-86-

of the home. If we take this as factual, one could easily extrapolate that since
Garifuna communities are matrifocal, a woman’s responsibility is not just to her
household, but also to her community. Therefore, once community well-being
becomes threatened, Garifuna women are forced into the “political.” And so, in
the case of this study, Honduran Garifuna women have been moved, by
circumstance, into action to defend their land.

Yet while Garifuna women have indeed moved into the political, it serves
to note that their organizing efforts have not engaged with the gendered
dimensions of the land struggle and how shifts in coastal land ownership effect
men and women differently. In chapter ﬁve, where I discuss Garifuna
organizational statements and platforms regarding the land struggle, the reader will
note this blatant omission. This could reﬂect the fact that mobilization is indeed
relatively recent for Garifuna women and they are only just now sorting through
their mobilizing strategies. But I think a more accurate explaination for this
oversight is that it reﬂects a broader reality about the way in which indigenous
rights struggles are framed. Generally speaking, collective action in indigenous
movements is generated by an emphasis on shared ethnic identity, and gender and

class differences are often ignored or overlooked.

3.3.3 Marketing Garifuna Culture
Despite the fact that their revisions of the constitution have resulted in the
loss of signiﬁcant tracts of Garifuna land, the government and IHT have used the

Garifuna’s unique culture to attract tourists and foreign investors. In discussing

-37-

Tela’s potential to serve as a tourist destination the IHT noted, “the presence of the
Garifuna culture, with their interesting culture and traditions, is a point in favor of
tourism potential in the bay area” (author’s translation) (IHT 1993). The
Honduran government began promoting the Garifuna culture to the international
tourism market in the early 19605. In 1962, the national government sponsored the
creation of the Ballet F olklorico Nacional Garifuna, a Garifuna dance troupe,
which has since become nationally and internationally renown. In the 19705, the
city of La Ceiba and the national ofﬁce of tourism sponsored a Festival Caribe de
Danzas Gariﬁmas, which was an effort to breathe new life into their annual feria
(Anderson 2000:191). Since then, the local celebration has been transformed into
an internationally famous Caribbean Carnaval, where the Garifuna performances
are key parts of the celebration, including the coronation of a Garifuna queen.

That just two decades before, the Garifuna were excluded from participation in this
fair, but are now the central ﬁgures is testament to their growing visibility within
the nation-state.

Gariﬁrna culture is represented in national tourism pamphlets as a magical
culture comprised of fun, food, music, and dance. Similar to what Anderson
(2000:195) found in his research during the mid-19905, all of the tourism materials
I reviewed advertised the aspects of Gariﬁrna culture that have become objects of
Mestizo and foreign consumption: religion, music, dance, and food. The following
excerpt titled “the Joy of Garifunas,” which appears in the Honduran Institute of
Tourism’s Destination Honduras 2002 travel guide, is illustrative of the way

Garifuna culture is represented and “sold” to tourists.

-88-

The ordered layout of the banana towns gives way to relaxed, beachside
Garifuna ﬁshing villages strung out along our entire north coast, home to
one of the Caribbean’s most interesting cultures. The Garifuna, whose
fascinating history leads back to the wreck of a slave ship carrying slaves
captured in Africa, conserve a unique language and culture, and maintain
exotic chants, music and dances with the energy and rhythm of that distant
continent. . .The ﬁrst settlement of Garifunas was established here at Punta
Gorda in 1797. These proud descendents of Carib Indians developed the
coastal town and have retained their own language, lifestyle, music, art and
religion. Punta Gorda is a lively mix of music and language, and visitors
will often hear and see a kaleidoscope of festivities. And there doesn’t
have to be a special occasion: drumming and dancing are part of the
celebration of life for Garifunas. Both children and adults can be found
dancing and laughing in the streets, while wizened elders — amongst them
women with heads wrapped in cloth or boasting jaunty hats — observe the
proceedings from their stoops and easy chairs. Travelers needing a love
potion or charm, or an herbal medicinal remedy, will ﬁnd that the Garifuna
are experts in trade and earnestly follow their age-old concoctions... (IHT
2002:7,74)

Tourists are provided with an image of happy, magical Aﬁican-Indians living in a
Caribbean paradise, excitedly awaiting the tourist’s arrival. Interestingly, this
excerpt stresses that the colorful culture performed for tourists today is made
possible because the Garifuna have maintained their Indian and African traditions,
remaining intact and unassimilated to the Mestizo nation — their “exotic chants,
music, and dances” derive straight from the African continent and/or their Carib
ancestors. Honduras can sell either the image of Garifuna as Indians, the Garifuna
as Africans, or the Garifuna as both Africans and Indians: all three representations
support the notion that the Garifuna are one of Honduras’ “living cultures.”
Tourist businesses also proﬁt off the Garifuna culture. The most successful
tourist outﬁt on the north coast is “Garifuna Tours,” an Italian-owned organization

that runs day trips to surrounding national parks. When I asked a staff member

about the role Garifuna play in the organization and how they beneﬁt from it, he

-39-

replied “it’s [the name Garifuna Tours] just a label.” None of their trips focus
speciﬁcally on Gariﬁrna culture or communities. In 2001, only one of their tours
included a stop in a Garifuna community, which perhaps enabled some community

members to beneﬁt through the sale of refreshments or trinkets to tourists.

3.4 The Making and Remaking of the Garifuna subject

Since their arrival in Honduras in 1797, the Garifuna have been positioned
and have positioned themselves within particular subj ect categories. The Garifuna
historically controlled much of the north coast, with little interference from the
political and economic elite. Their presence was inconsequential to the nation-
state until the growth of the banana industry, when they entered into an economic
relationship with the dominant classes of Honduran and foreign society as
employees to them. Euraque (2003) argues that the Garifuna presence in the
region and historical control over local resources as well as employment in the
banana industry was a threat to the Honduran elite. As Hispanic Hondurans
realized the economic value of work or trade in bananas, they began to make
concrete attempts to deport blacks and limit their access to land and employment
in the industry. Blacks were seen as stealing jobs from “the sons of the nation,”
which led the political elite to spearhead a new nationalist identity. This new
identity privileged indigenous and European heritages and not African heritage.
The categories of mulatto and ladino disappeared from the census, both of which
were categories of “mixed-race,” and categories in which the Garifuna had fallen

in the past. The majority of the population came to be classiﬁed as Mestizo.

-90-

While Mestizo also means “mixed race,” this new identity category contributed
Mestizo heritage to a combination of indigenous and European ‘races,’ and denied
and African contributions. Blackness was denied as part of the national identity
because blackness represented the foreign others (British West Indians) who held
coveted positions in the banana industry. Thus, through the creation and
deployment of this type of national identity, those in power attempted to maintain
control over key coastal resources and limit the ability of blacks to access
resources and opportunities. This new form of mestizaje attempted to eliminate
class boundaries between Mestizos, unifying the elite with the poor, and supported
the mobilization of poor jobless Mestizos against coastal blacks.

By the 19505, the organized labor movement changed from an anti-black
movement to one that explicitly addressed racial discrimination against blacks.
This shift in the labor movement combined with the emergence of civil rights
discourse created new articulations of identity and the Garifuna began to assert
themselves as AfroHondurans, and therefore an equal part of the Honduran
citizenry. As the banana companies declined and started returning land to the
government, more and more inland Mestizo peasants were resettled to the coast
through the national agrarian programs or migrated by themselves in search of
land. The Garifuna had gained some voice as an ethnic minority in the nation and
in the 19805, they reached out to the country’s other ethnic groups who had also
been subject to discrimination and exclusion, forming alliances on the basis of
autochthony. Yet, by this time, the coastal population had exploded and Garifuna

territorial control all but disappeared. Because Garifuna communities lacked

-91-

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deﬁnitive titles to their ancestral lands, when the Honduran government adopted
economic development policies that privileged private investment and passed
legislation to encourage privatization, Garifuna communities found themselves in
a precarious position.

Although the movement towards free markets and free trade are nothing
new in development policy, the scope and spread of these development approaches
has increased substantially over the last twenty-ﬁve years, and today neoliberal
development policies seem to be the only development approach for Honduras.
While neoliberalism is a global ideology, there also exist global counter-
ideologies. As Medina (2004) notes, individuals are not just passive recipients of
identities, but are active agents who are engaged in conscious efforts to make
sense of and negotiate the categories made available to them as well as create new
categories for understanding. Some Honduran Garifuna are calling upon global
counter-ideologies to contest the changes occurring on the north coast, and these
counter-ideologies are not available to most others who comprise Honduras’ poor.
The successful production of an international indigenous rights discourse has
enabled the Gariﬁrna to once again recast their identity and attempt to reclaim lost
rights and resources. The next chapter introduces the utility of indigenous rights
as well as the tools I am using to understand the effects positioning of the Garifuna

subject as indigenous has on Garifuna and Mestizos living in coastal communities.

-92-

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CHAPTER FOUR
INDIGENEITY, PLACE-MAKING, AND GARIFUNA LAND RIGHTS
The ideological underpinnings of neoliberalism — individualism,

privatization, and market freedom — co-exist and contend with counter ideologies
such as indigenous rights, human rights, and racial equality. At the same time that
the Honduran state is implementing development strategies that are reliant on the
privatization of resources once held in common by marginalized groups, the
nation-state tells its citizens that they have constitutionally protected rights. These
rights are elaborated upon in multiple international and national conventions and
legal instruments. Indigenous rights has become an important tool in the Garifuna
struggle for territories. I begin this chapter with a review of the rise of
international indigenous rights and the link between indigeneity and territorial
control. I then discuss the achievements and setbacks in the Garifuna land
struggle. Lastly, I introduce the conceptual tools that I have employed to make
sense of how both Gariﬁrna and non-Garifuna are negotiating their rights along the
coast. I explain the notions of “place-making” (Malkki 1997; Medina 1999) and
“history-making” (Brown 2002), which I see as intertwined processes essential to

convincing others of one’s right to land.

4.1 The Rise of Indigenous Rights

In the Gariﬁma struggle for land thus far, indigenous rights have been the

120

most useful discourse and too Indigenous rights are based on concepts of

 

2° Honduran Garifuna organizations also assert Garifuna rights based on their identity as part of the
African Diaspora. Like indigenous rights, there is also an increased international recognition of the

-93-

communalism, communal ownership and environmentally sustainable practices
within the natural environment. The right to self-determination is the leading
demand of the indigenous movement, but one that has been repeatedly denied by
nation-states because of its underlying connotations of separate, independent
sovereign nations. However, the way in which the term is employed by the
international indigenous movement is based on international human rights law and
implies the right to control one’s own destiny. Hence it is a right that “beneﬁts
human beings as human beings and not sovereign entities” (Anaya 1996:75;
emphasis in original).

Indigenous issues moved from conﬁned debates in domestic spheres to
international concerns in the 19705. This shift was the result of pressure from
indigenous peoples themselves. Beginning in the 19605, a new generation of
indigenous men and women who were knowledgeable of the human rights organs
of international institutions began to draw attention to the historical
marginalization and mistreatment of indigenous peoples by the nation-states in
which they lived. From the late-19705 on, representatives ﬁ'om indigenous groups
across the world began to meet regularly and appear before U.N. human rights

bodies to make demands based on the rights protected by the International Bill of

 

racism and discrimination suffered by members of the Afro descendant populations and
communities, as evidenced by the many United Nations resolutions, conventions, declarations and
world conferences focused on combating racial discrimination and ethnic violence. The history of
this form of international mobilization can be traced to the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Since then, other important conventions have followed,
including the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination, the three separate decades declared “for action to combat racism” (1972-1982,
1983-1992, and 1994-2003), and the three World Conferences against Racism, Racial
Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (1978, 1983, and 2001). Honduran Garifuna
organizations actively participate in these global conversations, attending international conferences
as well as national and regional preparatory summits on the topic.

-94-

Human Rights21 and those elaborated on in subsequent instruments adopted by the
UN General Assembly (Anaya 1996: 45-46; Eide 1995:21).

The 1977 International Nongovernmental Organization Conference on
Discrimination against Indigenous Populations in the Americas in Geneva, marked
a historical moment in indigenous organizing, as it contributed to the formation of
a transnational indigenous identity as well as established a pattern for coordinating
indigenous peoples throughout the world to communicate their demands.
Indigenous activists began to engage with the meaning of indigeneity and set the
stage for an indigenous movement. At this time, indigenous activists made the
strategic decision to n_ot ally with other struggles such as class struggles or labor
unions, because they saw indigenous identity as a long-term platform on which to
seek liberation, distinct ﬁ'om class-consciousness (Wright 1988:37 7).

Since this time period, indigenous communities and organizations
throughout Latin America have come together both nationally and regionally, and
now meet regularly to formulate common strategies regarding economic
development, bilingual education, and the environmental impacts of natural
resource extraction and climate change (Scher 2002). The most important
international indigenous network is the UN Working Group on Indigenous
Populations, which was established in 1982 by the United Nations Economic and

Social Council. Despite the fact that this group existed in the 19805, indigenous

 

2' The International Bill of Human Rights includes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(UDHR), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (CCPR), and the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR).

-95-

rel

organizing did not fully take head until 1992, the 500-year anniversary of the
arrival of Christopher Columbus to the Americas.

There were a series of summits in 1992 during which indigenous groups
across the Americas united to protest the government celebrations of Columbus’
arrival. Indigenous participants in these summits represented over 40 million
people, all united by a common experience of ﬁve hundred years of social and
political exclusion. The quincentennary protest of 1992 has become recognized as
the deﬁning moment in indigenous organizing. Since then, indigenous groups
have had a much more signiﬁcant presence in Latin American nations (Scher
2002). Indigenous peoples began to be recognized and honored at national and
international levels. For example, within a year of the protest, Rigoberta Menchu,
a Maya activist from Guatemala, received the Nobel Peace Prize and Victor Hugo
Cardenas became the ﬁrst indigenous Vice President to Bolivia. The presence of
indigenous peoples in positions of leadership and as global activists has widened
international sensitivity to the experiences of indigenous peoples at national and
local levels (see Anaya 1996, Wright 1988, and Niezen 2003 for more information

on the history of the indigenous movement).

4.1.1 Indigenous Identity and Land-rootedness

Indigenous activism is based on the articulation of a speciﬁc meaningful
relationship of indigenous peoples to their territories, behind which lies the
ultimate political goal of the right to self-determination. The struggle for territory

goes beyond land reform to include the right to communal land, environmental

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protection, and control over development. The link between indigenous identity
and control of territory has been credited to the UN-commissioned study on the
“Problem of Discrimination against Indigenous Populations.”22 The result was a
multivolume work that special rapporteur J osé Martiinez Cobo compiled and has
become a standard reference for discussion of indigenous peoples within the
United Nations system (Anaya 1996: 51). This report identiﬁed land-rootedness
as the principal marker of indigenous identity (Lam 2004). Cobo provided a
working deﬁnition of indigenous peoples that linked indigenous peoples and their
identity to territories.
Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a
historical continuity with preinvasion and precolonial societies that
developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other
sections of societies once prevailing in those territories or parts of them.
They form at present nondominant sectors of society and are determined to
preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral
territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence
as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social
institutions and legal systems (Cobo 1986zl quoted in Muehlebach
2001:421).
From that point on, international bodies ofﬁcially recognized that the ability of
indigenous people to survive is inextricably tied to their right to occupy their
traditional territories and control local resources. Additionally, the United Nations
Working Group on Indigenous Populations was convened in 1982 to begin

discussions of what later became the Draft Universal Declaration of the Rights of

Indigenous Peoples. This declaration, which was ﬁrst issued in 1989 and

 

22 This study emerged was recommended by the UN Subcommission on Prevention of
Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.

-97-

exp:

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expanded in 1990, raised international consciousness of the issues indigenous

communities faced, by advocating the right of indigenous groups to:
...develop their own ethnic and cultural characteristics; to protect their
cultural practices and ceremonial, historical, and archaeological sites; to
practice their own spiritual traditions; to promote their own languages; to
name themselves and their communities; to have a voice in legal and
administrative proceedings. . .; to control their own schools; to have access
to the mass media; to gain recognition of their customary laws and land
tenure systems; to receive restitution or compensation for lands that have
been usurped; to enact a wide range of environmental protection; to
actively participate in their own social and economic improvement with
state support; to have autonomy in internal and local affairs. ..; to gain

direct representation in the political affairs of the state; and to exercise
autonomy in international and local affairs (Warren 1998: 7).

The rights outlined in this declaration have been conﬁrmed through
additional international declarations and conventions that have come out in the last
ﬁfteen years These include: the United Nations Educational, Scientiﬁc, and
Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Declaration of San J osé and the International
Labour Organization’s (ILO) Convention Concerning Indigenous and Tribal
. Peoples in Independent Countries. These passages have made the link between
previously ratiﬁed international conventions on genocide and racial discrimination
(e. g., the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide, the 1966 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Racial Discrimination) and the necessity of territorial and resource control,
claiming that the infringement of this right is a violation of human rights and
ethnocide. Moreover, these declarations note that cultural ethnocide is effectively

equivalent to genocide (Lam 2004). Honduras has ratiﬁed all of the conventions

-93-

listed above, providing a legal structure through which indigenous groups can

make their claims.

4.1.2 ILO 169

The 1989 Convention (No. 169) Concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples
in Independent Countries of the International Labor Organization (commonly
referred to as ILO 169) is the most concrete manifestation of increasing
international responsiveness to indigenous demands. ILO 169 was written to
pressure nation-states to enact special legislation for the rights of “indigenous and
tribal peoples” to land, bilingual education, political and economic autonomy, and
fair labor practices. ILO 169 was adopted in 1989 after years of discussions on
revising the ILO’s Indigenous and Tribal Convention 107 from 1959.

ILO 107 was widely condemned as an assimilationist and racist document
by indigenous peoples, human rights advocates and international jurists, and in
serious need of revision (U ldall 2002). The revision of ILO 107 marked a
conceptual transformation on the part of nation-states: moving from a view of
indigenous populations as temporary societies that were doomed to disappear
through acculturation to a recognition that they are permanent societies deserving
of equal status to other nationalities within a country. Hence, ILO 169 is an
instrument of inclusion (or the recognition that people have the right to different
ways of living), as opposed to the integration instrument that was ILO 107 (Deere
and Leon 2001: 59). ILO 169 therefore shifted the focus of Convention 107 from

an integrationist perspective to something more in line with indigenous people’s

-99-

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needs and aspirations, recognizing their rights to self-determination. Cultural
autonomy and difference is protected as a human right.

ILO 169 deﬁnition of the groups protected by the convention is rather
loose, applying to tribal peoples, indigenous peoples, and peoples present prior to
colonization who have continued to retain “traditional” cultural institutions. The
Convention states it applies to:

(a) Tribal peoples in independent countries whose social, cultural and
economic conditions distinguish them from other sections of the national
community, and whose status is regulated wholly or partially by their own
customs or traditions or by special laws or regulations; (b) Peoples in
independent countries who are regarded as indigenous on account of their
descent ﬁom the populations which inhabited the country, or a
geographical region to which the country belongs, at the time of conquest
or colonisation or the establishment of present State boundaries and who,
irrespective of their legal status, retain some or all of their own social,
economic, cultural and political institutions (www.ilo.org).

 

The preamble of ILO 169 recognizes the right of indigenous peoples to
maintain control over their institutions, ways of life, economic development, and
identities, languages and religions within their State’s frameworks (Anaya 1996:
48). Land is central because without control over territory, indigenous peoples
have no control over economic development. Moreover, land is tied to the
maintenance of cultural identity. The second part of the convention (i.e., Articles
13-19) deals explicitly with indigenous land rights (see Appendix C). Article 13
declares that governments’ respect the cultural and spiritual value that indigenous
peoples attach to their lands, territories, or both, and in particular, the collective
nature of that relationship. The remaining articles make clear that indigenous
peoples be afforded their rights not just to land occupied by them, but also to areas

that they had traditionally accessed for subsistence and other activities.

-100-

Governments are tasked with safeguarding and guaranteeing the protection of
indigenous rights to ownership, and are called upon to adopt “adequate
procedures. . .within the national legal system to resolve land claims by the peoples

concerned” (International Labor Organization 2004).

4.2 Garifuna Mobilization for Land Rights

Honduras became a signatory of ILO 169 in 1994, ratifying it into law and
creating a legal mechanism through which the Gariﬁma could make claims to
territory both currently and traditionally occupied, as well as ofﬁcially declared the
state’s role in securing land rights for the Garifuna and ensuring traditional law
and rights be protected.

Honduras’ ratiﬁcation of ILO 169 convention was a direct result of the
successful mobilization of groups who built alliances on the basis of a shared
autochthonous identity. On October 12, 1992 (El Dia de la Raza), indigenous and
Garifuna organizations marched on the capital, making the ﬁrst of many public
calls demanding that the government ratify and implement the ILO Convention.
The Confederation of Autochthonous Peoples of Honduras (CONPAH), ODECO,
and OFRANEH, continued to lobby President Callejas’ administration. Finally, in
1994, under President Reina, ILO 169 was ratiﬁed into law. At this time, an
Attorney-General of the Ethnic Groups (Fiscal de las Etnias) was established to
represent and protect the rights of ethnic groups vis-a-vis the state and powerful
private interests (England 2000). Article 1.2 of the Convention notes that, “. . .s_elf;

identiﬁcation a_s indigenous or tribal shall be regarded as a fundamental criterion

-101-

for determining the groups to which the provisions of this Convention apply.”
Thus, despite the fact that some Hondurans argue that the Garifuna do not ﬁt the
category of “indigenous,” they do ﬁilﬁll characteristics of an autochthonous group
because they were present in Honduras before the Republic was formed, with
particular traditions and customs that they maintain to this day. ILO 169 thus
created a legal mechanism through which the Gariﬁina could contest neoliberal
agrarian legislation, as the nation—state became tasked with recognizing collective
rights. Garifuna leaders cite Honduras’ ratiﬁcation of it as a deﬁning moment for
Gariﬁma land claims.

Although signing ILO 169 into national law served to legitimize Garifuna
land claims, the INA did not aggressively work to title Garifuna lands. Between
1993 and 1995, and arguably only because of Garifuna lobbying, only fourteen of
the forty-eight Garifuna communities obtained deﬁnitive titles. Moreover, the
titles that communities received did not cover their historical landholdings, and
any part of the community’s land that was deemed appropriate for housing
construction or tourism development was redeﬁned as property of the state under
Decree 90/90. The Garifuna and the organizations that represented them thus
continued their mobilization efforts.

On October 11, 1996, which is La Dia de la Raza (“the Day of the Race”
or Columbus Day), several thousand Garifuna traveled to the capital city and
staged a massive protest, demanding that the government take action to producing
land titles for Gariﬁina communities. Protesters drummed, danced the punta, and

shouted slogans such as “The earth is our mother” and “ A people united can never

-102-

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be defeated” (Anderson 20002231). The protest has since become known as La
Primera Gran Marcha Paciﬁca del Pueblo Negro de Honduras (the First Great
Peaceful March of the Black Hondurans). Leaders of Garifuna organizations
united on this day and met with President Reina and other government
representatives. After only a few hours of negotiation, the Garifuna leaders
emerged with a signed agreement to resolve the land problem.23 This was the ﬁrst
agreement in Honduran history between the government and AfroHonduran
communities. It established three streams of action: titulacién (titling),
saneamiento (regularization) and amplicion or dotacién (extension). Land titling,
or the legal documentation of a community’s possession of lands, granted through
the INA, was the ﬁrst process to begin. The process of saneamiento, or the
procedure to determine who are the legal owners of lands within the community
limits, is currently underway in a number of communities. This process is long
and complicated because its goal is to determine which lands have been illegally
occupied, and by whom. Unfortunately, land that was “irregularly” obtained, such
as stolen lands or harvest lands that were obtained through squatters rights but are
now held under a legal title, do not ﬁt the category of “illegally occupied land” and
therefore cannot be reclaimed under the saneamiento process. However, there are
many illegally held lands that communities can reclaim. Oftentimes a large
landowner will extend their land on all sides, constructing a private gate around

the periphery and stopping community members from accessing the land. This has

 

2" Anderson (2000:246) notes that although the Garifuna leaders announced that they would
maintain the demonstration until the government complied with their demands, the basic terms of
the agreement were likely settled before the protest. Anderson reaches this conclusion because the
meeting did not last long and the leaders had already scheduled an event in the central park of the
city for that evening in which the National Garifuna Ballet was to perform.

-103-

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occurred in Sambo Creek and is described in a later chapter. The process of
ampliacién, or authorizing more lands in favor of communities that require it for
growth and development, has been requested by a number of communities,
including Sambo Creek.

As a result of the October 11, 1996 march, the government allotted 1.7
million lempiras (U S$131,000) to the INA for work on the titling of Garifuna
lands. On January 11, 1997, the Instituto de Antropologz'a e Historia (the Institute
of Anthropology and History) donated 200,000 more lempiras (U S$15,3 85).
Since then, 38 more titles have been issued, totaling 52 Gariﬁma titles, including
communal and cooperative landholdings. All the titles have been of domino pleno
(deﬁnitive titles of ownership), and are communal titles, which means that the land
cannot be sold and can only be passed through inheritance to members of the

community. Table V details the titles by year.“

 

2" Source: The National Agrarian Institute of Honduras, January 2003.

-104-

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Table V. Garifuna Titles Issued by the INA, Period 1993-2002

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Year # of Titles Hectares
1993 6 5,126.00
1994 8 7,910.02
1995 0 0

1996 0 0

1997 8 4,784.72
1998 9 3,284.07
1999 6 8,851.60
2000 7 1,850.67
2001 6 261.82
2002 2 932.47
Total 52 33,001.37

 

Despite what appears to be signiﬁcant achievements in terms of securing
land for the Garifuna, the land titles excluded ancestral lands. I argue that “place-

making” (Malkki 1997; Medina 1999) and “history-making” (Brown 2002) are

essential to the reclamation of these territories.

4.3 Place-making, History-making

Although globalization processes have led to the increasing recognition of
indigenous and human rights, and national governments have been tasked with the
protection and insurance of indigenous territorial control, territorial claims are only
possible for people able to demonstrate their indigeneity. This takes place through
“place-making” (Malkki 1997; Medina 1999) or “history-making” (Brown 2002).
Demonstrating indigenous culture is essential.

The doctrines of indigenous rights are based on primordialist ideas.

Indigenous identity is seen as something one is born with, and despite the

-105-

transnational nature of indigeneity in the 21St century, it is still linked to a place.
That place may not be the physical space in which one currently lives; it can be a
place from whence one’s ancestors derived. Thus, even Garifuna who are “born
dancing the punta” (in my informants’ terms) to families in New York City, share
rights similar to Garifuna born on Honduran soil, because both families identify as
part of a culture whose ancestors are tied to a particular place.

Culture becomes a political asset through which people make place. As
Coombe (cited in Muehlebach 2001: 418) points out, “the concept of culture has
become a new virtue as much as it represents an old vice in anthropology.” Across
the world people mourn the fact that communities might “lose their culture.”
These sentiments are perpetuated by video documentaries about “disappearing
cultures” and granting agencies that prioritize research focused on encouraging
“cultural survival.” Thus, those who can make the strongest claims to possessing a
culture are more internationally empowered to protest local injustices. This holds
true for Honduran Garifuna whose “culture” was showcased on an international
scale in 2001. In that year they were put on the cover of National Geographic, as
well as declared by the United Nations Educational, Scientiﬁc, and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) as having an “intangible cultural heritage.”25 According
to the United Nations Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural

Heritage, an intangible cultural heritage is:

 

25 Belizean Garifuna were the central actors in getting the Garifuna recognized as possessing an
“intangible cultural heritage.” Belizean Garifuna, “with support from Honduran and Nicaraguan
Garifuna,” sent a video documentary entitled, “The Garifuna Heritage” to the International Jury for
the Proclamation by UNESCO of Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity
(UNESCO 2001).

-106-

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..the practices, representations, expressions, as well as the knowledge and
skills, that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognise
as part of their cultural heritage... [such an intangible heritage is
manifested through] oral traditions and expressions, including language as
a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage; performing arts; social
practices, rituals and festive events; knowledge and practices concerning
nature and the universe; traditional craftsmanship. . .The intangible cultural
heritage is transmitted from generation to generation, and is constantly
recreated by communities and groups, in response to their environment,
their interaction with nature, and their historical conditions of existence. It
provides people with a sense of identity and continuity, and its
safeguarding promotes, sustains, and develops cultural diversity and human
creativity (UNESCO 2005).
The international declaration that people who identify as “Garifuna” possess a
cultural heritage that is in danger of disappearance and should be preserved
legitimizes Gariﬁma claims to resources if they can demonstrate that cultural
survival is incumbent upon continued access to those resources. While the UN
recognizes that there are aspects of “culture” that exist beyond geographic space,
they also note that “culture” is shaped through historical relationships to the
environment. Like ILO 169, the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible
Cultural Heritage afﬁrrns that maintenance of cultural identity is tied to one’s
surroundings. Thus, for Honduran Garifuna who are interested in maintaining
control over particular territorial spaces, calling themselves “culturally unique,”
having a special relationship to nature, increases support for their claims.
Malkki (1997: 56) argued that people often think of themselves as being
“rooted” in a particular place and as having derived their identity from that
“rootedness.” As a result, identity becomes “spatialized” (Gupta and Ferguson

1997: 3) and associated with particular territories. The processes of cultural

terrritorialization (Gupta and Ferguson 1997) are essential in transforming a

-107-

geographic space into a place associated with a particular people. Thus, “place-
making” involves actions to territorialize geographic space (Malkki 1997; Medina
1999)

Understandings about land, place, and cultural identity are derived from
individual experiences, such that a geographic space acts as a bridge between
one’s experience of identity and traditions, which are tied to rituals, and occur in
speciﬁc locales (see also Occhipinti 2003). Bryon Foster’s (1987) analysis of the
dugu ritual provides an example of Garifuna place making, in that he argues that
what the ritual is really about is establishing rights to these tenitories.

Now, this symbolic emphasis on the earth was particularly appropriate for

the emerging Garifuna society, for whom a homeland was absolutely the

prime consideration. Land for maroon communities was the source of their
fertility; it had been taken from them - or they from it — by slave traders.

The Garifuna had won it back in another hemisphere. Without it, maroon

societies like the Garifuna could not have existed as autonomous entities.

And this source of their fertility was continually threatened by the

European colonial powers. . .by constructing a ritual which portrayed the

earth as the place of the dead the Garifuna were able to emphasize St.

Vincent as the land of their ancestors and hence as their land. The

Garifuna thus made the earth both a ritual symbol and a political one, for in

‘stating’ that the land was theirs, the dugu rite generated an ideology

counterpoised to that of the colonizers, whose intention was to take that

land in the name of their source of fertility — the British crown (Foster

1987:6).

The dugu ritual has been transferred with the Garifuna from St. Vincent to their
mainland communities. The ritual can still be understood as a means to claim
Garifuna rights to land. In Honduras, as in St. Vincent, the political and economic
elite are attempting to take Garifuna land — land that they had ‘won back’ when
they were exiled from St. Vincent. Foster (1987) also makes note of the dual

anival of Garifuna ancestors in the dugu ritual. Recent ancestors who have been

-108-

buried in the earth are brought out through traditional dancing, and more distant
ancestors (ﬁom St. Vincent) arrive by boat from the sea. This ritual symbolizes
Garifuna indigeneity, demonstrating their Caribbean and Arawakan roots. The
ritual is a form of place-making; the Garifuna express a right to territory based on
the fact that they descend from a particular region, not just the territorial boundary
of Honduras, which to them is an artiﬁcial boundary set up by the European
descendants who founded the nation-state. Medina (1999) argues for a similar
case in which the Maya argue for indigenous status in Belize based on the fact that
they are indigenous to the Central American region, not to the area that falls within
the Belizean nation-state boundaries. Moreover, during the dugu ceremony, food
products from the land (cassava) and sea (ﬁsh) are also given as offerings for the
ancestral spirits. The performance of the dugu therefore also shows that the
Gariﬁina need a particular place to enact their culture. ILO 169 and UNESCO’s
Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage afﬁnn that
right.

While I did not observe any Garifuna in Sambo Creek making the link
between the dugu and their right to territory, I frequently observed people
engaging in other place-making strategies, particularly, history-making. As
Medina (1999: 126) points out, “the identity of people with territory is reinforced
through constructions of history which account for and produce both people and
place simultaneously.” The construction of history therefore becomes central in
legitinrizing a people’s rooted identity. This implies attributing and assigning

particular cultural practices to a given geographic space. “History-making”

-109-

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(Brown 2002) then plays a role in reinforcing the link between territory, identity,
culture, and a particular group of people. History-making refers to the creation
and re-creation of history and is:

...an ongoing process of interpretation and reinterpretation in which

historical accounts are constantly assembled and reassembled. ‘Facts’ may

be added, dropped, reinterpreted, or forgotten; old themes may change or

continue in new relationships in the contemporary setting (Brown 2002:

107)

Therefore, even though many Garifuna are now born in the United States, they can
still trace their ancestors to a “rooted” place where their cultural traditions were
once enacted. I argue that the processes of history-making and place-making are
intertwined and overlapping in the Garifuna land struggle, and that women are
central actors in these processes. History-making plays a key role in local land
reclamations, as the Garifuna imbue territorial space with historical accounts of
access, use, and conservation.

Therefore, people “make place” by recalling and reciting accounts of
traditional practices, and in so doing, legitimize their course of action. By telling
stories about abuses of power by Mestizo immigrants who settled on cultivation
plots, Garifuna people are at once 1) place-making by linking particular cultural
practices to geographic space, 2) demonstrating historical processes of exploitation
and structural violence in which women’s ownership and rights are usurped, and 3)
legitimizing their actions — from local land invasions to international court
proceedings — to reclaim lost Garifuna land. These stories need not have been

lived by the storyteller — descendants can recount the stories or the stories could

even be tales of abuse from as far back as the Carib wars on St. Vincent.

-110-

4.3.1 Place-making at the Organizational Level
Place-making can also occur at the organizational or social movement
level. Drawing on Muehlebach’s (2001) discussion of “place-making” at the UN,
I argue that Honduran Garifuna organizational leaders are involved in place-
making through the articulation of an indigenous identity. Muehlebach (2001)
applies the concept to show how within the United Nations Working Group on
Indigenous Populations an indigenous identity is “spatialized” (Gupta and
Ferguson 1997z3).
Conceptualizing international indigenous activism in terms of the making
of ‘indigenous place’ will enable us to understand how indigenous
delegates have articulated their speciﬁc way of being-in-the—world, and of
having a particular place in it. ‘Indigenous’ place’ is, in the way it is
articulated, distilled and generic, as it is used as a conceptual tool in
transnational political practices, developed for political use and
effectiveness... the ‘indigenous’ place’ indigenous delegates talk about. . .is
usually based on speciﬁc, often equally generic concepts of the
environment and nature, and indigenous relationship to them...”
(Muehlebach 2001: 416)
Instead of imbuing meaning into an actual geographic space, as is done by many
Garifuna activists in the struggle for coastal territory, indigenous leaders also
ﬁguratively territorialize by articulating an “indigenous place” in the world.
Although she is articulating “place” as a conceptual tool without a grounded space,
Muehlebach does not mean to imply that people or the places they inhabit are
“invented.” Rather, she claims to apply the conceptual tool of “place-making” to
point out what indigenous activism is really about: the control of territory

(Muehlebach 2001:416). As noted earlier, indigenous activism is based on the

articulation of a speciﬁc meaningful relationship of indigenous peoples to their

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territories, behind which lies the ultimate political goal of the right to self-
determination (i.e., the right to control economic development and resource use
within their own communities and the right to cultural difference).

I ﬁnd the notion of place-making appropriate to conceptualize the Garifuna
movement for the recuperation of lands for two reasons. First, what Garifuna
leaders articulate at the organizational level is that which indigenous activists
worldwide articulate: claims to self-determination based on the connection
between a special relationship to the environment and cultural survival. Second,
while the concept acknowledges that place-making is a political tool, it does not
imply that a group of people “invents” or “re-invents” their traditions or culture,
but rather notes that indigenous peoples worldwide articulate a particular identity
that convincingly demonstrates a historical connection to territory, without
debating over the “truthfulness” of said identity and associated traditions. The
latter point is important because some Honduran Mestizos argue that the Garifuna

are not indigenous.

4.4 Chapter Summary

As the review of the indigenous rights discourse has shown, there are two
sides to the linkage between indigenous people and the environment. On the one
hand, indigenous peoples are seen as requiring a particular place to survive
because their ancestral territories are the place in which culture is practiced,
sustained, and transferred to future generations. On the other hand, indigenous

peoples are seen as having a special relationship to land, such that they are

-112-

responsible for its survival (i.e., the environment has remained unexploited
because indigenous peoples engage in the sustainable use of natural resources).
The next chapter shows how OFRANEH draws upon these two sides of
indigenous rights discourses as they articulate Garifuna claims to land, while

ODECO does not.

-ll3-

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CHAPTER FIVE
REPRESENTING THE GARIFUNA

Earlier I introduced the two key organizations that represent Honduras’
Garifuna: the Honduran Black Fraternal Organization (La Organizacion Fraternal
Negro Hondureﬁo or OFRANEH) and the Organization of Ethnic Community
Development (La Organizacion de Desarrollo Etnico Comunitario or ODECO).
Resolving the land problems in Garifuna communities is a slow and difﬁcult
process, complicated by the fact that the two main Garifuna organizations have
distinct visions for the future of Garifuna landholding and development projects on
these lands. These two organizations differ widely in their approaches to the
Garifuna land struggle, ideas about what constitutes “development,” and the way
in which they represent the Garifuna. This chapter illustrates the different
approaches these organizations take on the land struggle in particular, and towards
development in general through a series of comparisons of statements issued by
ODECO and OFRANEH leadership. I conclude with a discussion of
OFRANEH’s approach as reﬂective of a larger indigenous rights critique that sees
globalization and neoliberalism as attempting to enforce a separation of humanity

from the environment.

5.1 Positions on Garifuna Land Rights
In a document given to me by Celeo Alvarez, the President of ODECO, in
April 2002, ODECO’s stance on the land struggle is revealed. The text of this

document follows below. I have excluded the charts reﬂecting the status of land

-114-

titling (titulacién), regularization (saneamineto), and extension (ampliacion) in
each Garifuna community and the review of the documents communities need to

ﬁle for these processes.

THE LAND PROBLEM IN GARIFUNA COMMUNITIES, STEP BY
STEP

1. Until 1992, all Honduran Garifuna communities with the exception of
Trujillo, had titles of occupation for the land in which they were based.

2. In 1992, the national government passed the LAW FOR
MODERN IZATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE
AGRICULTURAL SECTOR, under Decree 31-92; this action
legalized the privatization of lands for investment, principally favoring
foreign investment.

3. Due to the lack of deﬁnitive land titles, the Garifuna were harassed by
national and international businessmen, military, and politicians, who
wanted their lands, and strategically declared them zones for tourism
development.

4. Between 1993 and 1995, 14 Garifuna communities received deﬁnitive
titles, with the disadvantage being that these “titles” did not include the
historical land of the communities, which is to say, theDcommunity
lands were reduced drastically. Moreover, all of the urban parts of town
or places where houses are constructed that were not included in the
title are considered exclusive areas for tourism and therefore property
of the state.

5. On October 11, 1996, the Coordinadora Nacional de Organizaciones
Negras de Honduras held LA PRIMERA GRAN MARCHA
PACIFICA DEL PUEBLO NEGRO DE HONDURAS in Tegucigalpa,
the capital of the republic, leading to the signing of an AGREEMENT
for the ﬁrst time in history where the government promised to resolve
the problem of titling (documenting the legal possession of land
through the National Agrarian Institute), Saneamiento (the legal
procedure that determines who are the legal owners of land and who
have obtained land through irregular procedures), and Amplicacién or
Dotacién (authorizing more land in favor of communities that require it
for their grth and development).

6. The October 11th march achieved 1.7 million lempiras (US $131,000),
authorized to the National Agrarian Institute (“INA”) on December 20,

~115-

1996. On January 11, 1997, the Honduran Institute of Anthropology
and History donated 200,000 lempiras more, also for the process of
titling the lands of Garifuna communities.

. One of the people who has boarded the lands in Garifuna communities
is the businessman MIGUEL FACUSSE, who on June 26, 1997,
received a WORLD BANK loan for 55 MILLION DOLLARS, to
strengthen his investments in a project called the GRAN PROYECTO
DE TRANSFORMACION “GPTN” [Great Project of National
Transformation]. This project received unconditional support from the
government, private business, and other privileged sectors of the
country. This signiﬁes that each day that passes is a day working
against the Afro Honduran community’s goal to achieve their
legitimate right to land.

. The Law for Modernization and Development of the Agricultural
Sector declares that after three years of squatting without interruption,
any Honduran over 16 years can claim it as their legitimate property.
We ask, why then after 204 years, isn’t the Garifuna community’s right
to their historical lands recognized?

. Tourism investment in Honduras is already a reality, and an activity
that we do not oppose, as long as the Afronhonduran communities
participate at all levels as strategic partners in the process. We wish
that the communities are the owners of their lands and the projects that
are developed on their lands; the ﬁght is just and if we are united, we
can win.

10. This adverse situation, impells us to conduct forceful battles, including

the promotion of a strong campaign of denunciation and international
solidarity to pressure the Government to fulﬁll the Agreements to Title,
Adjust, and Extend the territories of the Garifuna and black
communities. On this particular issue, the President of the Republic,
Ricardo Maduro, subscribed to a carnpagin commitment with the
Afrohonduren Communities, through ODECO.

In 1797, the English exiled the Garifunas of St. Vincent from the land, and
204 years later, the main problem that faces us is the land; nevertheless the
ﬁght begins... we do not have to surrender.

Additionally, Hurricane Mitch caused severe material damage and human
losses in AfroHonduren Communities. Six hundred houses were destroyed
and 1000 partially-destroyed; more than 15 thousand families were left
homeless; 95% of crops were destroyed; the coconut palms are now prone
to die, being attacked by the disease called LETHAL
AMARlLLAMIENTO. Some of these communities like Punta Gorda,

-116-

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Pandy Town and Santa Elena, Santa Rosa and Barra del Aguan, located in
the Departments of the Bay Islands and Colon, respectively, like other
communities, lost many houses, as well as lost part of the equipment the
need for ﬁshing, one of the traditioanl income-generating businesses. . .2

The AfroHonduran community is at a true crossroads. On the one hand, it
is dealing with reconstruction after the damage caused by Hurricane Mitch,
and on the other, it is ﬁghting for the legalization of its land, while the
Government attempts, through the National Congress, to reform Article
107 of the constitution to give away more of their rightful patrimony, LA
TlERRA. This creates an unequal ﬁght for justice; the state imposes
justice upon the Black Community through its various organizations that
do not even have representation from the Black Community, despite the
fact that they constitute 10% of the country’s total population.

In this challenge, the egalitarian application and practice of inalienable
human rights, and national and international solidarity play a predominant
role (author’s translation from Spanish).

Celeo Alvarez Casildo
President of ODECO

“BUSCAMOS VOCES QUE ACALLEN EL SILENCIO”

In this document, we see ODECO linking the passage of the LMA with the
loss of land in Garifrma cormnunities (i.e., LMA is the 1992 law that enabled
cooperative members to sell their plots as private lands). Alvarez makes a case for
titling Garifuna communal lands, noting that powerﬁrl interest groups harassed the
Gariﬁina because they lacked institutionally recognized land rights. Alvarez
highlights Garifuna mobilization, especially that spearheaded by ODECO (see
point 10), as leading to a governmental commitment to resolve the land problems

faced by Garifuna communities. He notes the irony and contradictions inherent in

the LMA (point 8), asking,

 

2” This paragraph follows with a list of the number of houses destroyed and families impacted by
community.

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[If Honduran law] declares that after three years of squatting without
interruption any Honduran over the age of sixteen can claim it as their
legitimate property, then why after 204 years, is the Garifuna community’s
right to their historical lands not recognized? (Author’s translation from
Spanish).

Following this statement, his remarks about tourism investment (point 9) suggest
that ODECO is not against the privatization of land or the country’s neoliberal
development policies that rely on privatization and foreign investment, as long as
the Garifuna have ownership over their own land and are equal participants in the
development process. In the closing statement, Alvarez notes that Hurricane
Mitch damaged the traditional economic activity of Garifuna communities, but he
never links these activities to indigenous rights and cultural survival. The
international discourse that is evoked is human rights. This position and
representation of the Garifuna is quite different than OFRANEH’s.

Below are two statements made by OF RANEH leadership to national powers,
the ﬁrst to President Ricardo Maduro in November 2002, and the second to the
National Congress. These are prime examples of how OFRANEH calls upon the
global discourse of indigenous rights, indigenous ecological knowledge, and

international bodies such as the United Nations, to articulate their stance on the

land struggle.

-ll8-

EXPOSITION BEFORE THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC
RICARDO MADURO

November 13, 2002
INTRODUCTION

In spite of to having occupied the North coast of Honduras for more than
205 years, we, the Honduran Garifuna, lack ofﬁcial tenitorial recognition,
which jeopardizes our nutritional security and the legal support that we
need to guarantee our survival as a distinct people.

Of the 48 communities in which you’ll ﬁnd our population located along
the North coast, 28 of them are within protected areas or tropical zones.
This is a clear signal of the role that we have played in the conservation of
natural resources and how our traditional knowledge is essential in the
management of coastal and marine ecosystems.

Unfortunately, the lack or our territorial and ecological recognition has
resulted in agricultural colonization, which is devouring our forest
resources, leading to the destruction of our river basins and increasing our
vulnerability to disasters caused by global warming.

Our people were severely affected by Hurricane Mitch and the tropical
storms Katherin and Michelle, demonstrated by the degree of erosion to
our channels, rivers, and tropics. And still to this day, effective measures
have not been taken to solve the deforestation, the drying up the river
basins, and the disappearance of forest cover vegetation.

The erosion of biodiversity and the destruction of ecosystems affect the
development of the tourist industry, as it depends in great measure on the
supply of this country’s environmental and cultural wealth.

To date, Garifuna communities have preserved the traditional culture of our
people, which was declared last year by UNESCO as “the cultural
patrimony of humanity.” At the same time that we have one of the lowest
crime rates, we are a society that struggles against insecurity.

In order to be able to preserve our culture and the peace in which we live, it
is essential that processes for territorial recognition be put in place, that we
stop the sacking of marine resources, that we recover the coconut
plantations, and further, that we confront the AIDS epidemic in an effective
manner.

In the rich social fabric of our country, we can play an essential role in
strengthening the processes of nature conservation and implementing new

-ll9-

ways of obtaining currency, such as tourism. For these reasons, it is highly
appropriate that the executive authority offer support to guarantee conﬂict
resolution, thus improving the relationship between the Garifuna society
and the Honduran State.

Given this situation, it is urgent that the following demands of our
communities are addressed:

DEMANDS

1. Solve the land problem in Sambo Creek: return the land seized by the
Castillo family; they currently occupy 12 manzanas. The land is a clear
example of the desperation and grave overcrowding in which they live.

2. Return the lands seized by Mr. Jaime Rosenthal in San Juan Tela. This
is a case that was tried in the courts before in the city of Tela, and some
of the leaders of this community have been jailed.

3. Solve the usurpation of 22 manzanas by the mayor of Tela in the
community of Triunfo de la Cruz.

4. Provide the approval of funds from the National Congress for the
saneamiento of the community of Punta Pierdras.

5. Register the property titles of the keys of Chachauate, Bolaﬁos, and the
community of Eastend in Cayos Cochinos.

6. Solve the problem of 30 Garifuna nurses, who a year and a half ago
completed their studies and are still waiting for their titles from the
Ministry of Health, and wish to be paid for social service as nurses in
Batalla and Tocamacho.

7. Help initiate community tourism, based on a proposal from OFRANEH
that was developed through consultation and discussion with the
communities. Right now we are on the verge of inaugurating the ﬁrst
tourist footpath with ﬁnancing by la Cooperacién Espaﬁola, AECI.
(Author’s translation from Spanish).

The next selection from a statement to the Honduran Congress builds on the

previous. Analysis of the two documents follows.

-120-

PLAN BEFORE THE NATIONAL CONGRESS

The Black Fraternal Organization, OFRANEH, and the Garifuna
communities of San Juan, T riunfo de la Cruz, Sambo Creek, Punta
Piedra, Batalla, Tomabe, present the following to the National
Congress.

Considering, that the Garifuna have been declared by UNESCO, as
possessing an Intangible Heritage, in recognition of its culture
(language, dance, oral tradition, architecture, Cosmo vision,
spirituality, etc.)

Considering, that the Honduran government has undertaken the
development of a poverty reduction program. And we recognize
that the guarantee of land to the most vulnerable sectors of
Honduran society is fundamental for the alleviation of poverty.

Considering, that the Honduran state has executed a political
strategy to develop the tourist industry, as a means to generate
foreign investment and revenue, and that the potentially rich zones
for tourism development are the areas where the Garifuna
communities are located, since one of the fundamental principles of
the tourist industry is to guarantee the psychological and physical
security of visitors.

Declaring, that for indigenous peoples, the concept of conservation
and sustainable use of biological biodiversity is not an empty
concept... These concepts, for native peoples, are intimately related
to their spirituality and respect for the mother earth. Life, territory,
knowledge, and collective rights are inseparable. Article 8j of the
Convention on Biodiversity recognizes this fundamental principle.

Considering, that the Honduran state ratiﬁed ILO 169 in May 1994,
an international legal instrument that recognizes the collective
rights of indigenous and tribal peoples worldwide.

Considering, that the community of Punta Piedra has been facing a
land possession conﬂict that for 10 years, which originated because
a group of people from outside of the community took possession
of the community’s productive lands. . ..(Author’s translation from
Spanish).27

 

27 This statement continues with speciﬁc demands to the Honduran state. I excluded the remainder
because the excerpts I chose to include from the two documents serve to make my point. Providing
the remainder of the second statement would be redundant.

-121-

The approach of OFRANEH is strikingly different from that expressed by
ODECO. From the very start, OFRANEH highlights the Garifuna as a distinct
culture, who exist with a special relationship to the environment and points out
that the environment has deteriorated since they lost territorial control. Rather
than emphasizing Garifuna “successes,” as does ODECO by listing the number of
titles granted to communities, OF RANEH calls attention to the abuses in Garifuna
communities,28 noting the usurption of lands and discrimination against Garifuna
health workers. In the ﬁrst statement, OFRANEH makes a series of speciﬁc
demands to the government, including the resolution of outstanding unresolved
land conﬂicts, the registration of Garifuna territories not yet titled, and
governmental support for ecologically and culturally sustainable community
tourism initiatives, such as low-impact footpaths, that OFRANEH designed in
conjunction with heavy local level participation.

In both documents we see OFRANEH reminding the Honduran nation that
the success of the tourism industry “depends in great measure on the supply of this
country’s environmental and cultural wealth,” and that tourism relies on areas
where visitors feel physically safe and psychologically fulﬁlled (Garifuna
communities are presumed to provide this type of feeling). OFRANEH notes “to
date, Garifuna communities have preserved the traditional culture of our people,”
pointing out the international recognition (by UNESCO) of the Garifuna’s
“intangible heritage” and “cultural survival.” They use the signiﬁcance of culture

to impel the government to listen to their demands, asserting that the proposals for

 

2’ ODECO does cite Facusse in Point 7 as hoarding Garifuna territories.

-122-

economic advancement are only possible with the “survival” of Garifuna
traditions. They further note that, “in order to be able to preserve our culture. . .it is
essential that processes for territorial recognition be put in place...” Resource
control and cultural survival are inextricably linked. This argument is articulated
in the language of indigenous rights. OF RANEH’s leaders are formally
negotiating the changing environment by drawing out the link between cultural
survival and the ability to maintain control over the conservation and management
of natural resources and local tourism initiatives. They make clear that for the
Garifuna:
...the concept of conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity is
not an empty concept. . .these concepts, for native peoples [like the
Garifuna] are intimately related to their spirituality and respect for mother
earth.
Like the UN indigenous delegates that Muelenbach (2001) describes, OFRANEH
leaders are articulating an “indigenous place” as a conceptual tool in their political
mobilization. This departs ﬁom the identity that ODECO articulates an

international scale, and is largely linked to the way in which each organization

approaches development and interaction with neoliberalism.

5.2 Competing Notions of Development

OFRANEH’s response to government development decisions has been to
charge the Honduran government for human rights abuses and ethnocide, arguing
that the effects of proposed “development” processes would put an end to Garifuna
culture and lifestyle, displacing them from their ancestral territories, and leading to

a loss of identity. Miriam Miranda, a key spokesperson for OFRANEH, is quite

-123-

suspicious of development as a concept and as a process. In our ﬁrst encounter in
2000, I asked her how she deﬁned development:

Development is difﬁcult to deﬁne. It can, and most often does, destroy
culture, customs, folklore, and spirit. I cannot give you a concrete
deﬁnition. It is a complex concept. The popular deﬁnition is to change
sustainably for the better, but the reality is that development can cause
destruction. You have no way of knowing if it will be for the better. For
example, many people think putting latrines in pueblos is development. It
isn't enough. The communities need sustainability, education, food, etc.
Some people think that the Gariﬁina communities that do not have
electricity need to have it for development. But I disagree. Electricity isn’t
automatically development. Our communities have certain traditions
because we do not have electricity. Women all gather together at night to
talk beneath the moon. If you bring electricity to their community, they
will stop, and this will destroy their traditions (Author’s translation from
Spanish).

Miriam’s comments echo those shared by other OFRANEH afﬁliates who
saw development as a direct threat to Gariﬁina identity and ‘tradition.’ Unlike
OFRANEH, ODECO’s board of directors did not engage in theoretical discussions
over what it means to develop, or whether or not “development” was a necessary
thing. In fact, ODECO named their organization a development organization,
suggesting that either ODECO believes in a need for development, however the
word might be deﬁned, or like Gardner and Lewis (1996), they think since it is
here to stay, the most beneﬁcial approach for their organization is to work to
redeﬁne the concept in ways that are beneﬁcial to the Garifuna. My feeling is that
ODECO falls into the latter. Conversations about their split from OFRANEH in
1992, suggest that they find OFRANEH’s refusal to ‘work with the system’ as
negating Garifuna achievements in overcoming racism, discrimination, and

marginalization. ODECO seems to be saying that the state system is here to stay,

-124-

so the Garifuna must work within its constraints. ODECO is therefore pushing for
a place at the negotiating table — again, their goal is to achieve integration into
development planning, and as they say, “transform the Garifuna from development

objects to development subjects.” A look at their stated goals illustrates this point.

What are ODECO’s Principle Obiectives?

To provide for the integral development of the black community in
Honduras (Garifuna and non-Garifuna).

To conduct actions aimed at the rescue, conservation, and strengthening of
the national culture values, as manifested by the Garifuna and other
ethnically Black Hondurans.

To plan, execute, direct, and evaluate work, actions, projects, programs,
and plans, with the goal of increasing the social, economic, and political
level of the Black Honduran community, through the help of national and
international institutions and organizations.

To establish cooperative relations between communities and national and
international organizations.

To train and organize members of small, self-managing businesses to
combat unemployment, poor quality of life, massive immigration, and the
abandonment of natal communities.

To train and organize women so they can be successfully incorporated as a
force in national development.

To conduct preventative activities that protect children from malnutrition,
abandonment, drug addiction, alcoholism, prostitution, and illiteracy.

To ﬁght for the respect of Human Rights, conforming to the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and the Republic’s Constitution.

To help members in cases of catastrophe, in accordance with the
stipulations presented in the Statutes and Rules.

To promote the creation and development of cooperatives, loans, and

friendly help, to schools, libraries, technical training institutes,
collaborative ofﬁces in hospitals, experimental ﬁelds, or sports and other

-125-

organizations dedicated to the professional and cultural aims of solidarity
and welfare (provision).

To work for the rescue and conservation of the ecological equilibrium that
beneﬁts life (http://www.caribe.hn/odeccﬂ)age2.html; author’s translation
from Spanish).

ODECO maintains their position as a nongovernmental agency working to
integrate the Garifuna as partners in development projects. OFRANEH, in
contrast, seeks self-determination for the Garifuna, and the ability to fully control
— from design to implementation - projects within their communities. I wish to
compare the above statement of ODECO’s objectives to a statement made by
OF RANEH’s President in response to a police raid of one of OF RANEH’s key
leaders’ homes. Godsman Ellis, a Belizean Garifuna activist, sent out the
following statement over the Human Rights Action email listserve
(info@rightsaction.org). While the comparison shows that both organizations are
involved transnationally — ODECO through their collaboration with international
agencies, and OF RANEH with Garifuna activists in other countries - and that both
organizations tap into international human rights discourses and networks, the
comparison also demonstrates the key distinction between the organizations: their
stances on neoliberal development policies and programs.

March 28, 2005

PERSECUTION OF GARIFUN AS

The OFRAN EH (Honduran Black People's Fraternal Organization) denounces

the raid of the home of Miriam Miranda. This is a clear case of persecution of

the defenders of the ancestral lands of indigenous and black peoples.

The break-in took place on Friday March 25 (Good Friday), between two and
three in the afternoon. Eight ofﬁcers of the DGIC (Criminal Investigative

-126-

Division), some of whom were wearing hoods, broke into Miranda's home,
with orders to search for stolen articles and weapons.

Miriam Miranda has a long history of involvement in the struggle for the
defense of the rights of indigenous and black peoples, especially the rights of
the Garifuna people and the defense of their land and culture. We therefore
presume that this raid was a form of pressure to intimidate Miranda and tie the
hands of OFRANEH, so that it becomes nothing more than one more NGO
carrying out projects, like other NGOs involved with World Bank projects.

OFRANEH believes we are living in a very important historical period. The
ratiﬁcation of the Free Trade Agreement with the United States will speed up
the process of economic globalization and lead to increased poverty, given the
enormous gap that exists between our country and the North American
Empire. As well, the traditional agricultural economies of our country will be
undermined and there will be a huge increase in the number of campesinos
who have no choice but join the migration to the North.

The raid of Miranda's home does not augur well, given that Miranda was not
involved in any of the alleged activities named by the authorities. On the
contrary, she has been recognized both nationally and internationally for her
hard work and dedication to the defense of the rights of indigenous and black
peoples.

Law enforcement in Honduras is suffering a regression. In fact, it has turned
into a witch-hunt, much like it was in the eighties. With open warfare against
the so-called maras (gangs) -- the children of neoliberalism --, we are very
close to returning to the persecution of the popular movement that we saw in
the past.

The Empire's attempt at economic globalization is a total failure and the
situation will only get worse with the implementation of proj ects such as the
Free Trade Agreement with the United States, the Plan Puebla Panama, the
Mesoamerican Biological Corridor and the PATH (Land Administration
Project of Honduras), all of which directly effect the future of the lands of our
peoples.

Financial institutions such as the World Bank and the lnterAmerican
Development Bank are attempting to implement these projects. At the same
time, wherever possible, they try to sow seeds of division in popular
movements and buy their leaders.

The break-in at Miranda's home happens at a time when there is an attempt to
divide our organization, ﬁnanced by the ofﬁce of the Nuestras Raices
Programme,2 which comes under the FHIS (Fondo Hondureﬂo de Inversion

 

2” The Nuestras Raices (Our Roots) Program was created in 1995. The program was developed in

-127-

Social) which in turn, is ﬁnanced by the World Bank. In 2002, the programme
was given the task of dividing the CONPAH (Confederation of the Native
People of Honduras) and ﬁnancing the now defunct CINH, also administered
by the Nuestras Raices Programme.

At the same time, the state of Honduras, along with the PATH, have begun to

put pressure on the Garifuna communities, through a project whose aim is to

break up ancestral lands. Teresa Reyes, of Triunfo de la Cruz, was sentenced

to preventative custody for the crime of defending a piece of land that has

belonged to her family for years.

We hereby alert the public to the direct and indirect pressure to which the

members of our organization are being subjected. We also denounce the

deliberate attempt to divide us by a state organ ﬁnanced by the World Bank.

This division could destroy our peoples' resistance movement and lead to the

break-up and loss of our ancestral communities (author’s translation from

Spanish).

Issued in La Ceiba (Honduras), March 28, 2005.

Gregoria Flores

OFRANEH

While OFRANEH’s President is not naming “development” per se, she is

making a statement against the neoliberal development programs of the World
Bank and InterAmerican Development Bank. Flores makes clear that in
OFRANEH’s opinion, economic development plans, such as the Central American
Free Trade Agreement and Plan Pueblo Panama, and the establishment of the

MesoAmerican Biological Corridor (a project to map and monitor land cover and

ecological balance within the framework of sustainable economic development)

 

response to ethnic mobilization and protests citing the government for poor access to basic public
services and inadequate infrastructure. The program was originally ﬁnanced through domestic
funds from 1995 to 1997, and beneﬁciaries received nominal pay to open and rehabilitate small
tertiary roads and paths. The primary beneﬁciaries (72%) were Lenca. The World Bank was
invited to ﬁnance the program under the Social Investment Fund Project (FHIS) in 1997. Ethnic
organizations have consistently issued complaints regarding the lack of participation, information,
transparency and political biased targeting (Traa-Valerezo and Rodriguez 2003).

-128-

m
31.
Ar
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lake

 

 

 

are direct threats to the rights of Garifuna people. Moreover, she recognizes the
divisions in Garifuna leadership, denouncing, without explicitly naming,
ODECO’s history of working with international institutions to carry out local
development projects. OFRANEH sees their role as an organization to speak out
against injustices caused by economic globalization, situating themselves as part of
a broader movement against neoliberalism. ODECO, in contrast, works within
neoliberalism. As noted in chapter two, ODECO is involved in a transnational
alliance called La Organizacién Negra Centroamericana or ONECA (the Central
American Black Organization or CABO), which is a coalition of 22 organizations
from seven different countries. Celeo Alvarez, the president of ODECO, is also
the president of ONECA. ONECA holds yearly summits, the focus of which is the
collective coordination around the shared social, economical, political, and
ecological challenges facing Afro-American communities. Excerpts from their
2002 declaration reveal the approach that ONECA, and therefore also ODECO,
take on development.30

San Jose Declaration for the Eighth Assembly of the Central

American Black Organization, December 5-7, 2002.

We, the AfroCentralAmerican organizations that belong to the

Central American Black Organization. . .met in San Isidro de

Coronado, San José, Costa Rica in order to reafﬁrrn our

determination and true conviction that we must be actors in our

development processes; it is our right as citizens of various

countries in the region and in the Aﬁican diaspora.

Therefore we decided:

 

3° The declaration is lengthy, and not all of relevance to the argument I am making. The entire

document can be found at: hgp://garifunaweb.com/oneca/oneca.html.

-129-

To guarantee the highest level of participation for
Afrocentroamerican communities in the Mesoamerican Biological
Corridor Initiative.

To endorse the execution of the World Bank project to “Develop
the Institutional Capacity for Central American Afro-descendant
Organizations," which is ﬁnanced by the World Bank through the
Central American Commission of Environment and Development
(La Comisién Centroamericana de Ambiente y Desarrollo or
CCAD), and in which ONECA will be the executor.

To guarantee that our communities participate as important actors
under in the development models of the Plan Puebla Panama, the
Free Trade of the Americas Agreement, and afﬁrm that the
communities rights are protected and respected.

To conclude the writing process for the Master Plans of
Development for Afrodescendent Communities, and continue to
pressure our governments so that these plans are incorporated into
their pro grams and strategies of poverty reduction in Central
American countries.

We support the actions of the organizations that comprise ONECA
and support their effort to guarantee the right to land that has been
ancestrally occupied by the Afro descendent populations in Central
America.

To conclude the execution of the World Bank’s Project to Map the
Afrocentroamerican organizations. . .
(http://ggriﬁrnawebcom/oneca/onecahtml; author’s translation
from Spanish).

ODECO is allied transnationally with other Garifuna people as well as

other Afrodescendents. Their organizational stance is one that takes as a starting

point that neoliberal development policy is a force that is not going to disappear.

As such, they are working to incorporate the Garifuna as strategic actors in

development processes, rather than protest their existence. OFRANEH, on the

other hand, is an outright critique of development processes. ONECA’s

declaration clearly states the way in which they believe the Gariﬁma should

~130-

interact with global development initiatives. Through ONECA, ODECO has
formally endorsed these neoliberal projects (e. g., FTAA, PPP, and speciﬁc World

Bank projects) and Honduras’ neoliberal development approach.

5.3 Divided communities

The divisions among these organizations are also dividing communities, as
is revealed in an excerpt from a letter written to Gregoria Flores by the President
of Patronato of one coastal community (not Sambo Creek) in May 2002.31 The
author of this letter shared with me that while he felt closer to OFRANEH, he saw
the residents of his community torn by dual representation at the national and
international level, and was therefore recommending a consolidation of the two
organizations. The following are relevant excerpts from that letter.

It is important that you know that our Patronato, which represents this
community, recently had a meeting with the objective of analyzing and
discussing the future repercussions of the grave errors of our leaders; that
all this [the land problematic, which is cited earlier in the letter] has been
the result of egotistic attitudes, without concem for the magnitude of pain
that this has been causing the majority of the Honduras’ Black community,
especially the Garifuna people.

Therefore our organization recommends the following:

1. To summon a joint meeting at the highest level with ODECO,
integrating the distinguished Garifuna and recognizing the moral and
spiritual solvency that they present in our communities.

2. To attempt to consolidate ODECO and OFRANEH, the organizations
that represent the Garifuna communities, understanding the great
damage that this [the existence of two organizations] is causing the
Garifuna people. This division has manifested itself in the
communities and now the common enemy already has knowledge of it,

and therefore knows how to use it to their beneﬁt and against the
Garifuna.

 

3' He planned to send a copy of this letter to ODECO as well.

~131-

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3. We want you to understand one time for all, that the majority of our
towns are already encountering total confusion and they don’t know
who to believe...

4. We close this letter, hoping that you will accept our petition in beneﬁt
of our people, and hope that we can speak in the same language that
SATUYE, DUVALE, and BARAUDA urged us to (author’s translation
from Spanish).

This community leader reminds the organizations that they (afﬁliates of both
organizations) are all Garifuna, evoking ancestral heroes, who are undisputed
leaders of all Garifuna, to do so. Noting that communities are now divided in their
allegiances, he is arguing that no one organization is truly representative of all
Garifuna. The fact that there are two organizations, each headed by Garifuna
individuals, yet with starkly different notions about the way in which communities
should interact with development policies, tells us something: that the Garifuna,
like all cultural groups, contain within them a great diversity of viewpoints.

These variations have resulted in dual political organizing, and the organized
politics of ODECO and OFRANEH tell us something more than just their stances

on the Garifuna position in Honduras; they tell us about their ideas about the

Garifuna place within the world.

5.4 Indigenous Place-making and the Politics of Morality
OFRANEH’s politics adhere to what Muehlebach called the politics of
morality. Drawing on Escobar (1992), Muehlebach (2001:425) argues that:
The politics of morality continues as part of a larger global trend in which
social movements are forming ‘not only [against a speciﬁc type of] politics

and democracy, but [against] a whole civilizational design based on
modern reason’ (Escobar l994:4l)...indigenous ‘place-making’ has

-l32-

 

fundamentally challenged this design. Attaching ‘the nucleus of all
civilizing rationality,’ namely the ‘denial of man that he is part of nature’
(1994:54), indigenous ‘place-making’ at the UN. has made visible the
multitudinous relations said to exist between indigenous ‘subjects’ and a
meaningful entity — nature. Thus indigenous delegates have since their
emergence on the global political scene insisted on the inseparability of
two seemingly separable realms — ecology and ethnicity.

OFRANEH is involved in this broader struggle, critiquing the newly deﬁned
design of neoliberalism through “place-making.” A comparison of statements by
ODECO and OFRANEH to the generalizations Muehlebach makes about
indigenous delegates shows that OFRANEH has adopted the international rhetoric
of indigenous leaders. Tables VI through VIII provide this comparison.

Table VI. Comparisons of Garifuna Organizations’ Adoption of
Muehlebach’s Generalization #1

 

 

 

GENERALIZATION #1 OFRANEH ODECO
STATEMENTS STATEMENTS
“First, their claims “The Law for
always invoke the image “In spite of having Modernization and
of a cultural community occupied the North Development of the
investing in and living coast of Honduras for Agricultural Sector

off a speciﬁc place, the
land. Living a particular
lifestyle in intimate
interconnection with a
speciﬁc place and
without any unwanted
interference is viewed as
a people’s fundamental
and collective right to
self-determination”
(Muehlebach 2001:424).

 

more than 205 years,
we, the Honduran
Garifuna , lack
ofﬁcial territorial
recognition, which
jeopardizes our
nutritional security
and the legal support
that we need to
guarantee our survival
as a distinct people...
Unfortunately, the
lack or our territorial
and ecological
recognition has
resulted in agricultural
colonization.”

 

declares that after
three years of
squatting without
interruption, any
Honduran over 16
years can claim it as
their legitimate
property. We ask,
why then after 204
years, isn’t the
Garifuna
community’s right to
their historical lands
recognized.”

 

-l33-

 

What we see here is that while OFRANEH evokes the image of the Garifuna as a

“distinct people,” ODECO simply notes their continued existence on these lands.

Table VII. Comparisons of Garifuna Organizations’ Adoption of
Muehlebach’s Generalization # 2

 

 

 

GENERALIZATION #2 OFRANEH STATEMENTS ODECO
STATEMENTS

“Second, the places with Of the 48 communities in Organizational

which indigenous which you’ll ﬁnd our Objective:

delegates portray population located along the

themselves as being North coast, 28 of them are “To work for
meaningfully intertwined within protected areas or the rescue and
are either already, or on tropical zones. This is a clear conservation of
the verge of being signal of the role that we have the ecological
destroyed, taken away, played in the conservation of equilibrium
and/or polluted. The natural resources and how our that beneﬁts
communities whose lives traditional knowledge is life.”

are portrayed as being essential in the management of
inextricably linked to this coastal and marine ecosystems.
place through quotidian Unfortunately, our lack of
practices thus claim their territorial and ecological

right to an (unpolluted) control has resulted in
territory” (Muehlebach agricultural colonization. . .And
2001: 424). still to this day, effective

 

measures have not been taken
to solve the deforestation, the
drying up the river basins, and
the disappearance of forest
cover vegetation. The erosion
of biodiversity and the
destruction of ecosystems
affect the development of the
tourist industry, as it depends
in great measure on the supply
of this country’s environmental
and cultural wealth. To date,
Garifuna communities have
preserved the traditional
culture of our people, which
was declared last year by
UNESCO as “the cultural
patrimony of humanity.”

 

 

-134-

 

OF RANEH makes a clear link between the Garifuna and the environment,

extolling their environmental stewardship and calling attention to the ecological

destruction of their natural resources by non-Garifuna. ODECO notes the

importance of the environment and conservation for all human life, but does not

note the Garifuna as managers of these resources.

Table VIII. Comparisons of Garifuna Organizations’ Adoption of
Muehlebach’s Generalization #3

 

 

that means and embodies
more to an indigenous
people than merely the
basis for the economic
sustenance of the
community. The
relationship to tenitory is
represented not only as
meaningful, but as
moral” (Muehlebach
2001:424).

 

 

mother earth is something
not negotiable and belongs
intrinsically to the Garifuna
community... We fear that
the philosophy of
individualism, which is
expounded through Neo-
liberalism, calls for the
dissolution of our
collective titles and the
imposition of the concept
of individual property, and
that this will intensify the
pressures oriented towards
the sale of the coastal strip.

 

GENERALIZATION #3 OFRANEH ODECO
STATEMENTS STATEMENTS

“And, ﬁnally, in claiming OFRANEH has maintained “We look for

the rights for “those that a clear _policy regarding our voices that

cannot speak,” a key territories, which we have been

trope that has been used consider to be something silenced.”

for years is revealed — more than merchandise. In

that of a natural world our Cosmo vision, the

 

In this comparison we see OFRANEH imbuing the territory with moral

meaning, noting that it means more to the Garifuna than a cash income; it has a

-135-

 

spiritual value. ODECO’s slogan shows that they are similar to indigenous leaders
in that they speak for those who cannot.

As the above comparisons reveal, OF RANEH is involved in place-making
through the articulation of Garifuna indigeneity. OFRANEH evokes the image of
the Garifuna as a distinct people, drawing upon indigenous rights discourses that
link indigenous identity to the environment, rooting the Garifuna - as indigenous
peoples - to the land that has been and continues to be taken from them. They are
ﬁghting alongside of other indigenous groups for the right to self-determination
and the control over their own destinies. ODECO, on the other hand, has as its
goal, the integration of the Garifuna into development processes. They call upon
human rights discourses to solidify their assertion that the Garifuna deserve equal

participation in coastal development planning.

5.5 Self-Identifying as Indigenous

Throughout my ﬁeldwork I remained perplexed as to why ODECO was not
appropriating an indigenous identity, as such an identity seemed to me to offer
them greater ability to network as well as to articulate the demands and needs of
Garifuna communities. Often board members went out of their way to explain the
difference between indigenous and autochthonous. I was told by one board
member that the Garifuna were AfroHondurans, not indigenous peoples - that
indigenous people were the Miskito, the Lencas, the Pech, etc. According to
ODECO, the Garifuna were autochthonous, which oddly enough, they also used to

9 ‘6'

describe Honduras indigenous” or Native American populations. When I

-l36-

explained that I found it peculiar given that in other countries, notably Belize, the
Garifuna identify as indigenous, one board member told me that I was confused;
that in Belize, Afro-descendents fall into two groups — the Garifuna and the
Creoles, and neither are indigenous.

Most dictionaries deﬁne “autochthonous” and “indigenous” as synonyms.
Why then, does ODECO not wish to appropriate an indigenous identity? Some
Garifuna afﬁliated with ODECO explained that the Gariﬁina were “more pure”
than indigenous groups, inferring that the Garifuna did not ‘nrix’ physically or
culturally to the extent that Native American populations did. Others linked with
ODECO suggest that they associate indigenous status with oppression and
subordination. In addition to subordination, oppression, and marginalization, the
word indigenous also conjures up notions of static culture, where change can bring
nothing but harm. Are assumptions such as these behind ODECO’s avoidance of
an indigenous identity? ODECO is pro-change in so much as it is pro-
development, albeit in ways that incorporate local knowledge and resources.
Perhaps an autochthonous identity is more open to change?

A conversation with Miriam Miranda of OFRANEH offers some insight
into why some Gariﬁrna leaders may still be hesitant to fully embrace the
indigenous identity discourse, as debates over the meaning of indigenous have
persisted in academic and nonacademic circles for quite some time. Before
beginning our interview, Miriam asked to look over my set of interview questions.

After reading the two pages of questions she said she would like to begin with a

-137-

question listed under the subcategory “other,” nearly three-quarters into the
interview schedule.

This question interests me a lot -- ‘como identiﬁcan los Garifuna s? Como

indigenas, auto'conos, a los dos? ’-- I believe it is hard to deﬁne indigenous.

You must see this in your work as well. The Garifuna are not indigenous

to Central America, but we do identify as indigenous as an

autoidentiﬁcacio'n (self-identiﬁcation). I think this is important — that we
choose to identify ourselves in this way. In 1992, when the year of the
indigenous was celebrated, there was a lot debate over how indigenous is

deﬁned and what it was that makes a people indigenous. If you ask a

Gariﬁina person if they are indigenous, they would say, ‘no; I’m negro.’

But they are culturally indigenous because they share the cultural traits of

the indigenous Arawaks in this hemisphere. Our language is indigenous.

We have the pimiento of indigenous peoples. Therefore, to say we are

indigenous is a self-identiﬁcation, and this is what is important. We are the

only negros in Central America with our own language (author’s
translation ﬁom Spanish).

By outlining the debates and disagreements over the true meaning of
“indigenous,” Miriam sets the stage for the Garifuna as indigenous, demonstrating
that what is important is that they choose to identify as indigenous. Miriam is
likely aware of the fact that Article 2 of ILO #169 declares that self-identiﬁcation
is the key to determining whether or not a group is indigenous. Moreover, her
comments reﬂect debates over scale of place in tracing indigeneity. Like the
place-making strategies of the Maya in Belize that Medina (1999) discusses (i.e.,
that they argue for indigenous rights based on being indigenous to the region, not
just to the territorial boundaries of Belize), Honduran Garifuna can make similar
arguments to their indigenous heritage. As Miriam points out, the Garifuna share

‘cultural traits’ with the Arawkans of this hemisphere. The existence of the

Special Prosecutor for the Ethnic Groups has facilitated the Garifunas’ ofﬁcial

-l38-

recognition as an indigenous group. Eduardo Villanueva, the special prosecutor is

quoted in England and Anderson 2004: 16) as saying:
...indigenous is that which is original to this country, and the origins of this
country are when it gained independence and set up its actual borders. So
the Convention 169 favors those peoples who were already here before the
formation of the state. In 1921 the Garifuna had already been here for
many years. They came against their will, uprooted from their original
country. This is a historical fact, and we cannot change that. But when I
say indigenous I mean to include the Garifuna in this concept because they
were here when the state was organized. . ..

Although this quote reveals that the idea that the Garifuna are “indigenous

peoples” is gaining higher levels of recognition, and some Garifuna activists are

indeed asserting that the Garifuna are indigenous, my ﬁeldwork in Garifuna

communities found that an identiﬁcation as indigenous has not ﬁltered out to the

larger Garifuna population.

5.6 Chapter Summary

This chapter served to outline the way in which the Garifuna are
responding at the organizational level to the nation’s contemporary development
agenda. For over 208 years, the Garifuna have lived without legal titles on
historically marginalized lands. Over the years, their lack of deﬁnitive titles
resulted in the loss of traditional lands to more powerful groups, and this process
was accelerated in the 1990s as the Honduran nation entered into an era of
neoliberalism and pushed forward constitutional reforms that enabled privatization
on previously protected lands. Globalization processes have enabled Garifuna
organizations to draw upon national and international law and global discourses to

pressure the Honduran state to reclaim traditionally owned resources. Yet the

-l39-

Garifuna are not united in their approach to negotiating neoliberal economic
development. ODECO’s approach draws more on inclusion and integration into
neoliberal processes, while OF RANEH emphasizes resistance to neoliberalism.
The divisions at the organizational level are indeed reﬂective of the Garifuna
community at large, which is veriﬁed in the President of Patronato’s letter to
OFRANEH.

The following chapter looks at the Garifuna struggle at the community
level. The chapter reviews Sambo Creek’s history with landholding and Mestizo
and foreign encroachment on traditional lands, and the gender dimensions of
increasing privatization of community lands. Using Sambo Creek’s objectives in
2002 local land invasions, I discuss the disj uncture between contemporary

livelihood strategies and organizational approaches to the recuperation of land.

-l40-

CHAPTER SIX
SAMBO CREEK’S LAND STRUGGLE

The community of Sambo Creek is one in which Garifuna land tenure
problems are the most pronounced. Houses are densely packed together in the
center of the community, with younger generations building their homes in areas
that were once family backyard gardens. Many homes house ten or more people,
and the local cemetery has reached its capacity. There is no available land to build
houses, to make a new cemetery, to plant crops, or to build community
infrastructure. But what is really striking is that when you walk around Sambo
Creek, you see many empty, gated lots. This is because so much of Sambo
Creek’s land has been sold to private investors who obtained land for a variety of
reasons (e.g., retirement, real estate, ranching), or has been usurped through
Mestizo encroachment.

Much of Sambo Creek’s ancestral land is now in the hands of Mestizos
who came to hold it through squatters’ rights or “irregular” processes. Irregular
processes refer to encroachment by powerful and elite Hondurans who obtained
land through intimidation, trickery, or outright theft by gunpoint. Many irregularly
obtained empty plots are now up for sale with asking prices far beyond what a
local resident could pay. For example, in 2002, l/4-manzana plots (about .375
acres) in the most impoverished areas had asking prices of around $10,000; one
foreign landowner was asking $100,000 for slightly more than two manzanas
(three acres). As I indicated in chapter two, the majority of the community is

unemployed and reliant on remittances. Those I interviewed who were receiving

-141-

remittances were sent about $200 a month, and those who were working made
approximately $125 a month. Thus, for many residents, purchasing land is an
impossibility. One Garifuna woman summed up the problem with the statement,
“in order to have a home of their own, our children must wait for their
grandmothers to die.”

The shortage of land pushed the community into a struggle to reclaim their
ancestral territories. Sambo Creek’s land struggle occurred at multiple levels,
from local land invasions, to the national legal efforts of OFRANEH and the INA,
to the international threat of a court ruling by the Inter-American Commission for
Human Rights (IACHR). I begin the chapter by describing the processes through
which “ancestral Garifuna lands” have come to be held (sometimes legally,
sometimes illegally) by non-Garifuna. Next, I demonstrate that the privatization of
ancestral land has been a gendered process, whereby Garifuna women are
disproportionately impacted because patterns of matrilineal inheritance are being
replaced by individual land transactions in which men are typically the
beneﬁciaries. I then discuss the community’s 1997 communal land title and its
associated problems. All of these details led to the 2001 land invasions in which
“children of the community” attempted to recuperate their ancestral rights from
“foreigners.” Finally, I discuss shifts in livelihood strategies and relate these
changes to how Garifuna organizations are representing Garifuna communities’

interaction with the land.

-l42-

6.1 Mestizo Encroachment and Garifuna Sales

Prior to the 19803, Sambo Creek’s settlement was restricted to a small plot
of land between the beach and the railroad tracks. The railroad was built in 1910
by the Vacarros Bros. Fruit Company, when they established banana plantations
nearby. (These plantations were abandoned in the 1920s when disease destroyed
the crops (Anderson 2000)). From initial settlement through the 19305, the
Garifuna cultivated the majority of the land immediately surrounding the
community. When the banana companies withdrew in the 19305, work as laborers
on plantations and docks largely disappeared for men, and women lost
opportunities to sell food products and refreshments on the plantations. Wealthy
Mestizos began to usurp the lands, including land used by the Garifuna for
cultivation and harvest.

According to local oral history, a Mestizo associated with the National
Party of the President and dictator Tiburcio Carias Andino (1933-1949)
appropriated a large portion of the community’s cultivation lands to use as a cattle
ranch (see also Anderson 2000). The elder Garifuna residents (i.e., 70 or older)
that I interviewed recalled the National Party representatives and La Ceiba police
forcibly removing Garifuna farmers from these lands.

We Garifuna have always been ﬁghting for our land. And it is in all

Garifuna communities, not just Sambo Creek... In 1941 or maybe it was

1942, the government robbed us of our lands and then many others left out

of fear of the political party. People who worked in the government — not

the president, but people who worked for him — these people with money —

they came and took the land from us. This [Colonia X] used to be full of

cassava. It was all cassava... (70-year-old Garifuna man; author’s
translation ﬁom Spanish).

-143-

This land was ours, but the powerful bosses that live in La Ceiba saw us as
less than them and they came with pistols, humiliating us, and said to leave
our lands. They said to us, ‘here is 5 lempiras; don’t come back.’ We were
afraid and we left. We did not have documents, so we could not ﬁght (74-
year-old Gariﬁma man; author’s translation from Spanish).
The appropriated lands included what are now know as Colonia Libertad, Colonia
Suazo, and Corinto. Much of the land remained unused throughout the years,
passing through the hands of cattle ranchers and other powerful outsiders.
Beginning in the late 1970s, community activists began petitioning the
National Agrarian Institute (INA) for the recuperation of their illegally seized
lands. During that time, Felipe Suazo, a wealthy Garifuna resident, bought a large
portion of this land (i.e., what is now Colonia Suazo and Corinto) from a Mestizo
owner who was threatened with losing the entire plot to the community.
According to McCommon (cited in Anderson 2000:87), Suazo divided and sold
this land to individuals on the condition that they build cement homes with zinc
roofs. The costs imposed by this conditionality prevented those who most needed
land from obtaining it, and as a result, the area is starkly differentiated from the
rest of the community, with large, well-built homes and gated yards of the well-off
Garifuna (who are typically those who have worked for many years in the United
States).
Interviews and informal conversations revealed that some poor Garifuna
families lost their land to Felipe Suazo through a loan process. Six individuals
told me that they heard stories of women signing over their family’s cultivation

plot to Suazo in exchange for food, medicine, shoes, or other necessary supplies.

When they could not pay back the money they owed for the items, he took control

-144-

 

of the land. For example, one young man told me that his mother sold his family’s
land for 100 lempiras, so that she could buy his sister a pair of shoes, leaving he
and his siblings without an inheritance. Wealthier Mestizos supported this history
in private conversations, yet they made the case that Suazo’s exchanges were fair.

People now say that they were robbed of their lands, but the truth is they

weren't; they were paid the going rate. Let me give you an example of how

this works. In 1991, I bought my house in La Ceiba for 90,000 lempiras,

but now I could sell it for 500,000 lempiras. When I bought the house I

thought it was expensive, but now it is worth much more. It is the

evolution of the country — the value is increasing... Nobody stole their
land. Nobody was robbed by force. Some people exchanged their land for
food. Others gave it to a doctor so that the doctor would cure their baby.

Now they say this was stolen. But it was a fair exchange. . .(author’s

translation from Spanish).

Wealthy Mestizos were not the only ones to move in on Garifuna
cultivation land. Poor inland Mestizos seeking opportunities encroached upon
other areas. Anna’s story provides an example. Anna is a 64-year-old Mestizo
woman who was not born in Sambo Creek, but has lived in the community for as
long as she can remember. Anna and her family live on contested lands in Corinto
(i.e., ancestral cultivation land). Anna’s parents are both from the interior of the
country, and like many other poor Mestizos, they migrated to the coast in search of
a better life. They settled in the center of Sambo Creek around 1940. Like many
older women from the community, Anna never received any formal schooling, and
when she was younger, she sold fruits and bread on the banana plantations. Anna
is ill now, with undiagnosed heart problems, and no longer works. She has ﬁve
grown children; four left for La Ceiba, while one son and his family share Anna

and her husband’s plot of land. Anna’s husband cares for cattle on a local ranch.

His income is very modest, and they have few items of luxury in their home.

-145-

Anna and her husband do not have a title for their plot, and they do not have
sufﬁcient money to obtain one. However they both reported that they desired a
private title because they feared they might lose their land to Garifuna community
members. When I asked Anna how she obtained her plot she said,
I will tell the truth because I am a woman who does not like to lie. In those
times [1964] my husband and I wanted our own house. We were living in a
house in Sambo Creek that was someone else’s, not our own. So my
husband came here and cleaned this land and we stayed here. Some people
said this wasn’t our land, but there was a man named Manuel that we knew
nearby and he said it was okay for us to stay. So we did. (Author’s
translation from Spanish).
It is possible that due to the Garifuna practice of shifting agriculture, Anna, her
husband, and other poor Mestizo immigrants mistook fallow ﬁelds as unutilized,
thus transforming portions of ancestral farmland into places of residence.
In 1982, the community did succeed in recuperating some of their lost land.
They secured rights under a communal title to what is now Colonia Libertad. The
land was recovered via the National Agrarian Institute after several years of
community petitioning (petitioning began in the late 1970s). The patronato was
given authority to divide and distribute the land amongst landless community
members, and Garifuna and Mestizo residents entered a lottery to receive
individual plots. Although the land was originally envisioned to be dedicated at
least in part to cultivation, it has become primarily a residential area (see also
Anderson 2000). Today much of the land has been furthered divided and sold as
private land.

Through the various avenues detailed above (i.e., theft, intimidation, sale,

and immigration), Sambo Creek’s ancestral lands have been transformed into

-l46-

settlements and grazing pastures. These changes have demographic results.
Although my sample was not a random sample, I do believe that I sampled a fairly
close demographic representation of community composition by interviewing
every ﬁfth household. Figure 111 shows the ethnicity of the individuals I
interviewed in the household sample, revealing the scope of Mestizo encroachment

on ancestral cultivation lands.

Figure III. Ethnicity of Household Interviewees by Area

 

Household Ethnicity by Area
Sambo Creek (n=55)

Ethnrcrty of
Interviewees

 

I Garifuna
I Non-Garifuna

q, 0

Community Area

 

 

 

The comparison of ethnicity by section of the community shows that the early
settlements (Barrio Centro and La Louba) were largely Garifuna. Eighty-ﬁve
percent of the interviewees from Barrio Centro and 100% of the interviewees from
La Louba were Gariﬁrna. Areas of Sambo Creek that had historically been used
for subsistence agriculture and harvest (Corinto) are now largely Mestizo. One

hundred percent of the household interviewees in Corinto were Mestizo. Colonia

-147-

Libertad, the area donated back to the community in the 19805, appears to be
largely Garifuna (i.e., 82% of interviewees were Garifuna). Colonia Suazo, the
area with the nicest homes, appears to have grown into a more mixed-ethnicity
neighborhood (i.e., 67% of interviewees were Garifuna, while 33% were non-
Garifuna), reﬂecting that the area has been largely privatized and sold to
individuals who can afford to pay the market price.

Although it is probably accurate to state that Mestizos have taken control
of the majority of Sambo Creek’s ancestral cultivation and harvest land (i.e.,
Corinto), this does not mean that all Mestizos are recent transplants from
elsewhere. As my household sample shows, there are Mestizo families who have
ancestral roots in the community as well. Table IX depicts the birthplace and

place of socialization for all interviewees.

Table IX. Place of Birth and Socialization for Household Interviewees by
Ethnicity

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ethnicity Born and Born Outside Born and Total
Raised in but Raised in Raised Outside
Community Community of Community

Garifuna 81% (n=34) 2% (n=1) 17% (n=7) 100%

(n=42)

Mestizo 30% (n=3) 40% (n=4) 30% (n=3) 100%

(n=10)
Other 67% (n=2) 0% (n=0) 33% (n=1) 100%

(n=3)
Total (n=39) % (n=5) % (n=11) 100%

(n=55)

 

 

 

 

 

 

-148-

Of the ten Mestizo participants, three were born and raised in the
community and four were born elsewhere, but grew up in the community. Thus,
over 70% of the Mestizos I interviewed knew no other home than Sambo Creek.

I had heard plenty of stories about Mestizos robbing land, but was curious
to see how this related to the way in which the people I interviewed obtained their
land. Table X reports this data, showing the processes through which
interviewees obtained their land and the price (if any) they paid for the plot on

which they live.

-149-

Table X. How Households Obtained Their Parcel of Residence (n=55)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Land acquired Count Average Cost (in Time of Sale
through: lempiras and

dollars”)
Inheritance 18 (33%) 0 N/A
Donated (Colonia 9 (16%) 0 N/A
Libertad)
Encroachment 2 (4%) 0 N/A
Sold by Suazo to 2 (4%) L 3000 ($6000) 1982-1983
Mestizo or
Garifuna from other
communities
Sold by Suazo to 6 (11%) L 1,522 ($3044) 1978-1982
Garifuna native to
Sambo Creek
Sold by Garifuna 3 (5%) L 100 ($200) 1960-1985
(excluding Suazo)
to Gariﬁrna
Sold by Mestizos 5 (9%) L 19,375 1995-1997
(non-natives to ($140,662.50)
Sambo)
Unknown 10 (18%) 0 N/A
(includes 5 renters)
Total 55 (100%)

 

 

’2 The cost in dollars was calculated using information about changes to the ofﬁcial exchange rate

of the lempira, which was determined to be US$1=L2 since 1918. In 1990, under President

Callejas, the lempira was adjusted to US$1=L4 and in December 1993, it fell to US$1=L7.26.

Thus, for sales that took place in the 1980s, I applied the exchange rate of US$1=L2 and

US$1=L7.26 to sales that took place between 1995 and 1997. The lempira has steadily devalued
since all the sales I reported, dropping for instance from US$1=L14.839 in 2000, to US$1=L16.433

in 2002, and to US$1=L18.206 in 2004.

www.photius.com/countries/honduras/economv/honduras economv monetary and exchange~853

6.html Last accessed: January 10, 2006.

-150-

 

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The table shows that the largest number of interviewees received land
through inheritance. All eighteen respondents who lived on inherited land noted
that the land was passed matrilineally (either from their mother or from their
spouse’s mother). Moreover, all eighteen of these individuals were Garifuna.
Comparisons of the average purchase price for land reveal some interesting
patterns. First, Garifuna individuals who sold land during the same time period as
Suazo, set their prices lower than he, which suggests class distinctions within the
community. Next, Suazo sold land cheaper to Gariﬁma who were native to Sambo
Creek than he did to a Mestizo from Sarnbo Creek and a Gariﬁrna from outside the
community. In an interview with a Mestizo landowner (whose data is not included
in the household sample) I learned that Suazo sold this person a plot in Colonia
Libertad (i.e., the land recuperated in 1982) for 50,000 lempiras in 1999. These
observations support what Garifuna community members told me about Suazo’s
sales: that he “looked after the Garifuna community” by buying their ancestral
lands back from the Mestizo who claimed them and then selling it back to the
Garifuna community at a low cost. Finally, we see that Mestizos ﬁom outside of
the community are the only people who sold land in the last decade to the people I
interviewed. In addition to regular market growth, land prices were also affected

in the 19805 and 1990s by the devaluation of the lempira.

6.2 Women’s Land Loss
It is important to consider the intersection of gender and landholding as we
think about the community’s land shortage and trend towards privatization. The

reader should recall from chapter two that traditional Garifuna land tenure is

-151-

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communal landholding with individual families passing use rights to future

generations. Moreover, Garifuna communities are generally matrifocal and

matrilineal. The matrifocality of Sambo Creek is revealed through homeownership

data (see Table XI).

Table XI. Homeownership by Gender and Ethnicity for Household Sample

(n=55)

 

Question: “Who is the owner of this house?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Respondent Home Owner Living with Renting N/A
Ethnicity Relative

Female Male Joint Female Male Female Male Total
Garifuna 15 7 * 4 10 0 3 0 3 42
Non— 2 4 4 O 1 0 0 2 13
Garifuna]
Mixed
Ancestﬂ'
Total 17 11 8 10 1 3 0 5 55
Total Female Homeowners = 55% Total Male Homeowners = 22% (n=12 of 55)
(n=30 of 55)
93% (n=28 of 30) 7% (n=2 of 30) 58% (n=7) Garifuna Male 42% (n=5)
Garifuna Female non-Garifuna Homeowners Non-Garifuna
Homeowners Female Male

Homeowners Homeowners

 

* Three of the men who were reported as homeowners bought their homes from women, two lived
on donated land (Colonia Libertad), and two others bought their land from Suazo and Fernandez.

As Table XI shows, women (in particular, Garifuna women) were reported

more often than men to be homeowners. Female homeownership among Garifuna

is further supported by the fact that three of the Garifuna men who reported

themselves as homeowners said that they bought their homes from women.

In addition to direct questions about home ownership, I also coded the

interview data to reveal patterns of matrilineality to see if the land people lived on

was inherited through the maternal line. Of the twenty-six Garifuna female

interviewees, ﬁfteen (58%) reported living on land they inherited matrilineally.

-152-

 

Five women reported living on donated land in Colonia Libertad and three women
who lived in Colonia Suazo said they purchased the land on which they live
through remittances. All of the women who lived on donated or purchased land
reported living in the homes of female relatives before obtaining their own plot.
These ﬁgures further demonstrate the matrilineal patterns. However, time will tell
if the trend towards privatization of land will lead to a decline in matrilineal

inheritance and female homeownership.

6.3 Privatizing Cultivation Land
Like the land on which Garifuna families live, the community’s ancestral
cultivation land was held communally with use rights typically passed through the
matrilineal line. It is therefore Garifuna women who have lost their resources
through usurpation and privatization. Every Gariﬁina individual I interviewed
reported accompanying their mother and/or grandmother to the mountain or
Corinto area to tend to or harvest crops and fruits. While it is true that men also
participated and continue to participate in agriculture, female ancestors were
mentioned most often in stories of land loss. Seventy-four percent of my
interviews contained statements like the following.
I remember very well going to the mountain with my grandmother. We’d
go early, while it was still dark. We would cross the road and go through
the woods to get to our plot. One day we got there and a man was there
saying that it was his. He said that Valentin sold it to him for 70 lempsl. I
was so mad, but I couldn’t do anything because I was little. And my mom
didn’t do anything and neither did my aunt. I was so angry! For 70
lempiras! (25-year-old Garifuna woman; author’s translation from

Spanish)

My grandma said that all that is here. . .all of these haciendas and where the
hotels are now. . .it was all cassava. My grandmother planted yuca there

-153-

during her lifetime. But people came and threatened them, telling them

that they had to leave or sell. . .they were scared and didn't know how to

defend themselves... (Garifuna woman age 32; author’s translation from

Spanish)

After listening to such comments, I followed with direct queries for concrete
examples of stolen lands. This 46-year-old Garifuna woman provided an example:

When I was a girl, we worked the land with my mother. This was a long

time ago. We would get up at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning and go to the

other side of the road to collect the cassava, plantains, guineo. . .When I

was around 39, I stopped planting. We had to stop because people moved

in on the land and robbed us of the land. Sampson, for example. He was a

teacher here in our school. [Therefore] we trusted him. He went around to

all the parents of the school and collected our signatures, about 500 or so,
asking us all for ten lempiras so that we could get [potable] water. We all
agreed and we trusted him. But he ended up stealing the land from the
people (author’s translation from Spanish).

The story of Mr. Foraneos Caso Sampson tricking the community by
alleging that community members were signing a petition to bring in external aid
for local development projects was well known. Most of those whom I
interviewed recalled this petition, saying Sampson went around to the mothers of
school-age children, claiming that he would bring potable water to the community.
Later, Sampson returned with documentation citing his ownership over a
signiﬁcant track of land in Corinto. This land is now private. The case of
Sampson having obtained land through irregular processes, unlike the following,
has yet to be taken up in court.

In 2002, at the time of my research, the most contentious conﬂict was over
the lands of Castillo, a politically connected Mestizo who had illegally extended
his holdings with private gates and hired a watchman to guard the land.

Community members were prohibited from crossing the land to access the sea or

-154-

river. Many stories circulated in the community regarding how Castillo obtained
the land. Abuse of power and authority, exploitation of Garifuna poverty, and
racial discrimination were central themes in these stories. Marta, a 35-year old
Garifuna woman had heard the story from her grandmother:
In the land of Castillo there was a Garifuna woman that was the original
owner of this land. A neighbor’s pig came into her lands and was
destroying the land, eating her yuca. She hit the pig, but then the neighbor
got mad at her and she became ﬁightened, and ended up abandoning her
lands out of fear. Afterwards, this neighbor took the woman’s lands and
passed the land it to their kids and then to their grandkids. Eventually the
land was lost (author’s translation from Spanish).
Notice that the original owner was cited to be a woman. Women were the
central victims even in stories told by men. The following is an example.
Consesa Buity was the original owner. She did not have any money, and
she did not sell the lands. What happened was that her husband died and
she didn’t have money to pay for his cofﬁn. At that time a cofﬁn cost 7.50
lempiras. Miguel Femandez bought the cofﬁn on loan for her land. But
then Consesa died and her daughter was afraid of Fernandez, so she did not
recuperate the lands. So after time Fernandez sold the land to Castillo,
about 25 years ago. Flores was a lawyer and so he worked on the papers to
do this process (author’s translation from Spanish).
Stories such as these circulated among the community as to how Fernandez and
then later Castillo came to own the land in Corinto. According to a report from the
CCARC (2002), the land passed ﬁrst to Suazo, the local storeowner and
moneylender who later sold it to Fernandez.
The above stories and the accounts of Suazo’s land ownership and
subsequent sales to outsiders reveal that what is taking place in Sambo Creek is
more complicated than Mestizos exploiting Garifuna through physical threat and

political sway. Although it is true that much of the community’s ancestral lands

are now in the hands of Mestizos and foreigners, Suazo, a Garifuna man,

~155-

facilitated some of this transition. Stories of land loss center around women
because land loss, whether to a Mestizo or to another Garifuna (like Felipe Suazo)
is a process by which women have lost resources to men. For this reason, I believe
women’s stories should be made more central in the Garifuna struggle to
recuperate land.

Although Garifuna women are documented throughout ethnographic
writing as being more ‘powerful’ than Mestizo women, as their culture’s migratory
pattern creates spaces for women to ﬁll important local leadership positions
(Gonzalez 1988), the migratory pattern also leaves many women powerless.
Women are left behind in large numbers to care for children while men travel for
wage labor. For women who do not have partners working elsewhere who send
back remittances, their most valued resource is their land. When a woman is faced
with dire situations, like the need to buy her child food, shoes, school supplies, or
medical attention, she will trade her only resource, land. Moreover, as women see

land prices skyrocketing (by local standards), some sell their plots for quick cash.

6.3.1 Communal title, private lands

On August 27, 1997, Sambo Creek received a communal title of domino
pleno (the highest level of land ownership) for 184.23 hectares. Previously, the
only other title issued to the community was a title of occupation that protected
just 41 hectares, issued by the INA in 1979. ODECO, who assisted in processing
the legal paperwork for the 1997 title, worked for this 1997 title to protect Sambo
Creek’s residents from the potential threat of outsiders purchasing their untitled

land for investment projects. ODECO leadership frequently reiterated the fact that

-156-

before this 1997 title was issued all land in the community was not legally
protected. However, the residents of Sambo Creek have issued serious complaints
over the limits established by the title. Their disapproval of the title has led the
community Patronato and the Committee for Defense of the Land to issue a
statement to the INA indicating that ODECO should henceforth not be granted the
authority to represent Sambo Creek in any further land issues.

Like most of the titles granted to Garifuna communities, the 1997 land title
did not include ancestral territory, which is estimated to extend beyond 1000
hectares, nearly t_e_n times as much as what was granted in 1997 (CCARC 2002).
Some areas of the community that have been occupied for well over a century and
perhaps even since the community’s foundation (e. g., La Louba or el otro lado or
“over there”) was completely left out of the title. About ﬁfty Garifuna
descendants in nine houses live in La Louba, all descendant from an 86-year-old
Garifuna woman who inherited the land from her mother and now holds a private
title. The families that live in this area reported to me that the municipality of
J utiapa is now asking them to pay taxes (whereas in the past they were considered
part of Sambo Creek and under the jurisdiction of La Ceiba’s municipality).

While traditional landholding in Sambo Creek is communal with the
Patronato having the ultimate authority regarding its distribution and use rights,
and many of the Garifuna I interviewed stated they preferred communal holding
and use rights, the rules of communal holding only apply to land that was not

previously privately titled. Unfortunately, much of the land had already been

-157-

privatized prior to 1997. My household interviews provide evidence (see Tables

XII and XHI).

Table XII. Type of Parcel for Residence

 

 

 

 

 

 

Question: “Is your plot private or

communal land?”

Responses Percent
Private 71% (n=39)
Communal 16% (n=9)
N/A (information not available or not 13% (n=7)
applicable because the respondents were

renters)

Total 100% (n=55)

 

 

 

 

Table XIII. Privatized Residence Plots

 

Question: “Do you have a title for the land?” If
yes, what type of title? If no, do you have any
documentation that the land is yours? What

 

 

 

kind of document?

Responses Percent
Yes. Private title 42% (n=23)
Have letter of sale. 32% (n=18)

 

Have paperwork conﬁrming the plot is theirs. 13% (n=7)

 

 

 

 

 

N/A (information not available or not 13% (n=7)
applicable because the respondents were

renters)

Total 100% (n=55)

 

-158-

These tables demonstrate the trend towards land privatization. The
majority (75%) of interviewees reported living on private land, including people
who lived in Colonia Libertad (i.e., the donated area of the community), and
people who obtained land through encroachment. Many people have already gone
through the legal process to obtain a private title, or have begun the process. For
those who had not, many stated that they preferred to have a private title to their
land than to have it held under a communal title. When asked why, I was almost
always told “because private titles are more secure” and “no one can take your
land if you have a title.” One Mestizo respondent reported that the reason he got a
private title was “because the negritos wanted to take our land.” The two Mestizos
who reported obtaining land through encroachment desired a private title, fearing
that under the current land struggle they might lose their land to Garifuna
residents.

I have demonstrated the processes through which some of Sambo Creek’s
ancestral cultivation lands have been transformed into neighborhoods, and other
areas were taken over by wealthy Mestizos. Some have placed cattle on the land,
while others are simply holding it. The population continues to grow, and 56.3%
of the local population is under 18 years of age (Scheerer 2005). There is no
available land for these children to build their future homes. During the time of
my research, a local movement, headed by the Committee for Defense of the Land
began to educate community members about the limitations of the community land

title, problems with privatization, and the struggle to reclaim ancestral lands.

-159-

6.4 Sambo Creek’s Struggle to Recuperate Ancestral Lands

In June 2001, Luis Fernandez (known locally as “Rasta”), a young,
charismatic man who had spent the last 13 years of his life in Belize, returned to
his natal community of Sambo Creek and organized the el Comite Pro-Defensa de
la T ierra (the Land Defense Committee) to head an effort to recover the
community’s ancestral territory. Based on their ancestral right, the group began a
series of land invasions on what they believed were irregularly or illegally
obtained and unutilized private land. Several small-scale invasions occurred in
August 2001. None resulted in reclaimed land, because either the landowner
produced a title or another community member testiﬁed to the group on behalf of
the “foreign” landowner.

The largest and most serious case was that of Miguel Castillo. In mid-
August 2001, community members invaded his land, constructing approximately
eighty temporary dwellings in an effort to reclaim the land. Others soon joined the
group, and according to a CCARC (2002) report, nearly the entire community,
including women and children, turned out to protest on the land.33 At the
demonstration, the group burned the national ﬂag, symbolizing the territorial right
of the Garifuna to the land. Castillo’s watchman notiﬁed the owner and in less

than 24 hours (on the weekend) a judge heard the case and ruled for an arrest of

 

3’ A report by the Central American and Caribbean Research Council states that nearly 5,000
people were present at the protest. This would be nearly all of the population of Sambo Creek,
including people living abroad. My interviews with those present at the demonstration reported far
fewer, perhaps a couple hundred, which is still a substantial turnout.

-l60-

the demonstration leaders.“ The police used tear gas and force to pacify the
group, arresting and detaining seven members of the community (six men and one
woman). Several people were injured and one pregnant woman lost her baby as a
result of police force. The detained community members called upon both
ODECO and OFRANEH to aid in their defense. Community members reported to
me that OFRANEH responded positively to their call. Drawing on an existing
accord between the Supreme Court of Justice and the indigenous and Afro-
Honduran populations which states that no indigenous or Garifuna person can be
detained for land conﬂicts, OFRANEH was able to assist the community members
in gaining their freedom.35 The seven detained community members were released
from prison within 24 hours. Yet the charges of usurpation remained against Rasta
and OFRANEH continued their involvement in the case.

With OFRANEH’s help, the community began the official judicial process
to contest the lands held by Castillo, asking that he remove the private gates so that
community members could pass through to the river and the sea. On August 17,
2001, the INA signed a compromise with Sambo Creek to work under the law to
solve the problem. On August 20, 2001, the INA obtained Castillo’s public note
of sale and copies of the property register’s inscriptions for his parcels. A
representative from the INA then came to the community to measure Castillo’s

landholdings and determined that he had indeed gated off 8.89 more manzanas

 

3’ That the judge ruled at this time signaled that the he was a friend of Castillo. Moreover, the
details of this event were delayed from the news — and the judge was in fact a major shareholder in
the news media (personal communication with local activist).

“’5 La Confederacio'n de pueblos auto'conos de Honduras (CONPAH) is credited for the
establishment of this accord with the government.

-l6l-

than were registered to him. OFRANEH continued to provide legal assistance as
the issue was brought to court, a process that was complicated by the fact that all
of those involved as alleged past owners of the land (i.e., Castillo, Suazo, and
Fernandez) had died within the same year (2001).36 The following chronology
was developed by OFRANEH in preparation for the court hearing.

Chronology of the Garifuna Community’s Right to Land in Sambo
Creek, La Ceiba, Atlantida.

From immemorial times, the Garifuna community has been based
in the land that they justly claim as their ancestral territory.
Currently, the community is faced with overcrowding due to the
growth of its population.

1. The INA extended a title on August 27, 1997 for 184.23
hectares, a large part of which is occupied by people who are not
from the community.

2. In 2001, the community solicited amplicacio'n and saneamiento
for its territory.

3. The lawyer Miguel Angel Castillo Cruz held land adjoining the
Garifuna community; currently his heirs hold this land.

4. In accordance with Castillo’s original titles, he acquired two
plots located in Sarnbo Creek. One was for 8.53 manzanas (Asiento
No. 52 Tomo 170), and the other for 32.25 manzanas (Asiento No.
7, Tomo 67). Castillo later combined the two plots into one.

5. Castillo, who died in 2001, acquired a third plot; which
according to the original title was for 12 manzanas. This plot was
sold to his wife for 20,000 lempiras (Asiento 86 Tomo 356), and
now his heir, Rosa Elvira Licona Manduj ano de Castillo, holds it.

It should be noted that this plot had been acquired in 1987 from Mr.
Enrique Augusto Miranda Navas for 425 lempiras. (Asiento 99
Tomo CXLIV).

 

’6 All three died of natural causes. A friend of the three deceased argued that their symptoms were
brought on by stress over the land conﬂict, and Rasta told me that he had been outright blamed for
Femandez’s heart attack.

-162-

6. Sambo Creek is claiming their ancestral right to the plots that
they once possessed but are now held by Castillo’s heirs. In La
Ceiba’s regional INA ofﬁce, proof exists of the actions against the
community that Castillo took during his life; he made two changes
to the Property Register to extend the combined plots described in
number 5, changing it from 40.25 to 50 manzanas, and then in the
city courts he extended a third plot from 12 to 13.34 manzanas.
(The deed in the Property Register is Asiento 72 Tomo 831, dated
September 6, 2001 and authorized by the notary public Alberto
Reconco Venegas). The registration of both extensions were after
the community’s solicitation to the INA and a criminal act
committed by Castillo, who then brought charges against free
members of the community in La Ceiba’s courts and detained
them...

7. ILO 169, regarding the rights of indigenous peoples, is a law
that Honduras has signed and ratiﬁed. It established the obligation
of the state to recognize the rights to land occupied and ancestral
property — territories. . .the state is obligated to create measures for
the protection of the forests and lands where indigenous people are
situated.

8. We denounce the unjust legal force used by Castillo’s heiress
and the actions of the public prosecutor from the Ministry, both of
whom have attempted to silence the Garifuna movement in
recovering its right to their ancestral land.

As expressed in the above lines, Sambo Creek has turned to the
INA, as the national institute with total mandate delegated by the
state and constitution on all matters of land, agrarian reform,
protection of the territories and forests of indigenous communities,
and assuring the political and social justice in all land matters.

The Garifuna of Sambo Creek are backed by Article 18 of the
Agrarian Reform: “The National Agrarian Institute will review the
land ﬁles, in order to recuperate land which has been possessed in
excess of what belongs to the individual, according to the original
title; the interested party loses the right to improvements made to
the land.” It is noted that surplus is that which is not recorded in
the Property Register, as in the present case... (Author’s translation
from Spanish).

-163-

As this chronology demonstrates, the investigation found that the public
prosecutor falsiﬁed documents on behalf of the Castillo family, registering a deed
to a third plot of land in September 2001, three months after the land invasion, and
one month after the INA measured the land. The chronology cites ILO 169 as
afﬁrming the right of the Garifuna, as indigenous peoples, to reclaim the land
expropriated by Castillo. The statement denounces corruption in the courts, and
calls upon the state to work within the law and collaborate with the INA to
properly research property transactions.

On November 7, 2002, OFRANEH issued the following press release in
which they condemned the national authorities and announced their plan to ﬁle an
international grievance with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
(IACHR) for the State’s failure to protect the rights of the Garifuna as indigenous
peoples.

PUBLIC STATEMENT

OFRANEH addresses the following to national and international

means of communication, government institutions, Garifuna

communities, the Attorney General for the Republic, the Supreme

Court, and Honduran community in general:

The Garifuna community in Sambo Creek, La Ceiba, Atlantida,

lives in an emergency situation as a result of the peaceful

occupation carried out by the community on the a part of the land

expropriated by the Castillo family. La Ceiba’s public Prosecutor,

Heriberto Martinez, knew of the situation but decided to split both

plots on November 7, as a supposed mediation in the case.

However, upon arrival in the ofﬁces of the Public Ministry, Mr.

Heriberto Martinez, in clear bias of the Castillo family, required the

community to evacuate the 12 manzanas that they had come to

peacefully occupy, corresponding to their right, claiming that the
land of the Castillo family and that this fact was properly

-164-

documented, without having carried out an in-depth study to enable
him to emit this Opinion on the case.

Although the Public Ministry is an institution that can play a role in
mediation and problem-solving, we believe that by no means
should it emit reports in an irresponsible form that will do nothing
more than conﬂict the situation.

We call on the Attorney General of the Republic and the
supervision of prosecutors, to immediately dismiss La Ceiba’s
public prosecutor, Heriberto Martinez, for demonstrating an open
violation of the Public Ministry’s duties.

Due to the lack of will demonstrated by Honduran justice in
assuring that the collective and ancestral rights of the Garifuna
people are protected, we are obligated at this moment to ﬁle a
grievance with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
(IACHR).

We reiterate our support for the actions taken by the Garifuna
community of Sambo Creek, convinced that it is a just ﬁght. At the
same time, we require that the authorities are competent and assure
the physical and mental integrity of our community leaders and the
community of Sambo Creek.

La Ceiba, Atlantida, November 7, 2002.

WE SUPPORT THE GARIFUNA COMMUNITY OF SAMBO
CREEK’S FIGHT TO RECUPERATE THEIR COLLECTIVE
AND ANCESTRAL RIGHTS! (Author’s translation from
Spanish).

Sambo Creek’s Patronato and land defense committee also issued a

statement on November 7, 2002, which read as follows.

PUBLIC COMMUNICATION

The Garifuna community of Sambo Creek, communicates the
following to national and international government institutions,
civil society, national and international human rights organizations,
Gariﬁrna communities, and the Honduran people in general:

In these moments, our community remains in the ﬁght to reclaim
our land and territory, as it is our ancestral right.

-l65-

We had demanded a solution ﬁ'om the INA to resolve the serious
overcrowding that our community lives in; but we had yet to see
even a glimpse of a solution to our problem.

Given this situation, our community decided to peacefully occupy
12 manzanas that had been expropriated by the Castillo family.

We reiterate that our character is peaceful, however we also reached
a decision to ﬁght for our objectives, which is the ﬁght for our
ancestral rights.

We denounce the harassment and persecution of our leaders that
was committed with the intention of causing us to abandon our
ﬁght; we hold the Castillo family accountable for any physical and
mental pain that our community suffers.

Finally, we are making a call of solidarity to all Gariftma
communities to support our ﬁght.

Issued in the community of Sambo Creek on November 7, 2002
(Author’s translation from Spanish).

Alfredo Lopez Luis Fernandez

President of Patronato President of Land
Defense Committee

While there are similarities in the statements issued, which is due to the

close working relationship between Sambo Creek’s Garifuna leadership and

OF RANEH, there are also some telling differences. OFRANEH is more skilled at

evoking international and national laws that protect Garifuna rights — as

indigenous peoples - and in identifying the proper international legal bodies (i.e.,

IACHR) that they can turn to when the state fails to protect their rights. Like the

organizational statements reviewed in chapter ﬁve, this statement is an example of

place-making through indigenous rights discourses in that they call attention to

indigenous peoples’ right to communally held land. Sambo Creek’s statement, on

the other hand, evokes their historical presence in the community, the problems

-l66-

they are experiencing due to Mestizo encroachment, and the peaceful nature of the
Garifuna, which in some respect led to the land shortage. Sambo Creek’s original
residents abandoned their plots under circumstances where they feared Mestizo
repercussions. In Sambo Creek’s press release, the peaceﬁrlness of the Garifuna
activists who occupied Castillo’s land is juxtaposed with the forceful nature of the
Castillo family, revealing a common distinction drawn between Garifuna and
Mestizos.

Despite the INA’s declaration that Castillo had illegally gated off 8.89
manzanas of community land, the Honduran court still ruled in favor of Castillo’s
heirs and Rasta continued to face charges of usurpation. OFRANEH broadened
their mobilization efforts, ﬁling a grievance with the IACHR and issuing press
releases to international audiences. The following is a sample of the types of
statements that were posted on various transnational virtual networks and
distributed through a variety of email list serves

(http://gari ﬁrnawebcom/ofraneh/ofrapehl 1-21-02.htm).

PRESS RELEASE, Sambo Creek, November 21, 2002

The Honduran Black Fraternal Organization, OFRANEH,
denounces the arbitrary and racist opinion issued by the Court of
Justice of the Honduran State on November 13, to evict our
Garifuna brothers of Sarnbo Creek, the ones that had recovered land
usurped by the heirs of the lawyer Miguel Angel Castillo.

The speed with which the Court acted shows the clear bias of the
Public Ministry, and the racist and corrupt nature of the members of
the judicial apparatus, which ruled to evict without listening to the
arguments that were presented by members of Patronato of the
community and their Land Defense Committee, and without
consulting the INA, the authority in land matters.

-l67-

The problem of land tenure in the community of Sambo Creek is
one of the most pressing in the north coast, since the lack of space
to construct dwellings has created overcrowding of an urban
character, eliminating any possibility of enlargement to the
community, and condemning several generations to share one
ceiling.

The community of Sambo Creek has a dramatic history with loss of
its ancestral territory, ﬁrst to the company banana plantation called
“the Swiss Holding,” and when it abandoned the zone, Mr.
Lorencio F emandez, chief of police of La Ceiba took possession of
part of it as well as took over the functional habitat of the Garifuna
community. In the case of the Castillo family, they acquired 40
manzanas of land, which mysteriously became 50 manzanas, a fact
veriﬁed in the registration of the property and in the ﬁles of the
INA.

Unfortunately those who are responsible for justice have opted to
disregard the facts, obstructing the rights and harassing the
Garifuna population for the purpose of promoting a feudal vision
where the rule of law is linked to the economic prerogatives of the
dominant elite in the north coast (author’s translation).

We require that La Ceiba’s Public Ministry and Court of Law
immediately adhere to the rule of law and take up the case again,
since we see we are now obliged to not only denounce the abuse
performed in the community, but also we will begin an international
accusation on the farce that has been performed with the issuance of
communal titles to Garifuna communities, which in most cases, do
not provide any more land to the communities and actually serve to
do legal harm to them.

It is ironic that when the executive power is trying to sell its master
project of housing development, housing is the problem the
community is trying solve, and one of the most serious deﬁciencies
in Honduras (author’s translation from Spanish).

Issued in the city of La Ceiba, November 22, 2002.

OF RANEH’s international activism on behalf of Sarnbo Creek set into
action a series of events. On June 23, 2003, Rosa Elvira Licona Manduj ano,

Castillo’s heir, dropped her charges against Rasta and signed an act of conciliation

-168-

with the Patronato of Sambo Creek. And in August 2003, the INA issued a ﬁnal
title deed to the community, marking a historical moment in Garifuna
mobilization. IACHR issued a press release recognizing the Honduran state’s
action to settle the claim.

IACHR PLEASED AT PRESENTATION OF TITLE DEED

TO GARIFUNA COMMUNITY IN HONDURAS

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is pleased at the delivery to the
Sambo Creek Garifuna Community, by the Government of Honduras, of a ﬁnal
title deed for a portion of its ancestral lands.
The Government of Honduras acquired the property claimed by the Sambo Creek
Garifuna Community through the National Agrarian Institute (Instituto Nacional
Agrario, or INA) and then transferred it to the community.
The IACHR recognizes the action taken by the Government of Honduras to settle
the claim presented to it by the Organizacion Negra Fraternal Hondureﬁa, or
OFRANEH (Honduran Black Fraternal Organization), on behalf of the Sambo
Creek Garifuna Community.

Washington, DC, August 14, 2003

This is an example of Garifuna activism functioning at multiple levels,
from the local land invasion, to OFRANEH’s national legal assistance, to
international activism and human rights courts. Without the crosscutting nature of
contemporary mobilization — where indigenous groups can take unjust national
rulings to international audiences - such a success would not likely have occurred.
While the IACHR press release did not mention Garifuna indigeneity,
OFRANEH’s mobilization efforts on behalf of Sambo Creek were based on the
Garifuna right to territory as indigenous peoples and their grievance was ﬁled

based upon that right.

-l69-

6.5 Changing Livelihoods

Today, very few families cultivate the land in Sambo Creek. In addition to
the land shortage, the increasing remittance economy and youth interests have also

contributed to the decline in agriculture. Contemporary labor choices are reﬂected

Table XIV, which details the primary occupations reported by Gariﬁina

interviewees.

Table XIV. Contemporary Occupations for Household Sample in Sambo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Creek

Reported Primary Occupation # Women # Men Total
Agriculture 1 1
Fishing 1 1
Vending / craft production 1 1 2
Small business owner 1 1 2
Domestic labor in La Ceiba 4 4
Hotel staff 2 1 3
Religious work 1 1
Construction / Metalworking 2 2
Seamstress l 1
University student 1 l
Homemaker 13 13
None / Reliant on remittances 2 4 6
Retired 5 5
Total 26 16 42

 

 

 

 

 

-l70-

 

The table indicates that very few people work in “traditional” economic
activities, such as ﬁshing, agriculture, vending, or craft production. Those
engaged in traditional labor were all older than age 50, with the exception of one
young man involved in craft production. Only one woman mentioned agriculture
as her primary occupation, and she noted that she cultivated for supplemental
subsistence, not income. I did follow questions about current occupations with
direct questions about whether or not members of the household cultivated yuca.
While some households had banana, plantain, coconut, and other fruit trees on
their land, only two of the households I spoke to reported having an additional plot
of land where they grew cassava. Younger men and women reported work as wage
laborers, small business owners, or they were reliant on remittances. Table XV
reports past occupations for the thirty-two Garifuna individuals old enough to have

changed jobs or have spouses who changed jobs.

-l71-

Table XV. Past Occupations for Household Sample in Sambo Creek

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reported Past Occupation for Self and # Women # Men
Spouse

Plantation work for Standard Fruit 6
Vending traditional food products (on 9 1
plantations or La Ceiba)

Work on cruise ship 4
Domestic labor in La Ceiba 2

Local ﬁshing 2
Commercial ﬁshing boat 2
Construction 4
Wage labor in Tegucigalpa or San Pedro Sula 2 3
Nursing 1 1
Total 14 23

 

 

 

 

 

The transition in livelihood strategies is clear. Before the 1950s, many
residents were engaged in the banana industry as plantation workers or vendors.
As bananas declined, the search for work began to take people out of the
community. Men sought employment on cruise ships and commercial ﬁshing
boats or migrated to Honduras’ larger cities to work as wage laborers, while
women typically stayed in the area (although in recent decades many young
women migrate as well). The trend of men leaving the community continues, with
73% of the Garifuna women (19 of 26) I interviewed without a male spouse or

partner in their homes. Two of the nineteen women reported that their partners

-l72-

lived with them when they were in the country. Of the seven who had men in their
homes, three noted that they became permanent residents in the house only upon
retirement from cruise ships.

Notably, not one person reported agriculture as a past occupation.
However, when asked directly if they ever participated in agriculture, all forty-two
of the Garifuna interviewees responded that they did. All respondents (men and
women) further noted that they cultivated with their female relatives (mothers or
grandmothers). Table XVI details the reasons people in the household interviews

believed there was a decline in agriculture.

-l73-

Table XVI. Household Interviewee Reasons for Decline in Agriculture

 

Question: Why do people in the community no longer plant crops? (n=55)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Response # Garifuna # Non-Garifuna Total
Land was stolen / 31 1 32
lost to immigrants

Youth are not interested 6 3 9
People sold the land 5 3 8
Crop theft / Animals 7 1 8
killed crops

People do not need to 3 4 7

because they receive
remittances from the US

 

 

Lack of water (not lack 0 2 2
of land)

Total Reasons 52 14 66*
Mentioned

 

 

 

 

 

 

* The total is greater than the sample size because some individuals mentioned more than one
reason for the decline in agriculture.

Garifuna interviewees cited the loss of their ancestral land as the primary
reason for the decline in agriculture. Non-Garifuna offered different reasons for
the decline, including lack of water and the growing remittance economy. Both
Garifuna and non-Garifuna recognized that contemporary youth are not interested
in agriculture. Despite the near disappearance of agriculture in Sambo Creek, the
majority of Garifuna individuals (69%) that I surveyed said they would plant crops

if sufﬁcient land were made available (see Figure IV).

-174-

Figure IV. Garifuna Interest in Future Cultivation

 

Would you plant crops if there was more
land? (n=42)

 

I Yes
I No
D Don't know

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the organizational level, the Garifuna struggle to reclaim ancestral
territories is often articulated in a way that highlights cultural traditions such as
ﬁshing or agriculture. Yet fewer and fewer young people are engaging in these
activities. Only a handful of the young women I knew in Sambo Creek made
cassava bread; they may have helped their mothers when they were young, but
today they are more interested in wage labor and education. The following excerpt
is from a tape-recorded interview with a 19-year-old youth activist who was
studying in La Ceiba. I followed this young man’s political grth over three
years (from the summer of 2000 until November of 2002), watching him go from a
strong OFRANEH afﬁliation to an ODECO-supporter. We were talking about his
hometown community, which is near Trujillo, and the shifts in the number of
people who devote their time to agriculture. He told me that his grandmother and
mother still planted, but that few others were doing it today. Victor’s comments

are illustrative of many Garifuna youth, including those who live in Sambo Creek.

-175-

Keri:

Victor:

Keri:

Victor:

Keri:

Victor:

Keri:

Victor:

Keri:

Victor:

Keri:

Victor:

Keri:

Victor:

Do the youth in XXX [his hometown] still plant?

The youth don’t want to plant. For example, me, I go to
XXX and I will be a community leader. I don’t want to go
to XXX to work the land. I want an ofﬁce. I want a
computer. And there are many more youth like me.

And in your experience with ODECO, they think that the
youth want to plant?

They know that the youth don’t want to plant.

Then what is the alternative in the eyes of ODECO?
For ODECO? Supposedly to motivate the youth.

To plant?

To have projects to motivate them to plant.

And ﬁsh?

And ﬁsh. We were talking in this past meeting last year
about projects to do this year. I said, ‘I don’t think I will go
to my community to plant. I think I will go to work with
my community. But not in the mountain! I think I will go to
create businesses.’

And is OFRANEH the same? Do they want to motivate the
youth to plant?

OFRANEH in this moment looks to develop projects for
adults, so that they can have crops.

Why do you think the organizations focus on motivating
people in this way — in cultivation and in ﬁshing and not in
other types of jobs?

...Because they always think in traditions and not in reality.
Because the reality is we do not want this. We in the
communities need more practical things and we [the youth]
are going to ﬁght so that they [the organizations] are in
agreement with the demands and the necessities of the
population. Why do they ﬁght for the lands? I am going to
ﬁght for what is mine, yes - to have what is mine, and to be
able to negotiate it. But I am not going to ﬁght for things

-l76-

that I am not going to occupy... These things [ﬁshing and
agriculture] are not what the priorities are now. These are
what were years ago, when the majority of Garifuna
communities were like this. Agriculture and ﬁshing. But
today is a different reality. Our reality is to have a better
education. Our reality is a new technology. . ..

Later on, we began to talk about the land struggle and the beneﬁts of communal

versus private land.

Victor:

Keri:

Victor:

Keri :

Victor:

Keri:

Victor:

Keri:

Victor:

Ah, Keri. It’s very interesting to talk about land tenure. In
these times it is very difﬁcult for a variety of reasons. We
Garifuna are ﬁghting for the land, and it looks good to me,
and we have the right to recuperate them. But what
happened? Now we don’t want to work the Garifuna land.
I proposed in a meeting with Celeo Alvarez, with ODECO,
that the Garifuna land should be sold to investors for
business, to people that would invest in the community.

And what was the reaction?

Of Celeo? He nearly died. He answered me very strongly,
very angrily. He said, ‘how could we trust the lands to
unknown people in these departments?!’[states of
Honduras]. But we don’t work the lands!

Your proposal was to sell to investors?

Not to sell, but to negotiate.

To people from outside or from within the country?

To whoever invests ﬁrst. But he doesn’t want this.

Why do you think that is?

I don’t know. It would be good to ﬁnd out. We have this
problem. We lack education. Why? Because the people in
Garifuna communities do not have access to a high school.
Why? Because we do not have money. Infrastructure. Bad
infrastructure. . .I am going to talk speciﬁcally about my
pueblo — Trujillo. Now we have a North American

company that wants to bring a project, called ‘Ciudad
F lotante.’ It’s a ﬂoating city.

-l77-

Keri: Yes, I’ve heard of it.

Victor: Oh you have? Okay, good. So, they want to invest, but it
seems they also want to use a part of the communal land to
have access to it. They asked to use the land that belongs to
the community and the community said they want it, but
ODECO is against it...Why don’t they negotiate? You put
in the capital; I’ll put up the land. And of the earnings,
we’ll get this percentage. Don’t you think this is the most
logical?

Just as communities are divided in their support for Garifuna organizations,
they are also divided in their opinions on development and land use. I wish to
compare Victor’s comments to Dilcia, a 25-year-old woman from Sambo Creek
who was studying engineering in Tegucigalpa. While she also told me that she
represented the majority of youth in her community in that she has no interest in
agriculture, she had very different opinions on land investment and development
initiatives.

Dilcia told me about a visit from World Bank representatives in which she
described them as trying to “sell” the community on the privatization of social
services (schools, water, health services, etc.). lDilica said the representatives
promised the arrival of maquilas that would pay workers forty cents an hour. She
recalled the World Bank representatives saying they were supportive of the
Garifuna land struggle and wanted to assist them to resolve the land claims and
administer land titles. When I asked her opinion of the meeting, she told me that

she thought the real reason the World Bank wanted to help with the land struggle

was because they wanted to “take over” the community’s land, privatizing it in

-l78-

order to facilitate the entrance of maquilas, not because they wanted to aid the
community in gaining autonomy over their territories.

Dilica said she believed the World Bank was trying to “trick” the people of
Sambo Creek into supporting World Bank programs and the PPP, and they were
using the residents’ lack of education and desperate need for employment against
them. She feared the privatization of community services, saying “How can we
pay for schools and water, if we are making just 40 cents an hour? Our kids will
not be able to get an education!”

The public communications issued by Sambo Creek’s Patronato and Land
Defense Committee show us that what is most important in communities like
Sambo Creek is the ability of the youth to have a place to call home, where they
can choose the type of livelihood strategy that they ﬁnd most suitable to their
needs. And in fact, that is what Sambo Creek’s land struggle is really about.
Despite the fact that the majority of interviewees claimed that people would plant
crops if there were more land, this was not how people planned to use the land
they recuperated. Table XVII shows how the interviewees thought the recuperated

land would be used.

-l79-

Table XVII. Plans for Recuperated Land

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Question: “If the community is successful in recuperating Castillo’s land,
how will it be used?”

Response # Responses
To build homes for children of the community 50

To build homes and plant crops 5

To build homes and community infrastructure 4

Don’t know 8

Total 67*

 

 

 

 

*Responses total 67 because this was a question I also asked in interviews with local hotel staff and
activists (i.e., beyond the household sample of 55).

Only ﬁve people noted that the area would be used to plant crops, but all of
these people mentioned that agricultural areas would be combined with housing.
From what residents told me, the biggest problem the youth face in Sambo Creek
is overcrowding, not necessarily the decline in agriculture. The most effective
approach to extending community landholding in this era is to draw upon an
indigenous rights discourse which links Garifuna cultural survival to territorial
control. OFRANEH’s press releases suggest that they know this. Yet their
approach does not necessarily map onto the community’s opinions about land use.
ODECO’s approach is actually more in line with what community members told
me in that rather than arguing for the Garifuna rights as indigenous people, they

argue that the Garifuna are entitled to land based on their historical presence in the

-180-

community. 37 While they do not claim so themselves, ODECO’s approach seems
to draw upon the Human Right to Livelihood and Land, which was deﬁned by the
People’s Movement for Human Rights Education (PDHRE)38 as:
...the human right of all women, men, youth and children to a digniﬁed
and productive livelihood which enables them to live in peace, security,
justice and dignity. All people have the fundamental human right to
fulﬁlling, digniﬁed work and livelihood, including equal access to land and
productive resources, and to basic labor protections.
The notion of a Human Right to Livelihood and Land joins together the thrusts of
several international covenants and universal human rights doctrines. PDHRE has
publicized on their website the series of covenants that obligate governments to
guarantee people the Right to Livelihood and Land.39 A right to livelihood
approach argues that people have the right to make a living however they so
choose. I am not suggesting that OF RANEH’s approach be replaced with a right
to livelihood approach, as such an approach has yet to be successfully produced,
recognized, and rewarded. But I do suggest that anthropologists pay attention to

the effects the production of Garifuna indigeneity has on Honduras’ other poor.

The next chapter begins this analysis.

 

’7 Yet Sambo Creek prefers to work with OFRANEH, not ODECO, and the Land Defense
Committee is comprised of Mestizos as well as Garifuna and these Mestizos agree that OFRANEH
better represents Sambo Creek’s interests.

3’8 Shulamith Koenig, the 1988 founder of the movement won the 2003 UN Human Rights Prize.

3” The primary covenant is ILO 169, and the other supporting doctrines are: The Universal
Declaration of Human Rights; the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights;
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; The Convention on the Prevention of
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide; The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination; The Convention to End All Forms of Discrimination against Women; and, The
Convention on the Rights of the Child. http://www.pdhre.org/rights/landhtml. Last accessed:
January 10, 2006.

-181-

CHAPTER SEVEN
ROOTS, RIGHTS AND BELONGING: THE EFFECTS OF GARIFUNA

IN DIGEN EITY

“Discourse is not the expression of thought; it is a practice, with

conditions, rules, and historical transformations” (Escobar 19952216).

Drawing on Foucault, Escobar (1995) shows the power of discourse in
creating social reality. Speciﬁcally, he argues that development was a historically
produced discourse that created categories of being (e. g., “developed,”
“underdeveloped,” or “developing”), and subject categories that became targets for
‘development’ (e.g., ‘small farmers,’ ‘pregnant women’). The creation and
recognition of some subject categories serves to disqualify and make impossible
other modes of being. Medina’s (2004) work takes this type of discourse analysis
further. In her exploration of the sociohistorical production of identity categories
within the context of Belizean economic development, Medina (2004) moves
beyond documenting how subjects are positioned in particular categories and how
their positioning provides them with differential access to resources and
opportunities, to show how human beings are active subjects engaged in shaping
the discourses that deﬁne their social reality and the reality of others.

Thus far, I have shown that the Garifuna subject has been created and
recreated over time and that these manifestations are linked to shifts in the coastal

economy. As the Garifuna subject is recast, so too is their access to resources and

-182-

opportunities. I showed how at ﬁrst the Garifuna controlled much of the coast
because the area was of little signiﬁcance to the political and economic elite. As
the banana industry grew and work in it became valued by Hispanic Hondurans,
the Garifuna became victims of a racist labor movement against West Indian
blacks. Blacks (in general) were seen as stealing jobs from Honduras’ ‘rightful’
citizens (i.e., Hispanics). This led the political elite to spearhead an indo-Hispanic
nationalist identity, an identity that purposefully excluded blacks. Such an identity
supported the idea that the Garifuna did not ‘belong,’ and as such, they did not
have rights to coastal tenitories. The Garifuna were never given titles to their
land. The lack of clear land titles facilitated land loss through encroachment by
poor Mestizo immigrants and theft by corrupt local politicians. By the 19908, the
majority of ancestral land had been lost to outsiders.

Today, tourism is one of Honduras’ primary development strategies, and it
receives support from the World Bank. Recognizing that unclear land tenure is a
threat to securing investment, the World Bank supported a $25 million Land
Administration Program that focused on the massive regularization and
registration of Honduran land. The land titling initiatives are now attempting to
clarify Garifuna landholding under communal titles. Yet as this dissertation has
shown, the issued land titles do little to address the land problems in Garifuna
communities. Speciﬁcally, much of Garifuna ancestral territory had been usurped
and communities like Sambo Creek are hugely overcrowded, with the majority of
the population living in a small central area surrounded by underutilized private

lots.

~183-

Escobar (2002) argued that neoliberal development projects take people out
of the spaces and places of development. In Honduras’ case, the regularization of
land conﬁnes the Garifuna to small plots of communal land while their ancestral
territory is privatized and their access to this territory is restricted through the
construction of private gates and the use of watchmen. Yet as these processes take
Garifuna people out of development, globalization has enabled the Garifuna to
insert themselves back into these processes by offering new tools for resistance.
The successful production of the indigenous rights discourse has enabled the
Garifuna to position themselves in a way that could potentially increase their
ability to reclaim lost resources.

Chapter four reviewed the production of international indigenous rights and
the link between cultural survival and territorial control. The words and actions of
indigenous activists from the 19708 through the 19903 led to the production,
recognition, and international validation of indigenous rights. International bodies
like the UN, ILO, and IACHR reafﬁrm these rights. In the context of Honduran
coastal tourism development, the production of indigenous rights means that if the
Garifuna are effective in demonstrating and convincing others of their indigeneity,
their rights to resources and opportunities are reinforced, while the rights of
Mestizos and other Honduran citizens are disqualiﬁed or denied.

Saying that the Garifuna are indigenous and doing so by drawing upon a
discourse that has already been produced and recognized as “true” (i.e., the
international discourse of indigenous rights) will have the effect of producing

Garifuna indigeneity. OFRANEH appears to know this and has implemented this

-l84-

strategy. Yet identiﬁcation as indigenous has yet to fully ﬁlter into Garifuna
communities. For instance, I asked individuals in my household sample if they
identiﬁed as indigenous or autochthonous. This question typically took people off-
guard, and most replied they were neither, but rather were negro. Only three
Garifuna individuals that I knew in Sambo Creek described themselves as
indigenous, and all three were local activists with connections to OFRANEH.
What remains to be seen is the effects of the production of the new Garifuna
subject as indigenous. While not many Garifuna are identifying in Sambo Creek
as indigenous yet, they may in the ﬁrture. Moreover, Mestizos who have
encountered the new Garifuna subject are now responding to that category, by
rooting themselves in the community through citing generational presence in the

community and in the national territory.

7.1 Place-making in Samba Creek

Long-terrn residents of Sambo Creek (both Garifuna and Mestizo)
frequently cited extranjeros for privatizing beaches, gating the land, disallowing
community members’ passage to access the water or harvest fruit, and restricting
women ﬁom selling bread or other products to tourists who visit the beach.
Interviewees often called attention to the newly opened restaurants as examples of
foreign immigrant attempts to privatize the beaches, some of which were owned
by Honduran Mestizos. In addition to criticizing foreigners for introducing new
forms of land tenure — speciﬁcally, they privatize and guard their lands,

disallowing passage on land that was traditionally communal, foreigners are also

-185-

charged with the introduction of violence in association with protection of
landholdings. Some foreign landowners (Mestizos included) who have come to
own land in Sambo Creek employ armed guards to watch their lands and in the
recent past, some of these guards have killed trespassers.

The 2001 land invasions led by “the children of the community” were
efforts to reclaim ancestral land seized by “foreigners.” In Sambo Creek,
“foreigners” can be Mestizos, and the application of the label “foreigner” can
come from both Garifuna and Mestizos. A public bulletin from Honduras’
National Human Rights Commission that described police offenses committed
during the 2001 Castillo land invasion provides an example of a Honduran
Mestizo being labeled a “foreigner.” According to the bulletin, the detained
activists:

...explained that the process to recuperate the land began last year with the

recuperation of grounds held in the hands of a Canadian named XXXX and

lands appropriated in an irregular manner by a group of French (author’s

translation from Spanish).
Yet this woman was actually born in Sambo Creek, and her father, like other
community men, even worked on the docks for Standard Fruit. She then spent
most of her childhood in La Ceiba, and later lived in Canada where she met her
husband. In an interview with the woman, she told me that community members
sent a letter to OFRANEH declaring that a francesa [French woman] moved
illegally onto community land. She was hurt by the fact that other residents
frequently labeled her a “foreigner, “French woman,” or “Canadian” because she

married a French Canadian man. While she admits that her parents raised her in

La Ceiba, she claims her right to live in Sambo Creek because her parents did in

-l86-

the past and because she was born in the community. She called explicit attention
to the fact that her father worked alongside of many Garifuna men on the Standard
Fruit docks.

A member of the Land Defense Committee and participant in the land
invasion claimed to be the original owner of this plot. In an interview, the man
told me that the land was his inheritance,40 which he claimed in June 2001 upon
his return from Belize. The plot of land was about two manzanas (approximately
three acres), and he intended to share the land with other community members
who did not have homes of their own. As they were clearing the land, he and his
friends were approached and told that it had been sold. According to this man, the
land had been sold without his family’s knowledge, and this he noted, was the
problem in Sambo Creek — that people are able to make transactions with lawyers,
having them write up a deed and sell land that was not theirs to begin with. This
member of the Land Defense Committee noted that despite his time in Belize, he
was born in Sambo Creek and therefore had a right to reclaim his inheritance.
What we see by comparing his story with the woman’s is that both were making
the same argument to demonstrate their right to land.

Not only do land conﬂicts revolve around tracing ancestral roots in the
community of Sambo Creek, but they also extend to tracing roots in the nation-
state. I would like to demonstrate this point through comments made by Maria,

another Mestiza woman from the area.

 

4° While inheritance patterns are generally matrilineal, there are exceptions and men do inherit land
too.

-187-

They say this is their ancestral lands?! This is not their ancestral land —
their ancestors are from Aﬁica! If they want to recuperate land, go to
Africa. This country's ancestors are indios, not Africans. The only people
with any right to land here are indios. Just like in the United States - the
Indians have right to land there... Like you in the US, your ancestors are in
England, not the United States. The ancestors of the United States are the
Indians, not you. That woman at OFRANEH, she said they are indigenous;
that they are ﬁghting for their ancestors' lands. But she had hair and dress
of an African! They don't make any sense! What are they thinking —
dressed as Africans and still saying this is their land? And the Rasta [the
President ofthe Land Defense Committee] — he has long, blanco” hair,
and green eyes — the indios here don't have green eyes! I don't have green
eyes — look! [widening their eyes]. . .They speak of African traditions —
that's where their ancestors are. But they don't think like this... How can
they say they are indigenous? (Author’s translation from Spanish).

By identifying as an indio, Maria is appropriating the indo-hispanic
mestizaje ideology and discourse to stress how she has greater entitlement to land
than the Garifuna. This argument suggests that Mestizos have deeper roots in the

3“

country — stemming from Honduras truly indigenous” groups, those who were
present pre-Columbus, whereas the Garifuna, have much shallower roots, with
only a little more than 205 years (at the time of my research) in the country.
Garifuna “true roots” are in Africa. Maria points toward eye color, hairstyle and
the celebration of Aﬁican ancestry as evidence of this connection. Both parties are
place-making through identity discourses, each claiming roots and belonging to the
community, either by ﬁrst anival in the actual geographic space of Sambo Creek
or as ﬁrst in the national territory. History-making therefore becomes central in
place-making statements. But the history of Sambo Creek complicates place-

making because it does not clearly demonstrate who was present ﬁrst in Sambo

Creek (Mestizos or Garifuna).

 

" She used the word white (blanco) to describe Luis’ (Rasta’s) long dreadlock hair.

-188-

As mentioned earlier in the dissertation, the community traces its history to
1862, when the ﬁrst Garifuna were said to arrive on the coast. Upon arrival, they
met a Miskito (Sambo) next to the creek, giving rise to the name “Sambo Creek.”
This history suggests that the Miskito reign extended throughout the coast, which
is signiﬁcant because both Mestizos and Garifuna can draw upon it to claim their
“roots” in the community. Mestizos, as descendants of indigenous peoples can
claim that they intermixed with early Miskitos on the coast, and Garifuna too can
make this claim. While I have yet to see historical accounts that support a
signiﬁcant Miskito presence in Sambo Creek, this origin debate was a point made
to me as a sidebar in a conversation with one of ODECO’s lawyers, suggesting to
me that others have raised it in the land struggle. The complications that Sambo
Creek’s origin history provide make recounting stories of ancestors’ interactions
with the land all the more important. Recounting the presence of one’s parents —
or even better, one’s grandparents — and their historical use of the land become
compelling arguments in community place-making.

What I have presented thus far is the perspective of a wealthy, educated,
and well-traveled Mestiza woman. Maria had also been confronted head-on with
Gariﬁrna claims to indigeneity and she seems to be articulating her identity in
response to the redeﬁned Garifuna subject. Yet poor Mestizos are also responding
to the Garifuna subject through place-making strategies. Some of the poorer
Mestizos I interviewed were feeling the effects of the production of Garifuna

indigeneity and beginning to question their right to community territory.

-189-

Because Sambo Creek’s 1997 communal land title is a “Garifuna title,”
some poor Mestizo and English-speaking blacks feel as though they have come
under undue skepticism about their place in the community. Anna, a poor Mestiza
immigrant who obtained land through encroachment on ancestral cultivation land,
but has lived in Sambo Creek since the age of two, worries that her land will be
usurped and redistributed to Garifuna residents. Margo, an English-speaking
black, has yet to receive a statement from the Patronato that notes she is the
rightful occupant of her lands. She suspects that her affrnity with an alleged

”"2 whose land was also targeted for recuperation in 2001 has placed her

“foreigner
in a precarious position. Ema, a 57-year old Mestiza widower with a family

history of at least 100 years in the community articulates the feelings of exclusion.

Supposedly the Patronato represents everyone. [But] if a Mestizo wants
them to do anything for them, they have to pay them. If you’re not
Garifuna, to measure your land and authenticate it, you must pay the
President of Patronato. [And so] I never talk to the Patronato. Yes, I’m
not Gariﬁrna, but I was born here. My dad was born here. I never attend
meetings because I attended a meeting once and I didn’t understand
anything because it was all in Garifuna. When I want to go, I can’t,
because they speak in Garifuna and I don’t understand what they are
saying... (Author’s translation from Spanish).

Holding meetings in a language that not all community members can speak
is a form of place-making. This act sends a signal that “true” members of the
community are Gariﬁrna. Although I never attended a patronato meeting and
cannot attest to whether or not this regularly occurs, I did frequently experience
code switching at OFRANEH gatherings. Elsa, another woman with long-

standing roots in Sambo Creek echoes feeling excluded by the Patronato. In

 

’2 The man was born in Honduras, but is currently living in the United States. He is holding a
beachfront plot for retirement.

-l90-

response to a question about whether or not she has heard of OFRANEH or
ODECO, Elsa said:
Yes, I have heard of them, but when they have meetings here, I don't go. I
don't know what they do. When they have meetings, it's closed, between
them. Just like the Patronato. When they meet, they do not take us into
account. (Author’s translation from Spanish).
Later in the interview, as I moved on to asking questions about her knowledge of
the land struggle, she expanded on her confusion over being excluded from local
politics, saying, “I don’t know if I am India, Garifuna, or Mestiza. I’ve lived here
forever. I think I am Garifuna.” Despite feeling as though ‘she was Garifuna,’
which she says to signal her feeling as though she truly ‘belongs’ in the
community, Elsa said that the only reason she knew anything about the land
struggle was because she witnessed it by living in the community, seeing it on
television, and hearing it on the radio, n_q because she was invited to participate.
Both Elsa and Rosa have deep roots in the community — each able to trace
their ancestors’ occupancy on their plot of land for over 100 years. Neither one
comes from a wealthy family, nor are they friends with the more powerﬁil Mestizo
landowners in the area. The relationships they have with wealthier Mestizos are
hierarchical working relationships, just as are the relationships between most
Garifuna and wealthy Mestizos. Yet because they have similar phenotypic traits
and do not speak Garifuna, they feel they are ostracized. While neither woman
chooses to explicitly label their experiences as racism or racial discrimination,

their words suggest discriminatory practices of Garifuna against Mestizos — “it’s

closed, between them;” “If a Mestizo wants them to do anything, they have to pay

-191-

them.” According to Antonio, a Mestizo male ﬁsherman, Garifuna discrimination
against Mestizos has always existed:

There have always been problems with indios —what we call ourselves —
and the Garifuna race. They think we invaded their community and think
all the land is theirs... in the early years of Sambo Creek, there were maybe
10-15 indio families, but that nowadays the indios outnumber the Garifuna.
We’re maybe 55% of the population now (Author’s translation from
Spanish).

While Antonio traces the roots of racism to the sheer grth in number of
Mestizos, from Maria’s perspective (the wealthy Mestiza woman quoted earlier),
racism emerged as a result the emergence of Garifuna organizations and
charismatic leadership.

Yes, racism exists, but only on one side. They discriminate against the

indios. Before there wasn't racism. It began with these international

organizations. They brought racism here. Before there were no

problems. . .

She continued by recounting something she heard from one of OF RAN EH’s top
leaders:

The woman [from] OFRANEH. . .she didn't care about indio deaths. There
was a revolt in Tela and ﬁve died, and she said “some indios have to die in
such struggles.” She only cared about the Garifuna who died. I ask you,
on whose part is the racism?...But the indios are going to revolt [and] I am
not the only one who thinks like this. They will revolt! They did it in
Guatemala -- the civil war. I just need a few others to listen to me. Just
like the Rasta — it only takes one person to start something like this. He
was in front, and then others followed (Author’s translation from Spanish).

Maria believes that Garifuna organizations have brought discrimination
into her community. She calls herself an indio and cites the Guatemalan civil war
in which indigenous peoples are seen as rising up against Ladino powers. A self-
identiﬁcation as indio reveals that she traces her roots deeper than the Garifuna —

to the region’s indigenous peoples; those present before the Garifuna anival. She

-l92-

is appropriating the Indo-hisparric national mestizaje identity discourse that was
discussed in chapter ﬁve, a discourse that privileges the “Indian” and excludes
blackness. While today the Honduran nation-state ofﬁcially promotes its
“multicultural” identity, which includes indigenous groups, AfroHondurans, and
Mestizos, the continued use of “indio” as a local label both ascribed to and adopted
by Mestizos in Sambo Creek emphasizes Sambo Creek’s Mestizos as having
deeper roots in the nation. Maria identiﬁes herself as separate from those in
political power, whereas most Garifuna would probably lump her with the nation’s
powerful Mestizo class. An appropriation of an indio identity enables her to place-
make on equal footing with Garifuna place-making, which evokes their indigenous
Arawakan roots and historical presence in the community.

According to some of those I interviewed who were active in the local
movement to expand communal landholdings and reclaim ancestral lands, the
ultimate goal is to remove all non-Garifuna who have illegally obtained lands,
returning it to “the children of the community.” Recall the story of Anna, the
Mestizo woman from chapter six who admitted to obtaining land in Corinto
through encroachinent. She has lived in Sarnbo Creek since the age of two. Is she
a “child of the community?” Anna does recall that the Garifuna once cultivated
the lands in Corinto.

People here don’t plant anymore because they sold their lands. This here

[pointing to her plot and surrounding lands] used to all be full of yucu, but

the people sold the land. The Gariftma don’t want to work anymore

because they have spouses who live in the US and bring money to them
here (Author’s translation from Spanish).

-l93-

Anna expresses a hint of frustration with the local struggle to reclaim lands once
cultivated. She, like many others, suggests that even if the land is returned, the
Garifuna are not going to want to use it for the cultivation of traditional foodstuffs.
She notes the irony in that many Garifuna have more resources than the poor
Mestizos of the community, because there is far less out migration among the
Mestizo families of the community. For many Mestizo families, their only
resource is their land.

Although what I have presented in this chapter suggests that bleak, divided
and perhaps even antagonistic race relations mark Sambo Creek, this is not fully
the case. In fact, while some community members believe that the local
government (i.e., patronato) should be comprised of o_nly Garifuna individuals
(and during my ﬁeldwork the patronato was indeed all Garifuna), there are other
strong local organizations that are mixed. The Land Defense Committee serves as
a prime example. While the majority of committee members are Garifuna,
Mestizos also collaborate with the committee. Carla, for instance, serves as an
example.

Carla is a 27-year-old Mestiza woman who was born in Roatan, but grew
up in Sambo Creek. She and her mother moved in with her grandmother, who was
living in a house in the center the community when her mother and father split up.
She lives on a plot of donated land in Colonia Libertad that her family received
from the patronato back in 1983. She told me that the Land Defense Committee
does not trust ODECO and prefers to work with OFRANEH, explaining that

OFRANEH makes regular visits to provide workshops and informal lectures

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(charlas) to community members which have helped them to develop their local
abilities to ﬁght for the recuperation of their ancestral lands. In telling me about
the history of the struggle, Carla said:

We believe that we are poor now because we don’t have cocos and we
don’t have land and we don’t have any room to grow. You see the center
here [pointing towards the center of the community] — how the houses are
so close together. This is why we have so much illness in our community.
This is why we are ﬁghting for extension (ampliacio'n), so that our kids can
‘have a better future.

While Carla, like all interviewees, told me that the recuperated land would used to
construct homes for families living with their relatives, when I asked if she thought
some might also be used for cultivation, she said:

I think so. OFRANEH gave us a charla about starting a cooperative there —
to form a group of women who would work together on a plot of land.
Everyone would be able to plant whatever they like — yuca, cocos,
plantanos, and so on — and then everyone will beneﬁt. [I ask: ‘Would the
women sell the produce?’] No. Everyone in the community could eat.
Triunfo de la Cruz [another Garifuna community] has this. I went there
and it is beautiful. They have crops and food and they don’t have to buy
their yuca, or cassava bread, or plantains. Not like here, where we have to
buy everything. There — maybe meat, but nothing more.

When I asked Carla how she would like to see the community develop in the
future, she responded:

I would like it to be like was before — when we could ﬁnd land if we
needed it. Because now it is very expensive and there is no place to buy
here. If they [foreigners] want our land, they should go
elsewhere...Another thing we are ﬁghting for now is more order in the
community. We want to put posts up to register everyone who comes and
goes from the community. And if someone comes to visit, we want to have
a person responsible for his or her behavior. For instance, if I want to go
see Rene, the person at the post will bring me to his house and he will sign
off for me. . .We are also ﬁghting for the rivers and for green spaces. We
used to be able to walk the rivers; now they are all gated. And the
shoreline of our beaches. The same thing has happened there (Author’s
translation from Spanish).

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Later on Carla told me how she appreciated the Garifuna culture — “it is
beautiful because they have their own style of life, their own system of living, their
own rhythm, and their own beliefs.” Carla’s comments suggest that she and her
Garifuna counterparts share a common vision for the future - a future reminiscent
of the past when the community held communal lands and relationships were
characterized by reciprocity. Both the Patronato and Land Defense Committee
members told me about the checkpoints that Carla mentioned. The proposal to put
in these guard posts suggests that the debate over belonging in Sambo Creek is not
a debate about whether or not Mestizos belong, but about which types of Mestizos
belong. The Land Defense Committee sought land in order to redistribute among
the “children of the community,” a category that included long-terrn Mestizo
residents who had clearly expressed their alliance with the Garifuna (such as
Carla). The source of division is therefore between Sambo Creek’s “children” and
foreign immigrants. The term extranjero (foreigner) was used within Sambo
Creek to mean people of a foreign origin (i.e., outsiders) — in practice that could
mean a number of things, including 1) people who were born outside of Honduras,
2) wealthier Mestizos who were born outside (or even within) Sambo Creek but
had used their power to usurp Garifuna lands, 3) people who were born in Sambo
Creek but married foreign-bom individuals, and, 4) people who were born in
Sambo Creek, accumulated wealth while living in another country and then
returned to invest in local property. Therefore, someone like the woman who was
born in Sambo Creek but lived for many years in Canada with her French

Canadian spouse was considered a “foreigner.” Unfortunately, the actions of some

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wealthier Mestizos have caused poorer Mestizos to feel threatened in their own
community, leading them to question their own belonging.

In sum, while Sambo Creek’s residents at times speak of ethnic divisions,
class is really the key distinction within the community. However, amongst
Garifuna community members, class differences appear to be cut through by
ethnic solidarity. I offer two examples as evidence. First, the data on Suazo’s land
sales shows that while it may be true that Suazo appropriated signiﬁcant amounts
of land within the community, he did then make it available to Garifuna
individuals at a cheaper price than he did for non-Garifuna. Second, while the
Land Defense Committee member mentioned earlier in this chapter lived in Belize
for 13 years, he did not take on a “foreign” label upon his return. Class
distinctions were not brought out between he and other “children of the
community;” he was united within and across ethnic boundaries to reclaim lands

usurped by “foreigners.”

7.2 Theoretical and Practical Contributions

I wish to close the dissertation by reviewing three general contributions of
this study, each of which calls for further research, followed by a discussion of
what this case study offers anthropological theorizing about indigenous rights
struggles.

First, this dissertation contributes to anthropological debates about the
production of identity categories in that it looks beyond the effects of identity

construction on the people whose identity is being cast or recast (in this case the

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Garifuna) to how the new framing of identity impacts others who live within their
communities (in this case Mestizos).

I showed how place-making can be both a tool and a response in the land
struggle. It serves as a tool for Garifuna organizations and activists involved in the
production of Garifuna indigeneity. At the organizational level, Garifuna activists
adopt place-making strategies as tools to discuss the Garifuna historical presence
in the geographic space of Honduras. They call attention to the fact that the
Garifuna were present before the state’s founding. Some Garifuna activists
(particularly OFRANEH activists) have adopted the discourse of indigenous rights
to not only strengthen Garifuna rights to land, but also to articulate a position
regarding Honduras’ development policies and programs. The ultimate goal of
these activists is broader than the recuperation of land — it is the right to self-
deterrnination (or the ability to choose the path of development within one’s own
territories).

Place-making also serves as a response to the production of Garifuna
indigeneity. Some Mestizos are responding to the newly created subject category
of indigenous Garifuna (and the presumed rights that accompany this subject
position) by tracing both their roots (historical presence) in both the community of
Sambo Creek and in the nation-state in general. Mestizo residents who believe
that they too have rights to local land place-make by recounting stories of recent
ancestors (parents and grandparents) living and working on community land. Some
Mestizo residents also use the identity label “indio” (what Garifuna call local

Mestizos) to their advantage, using it to root them in Honduran territory by

-l98-

claiming they mixed with pre-Colurnbian indigenous (“indio”) peoples. By
identifying as indio, Mestizos position themselves on equal footing with Garifuna,
who place-make by evoking their Arawakan (i.e., indigenous) roots. The assertion
that Mestizos are also indigenous was not something I heard regularly in Sambo
Creek, but as Maria, the Mestiza woman quoted earlier in this chapter said, the
backing of one or two strong leaders could lay the groundwork for the production
of a new subject identity. Following up on the effects of Garifuna indigeneity in
Sarnbo Creek would be good especially given OFRANEH’s increased
mobilization around an indigenous identity.

Second, the way in which Garifuna organizations represent Sambo Creek
on a national and international basis and call for the recuperation of ancestral
territories is by linking the maintenance of indigenous or ethnic identity to the
ability to enact cultural traditions. “Traditions” frequently means ﬁshing and
agriculture. However, Sambo Creek’s youth, like youth in many Garifuna
communities, are losing interest in these activities. Neoliberalism and economic
globalization has transformed communities and no longer are people able to earn a
sufﬁcient livelihood on agricultural production alone. The youth recognize this.

While the indigenous rights discourse is the most effective tool available to
Sambo Creek as they attempt to reclaim their lost land and address their land
shortage, a right to livelihood approach might address some of the limitations of
the indigenous rights approach. Speciﬁcally, a right to livelihood approach argues
that people have the right to make a living however they so choose, serving to

protect both Gariﬁrna and poor Mestizos from land loss, as well as providing a

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basis for younger Garifuna to utilize local resources in “untraditional” ways. A
right to livelihood approach might also dilute some of the tension between poor
Mestizos who fear “speaking out” in their natal communities because of the
political dominance of the Garifuna. The Garifuna of Sambo Creek work with
Mestizos who they consider rightful residents of the community; in fact, Mestizos
are also active in the Land Defense Committee. Yet taking such an approach is a
risk for organizations representing the Garifuna. Their international audiences and
funding support are dependent on the very fact that they represent “indigenous”
(OF RANEH), “ethnic” (ODECO), or “autochthonous” (ODECO and OFRANEH)
people whose “cultural survival” is under threat.

Third, this dissertation is an important contribution to Garifuna
ethnography because it is one of the ﬁrst that focuses explicitly on the gendered
impact of neoliberal development policies and agrarian legislation in Garifuna
communities. My focus has been on the effects of new (since the 1990s) agrarian
legislation that was passed to enable increased privatization and foreign
investment in coastal lands. Using the case of Sambo Creek, I demonstrated that
there are gendered impacts of land privatization in Garifuna communities, with
women having lost their ancestral cultivation plots through privatization to men. I
question what will come of matrilineal inheritance in the future as the nation-state
continues to push to replace communal landholding with private ownership.
Research to track how residence plots are transferred in future generations and to
compare the number of male private landowners with female private landowners in

Garifuna communities is necessary.

-200-

._,

 

Finally, what signiﬁcance does this case study of Sarnbo Creek provide for
scholars interested in understanding the broader struggle for indigenous rights?
Indigenous communities across the Americas are pursuing similar politics -
“demanding and attaining national and international recognition of their identity
and the legitimacy of their claims” (Jackson and Warren 2005). Most agree that
the goal of indigenous mobilization is the right to self determination (see for
example, Anaya 1996). According to Jackson and Warren (2005), the best way to
achieve that end is through a strategy of cultural and historical recovery and
revival, and the ability of indigenous groups to convince funding agencies and
legislators that their claims are reasonable. The Garifuna of Honduras are
pursuing this avenue in order to convince the Honduran nation-state of their
entitlement to land. Their case is legitimated by the various international
declarations and conventions that protect the rights of indigenous peoples to
sustain their cultural identities; such conventions make clear that access to
territories (land and sea) is key to the maintenance of cultural identity.

Yet what is notable in this case study is the degree to which Honduran
Garifuna are confronting and negotiating representations of Garifuna identity that
are being disseminated in other nation-states, and from Belize in particular. While
there is a signiﬁcant degree of scholarship on how transnational migration has
linked Honduras to the US, and therefore to US political organizing, there has yet
to be work on how mobilizations across Central American countries shape one
another. Honduran Garifuna have formed alliances with Afro-American

descendants of other nation-states, making a uniﬁed front to combat racial

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discrimination and political disenfranchisement. ONECA (or CABO in its English
acronym; discussed in chapter ﬁve) is one example of such mobilization. In
addition to being part of transnational black organizations like CABO, Belizean
Garifuna belong to the Caribbean Organization of Indigenous Peoples (COIP) and
the World Council of Indigenous People (WCIP). According to Izard (2005:189),
the National Garifuna Council (NGC) of Belize had to defend its entry into the
WCIP in 1992 and demonstrate the “Indianness” of Garifuna society because some
member groups were reluctant to accept that the Garifuna (as “blacks”) could be
considered Amerindians. Unfortunately, Izard does not tell us exactly what the
NCG did to convince the WCIP of Garifuna indigeneity. Regardless, the
admission of the Garifuna into the WCIP represents a signiﬁcant symbolic move
in understanding and conceptualizing indigeneity. The recognition that “blacks”
can be indigenous ampliﬁes the meaning of indigenous and forces us scholars to
acknowledge the complexity of all ethnic classiﬁcations, including “indigenous.”
Like other racial-ethnic categories, indigeneity is constructed and susceptible to
change (see also Palacio, cited in Izard 2005: 189).

Anthropological literature on indigenous movements has moved beyond
debating over degrees to which indigenous peoples are “traditional,” “modem,” or
both, and now recognizes that indigenous peoples are “increasingly to be seen as
transnationalized, urban, proletarian, border-crossing, bilingual and trilingual, and
professional” (Jackson and Warren 2005: 558). The literature is also beginning to
confront the fact that the criteria for admission into the racial-ethnic category

“indigenous” are changing (as evidenced by the fact that the Afrodescendant

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(“black”) Garifuna have been incorporated into the WCIP). While scholars are
beginning to recognize these shifts, indigenous peoples themselves (or groups that
identify as indigenous) are still faced with “others,” such as funding agencies and
government institutions, that base decisions about access to resources on the
ability of a people to successfully demonstrate their indigeneity. Thus,
representations of “traditional” behavior are key (see also Plant 2002).

Palacio sees Garifuna indigeneity as inseparable from expressions of
“traditional” behavior or “culture” (Palacio uses “culture” to mean behaviors,
practices, and collective memories that are passed from one generation to another).
In writing about the UNESCO Proclamation of the Garifuna “intangible heritage,”
Palacio states (2005: 119-120):

...it is a truism that it was indigeneity and its almost unconscious

preservation that made the Garifuna win the Proclamation. Being

indigenous to the Garifuna means cherishing their cultural heritage, which
has its foundation in St. Vincent. They may not appear to be as sanguine
about land ownership, human rights, and political revindication, among
other topics dear to most indigenous peoples in the New World. Indeed, in
most cases these issues have not been sufﬁciently articulated and presented
to the Belize Garifuna with the urgency they deserve. On the other hand,
their culture remains embedded in their collective memory of genocide,
exile, and loss of their island homeland. The corollary is a communal
effort to preserve it and pass it to the next generation so that it will never
again face the possibility of dying away.

While Palacio does recognize in a footnote that Honduran Garifuna have
taken overt action with regard to their problems of land and economic livelihood,
his comments accurately reﬂect the scope of Gari funa organization in Belize.

Belizean Gariﬁrna activists have historically mobilized around the ﬁght to preserve

cultural traditions, especially what Cayetano and Cayetano (2005:242) call “living

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culture,” mearring language, dance, and music. The NGC of Belize was
responsible for putting together the Candidature File leading to the UNESCO
proclamation of the Garifuna’s “intangible culture.” As Cayetano and Cayetano
(2005: 231) note, intangible heritage has gained international recognition as
playing an essential role in national and international development and tolerance
between cultural groups. Yet current global trends, such as mass tourism, cultural
standardization, industrialization, environmental deterioration, and increased
migration threaten the survival of such heritages (Cayetano and Cayetano 2005:
231). For these reasons, maintaining access to geographic spaces where such
intangible heritage can be passed to future generations becomes all the more
important. As the statements in chapter ﬁve showed, OFRANEH adheres to this
argument, asserting that a symbiotic relationship exists between Garifuna
environmental management, territorial control and cultural survival

While Belizean Gariﬁrna activists were behind the UNESCO proclamation,
according to Cayetano and Cayetano (2005:249), Belizean organizations have not
attracted ﬁnancing for the retrieval and safeguarding of the language, music, and
dance of the Garifuna people. Nor has the NGC of Belize used the proclamation
in its promotional efforts or fundraising activities (Cayetano and Cayetano 2005).
On the other hand, Honduran Garifuna organizations, and OFRANEH in
particular, have used the proclamation to attract support for the coastal land
struggle, despite the fact that these organizations did not play a major role in
putting together the Candidature File. This fact demonstrates the signiﬁcant

impact identity construction and mobilization in one nation-state can have on

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mobilization efforts and eventual access to resources in another nation-state. The
circumstances and struggles faced by Garifuna people vary depending on their
national and regional context, thus resulting in distinctly “local” mobilization
efforts. Contextual struggles lead the Gariﬁma to emphasize different aspects of
their shared identity in national mobilization efforts. The manifestations of
Garifuna identity in one nation-state shape possibilities for the Garifuna in other
nation-states. The international declaration of the Garifuna as “indigenous
peoples” and recognition of their “intangible culture,” both outcomes of Belizean
mobilization, has opened new possibilities for Honduran Garifuna, who now have
an internationally “legitirrrized” indigenous status. Until very recently, most of the
literature on indigenous struggles has focused on the actors involved in
mobilization efforts and the organizations themselves.

Understanding how the production, expression, and validation of indigenous
identity in some locations and among some groups of people serve to alter the
construction and expression of identity among other groups of people is an

important point of future query in the study of indigenous rights.

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APPENDICES

-206-

APPENDIX A

INTERVIEW SCHEDULES AND GUIDED QUESTION LISTS

-207-

Sambo Creek Household Interview Script

Interview #
Date
Time began Time ended

 

 

Location of the
house

 

I. PARTICIPANT DEMOGRAPHICS

1. Gender
2. Ethnicity
3. Age

4. Marital Status
5. Do you have kids?

a. How many? / How old? / Where do they live?

b. Do any of your children help you economically? How?
6. Members of the household:

i. How many people live in this house?
ii. Who are they / what is their relationship to you?
7. Where were you born?
8. Where did you grow up?
9. If moved to Sambo Creek:
i. When did you move here / How old were you?

ii. Why did you move here?

10. Please describe all the jobs you have had in your life. [If for a
company or boat: what was the name company?]

11. Please describe all the jobs your spouse / signiﬁcant other has had.
11. HISTORY OF RESIDENTIAL PLOT / HOUSE
1. Who is the owner of this house?

2. How old is this house? / When was it built? / By whom?

-208-

9.

111.

Who is the owner of this plot of land?
How long have you/they had this plot of land?

How did you/they obtain the land?
a. If inherited, from whom?

If purchased, from whom?
a. How much did it cost?

Is this parcel of land private or communal?
a. If it is communal, what does this mean to you?
Do you have a title for this plot of land?
a. If no: do you want one? Why/why not?
b. Have you ever had problems because you don't have a title? Please
explain.

How do you use this land?

OTHER LAND

Do you or any member of your household have any other parcels of land in the
community? If yes,

IV.

Where is it?

How did you/he/she obtain it?

When?

If it was purchased, how much did it cost?

If it was purchased, who did you/they buy it from?

COMMUNITY LAND / ANCESTRAL LANDS

Do you know if there are any communal lands in Sambo Creek?
a. If yes, where?

What do you think is better: private or communal land? Why?

Do you know many people who still cultivate the land?
a. If yes, who?

Do the majority of people in Sambo Creek still cultivate? Why or why not?
a. When did people stop cultivating? Why do you think they stopped?

If there was more land to plant, do you think more people would?

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10.

11.

What's your knowledge and opinion of the ﬁght for the ancestral lands?
a. Why is the community ﬁghting?
b. What organizations are helping?

If you win the lands, how will they be used?

If you win the land back, who can move onto the land?

Do you remember any stories of people invading the land? Please tell me
them.

There is a law in Honduras that says that foreigners cannot buy land within
40 kilometers of the beach. This includes Sambo Creek. What do you
think of this law?

In your estimate, what are the borders of Sambo Creek?

ACTIVITIES AND ORGANIZATIONS

Please describe the activities in which you participate, both within and
outside of the community?

Do you go to Patronato meetings? Why or why not?
a. Who participates in Patronato meetings?
b. How are the meetings publicized?
c. Do you think they represent the community well? Explain.
Are you a member of OFRANEH or ODECO?
Do you participate in activities of OFRANEH or ODECO?
In your opinion, which organization helps the community?
What do you think the organizations should do for the community?
COMMUNITY HISTORY
What are the biggest problems in the community?

What is most special about this community?

How has Sambo Creek changed in your life?

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VIII.

What kind of development would you like to see in Sambo Creek?
Tell me about the history of Sarnbo Creek.

Tell me about the history of the Garifuna.

How would you describe the Garifuna culture?

TOURISM

What is your experience with tourism?

What impact does tourism have on the community of Sambo Creek?

What do you think about the hotels down the beach? What beneﬁts do
they bring the communities? What negative impacts do they have?

What would you think if a hotel like Barcelo wanted to open on the beach
right by Louba? Explain.

OTHER

Describe your experience with Hunicane Mitch. How did it impact you,
your family, and your community?

Your level of education.
Are you a member of a church? If yes, which?

Do you practice the ancestral religion? Please elaborate.

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Entrevista #
F echa
Hora

Hora de comienzo Hora de ﬁnalizacion

 

 

La Ubicacion de la

0383

I.

l.

10.

11.

II.

 

PARTICIPANT / HOUSEHOLD DEMOGRAPHICS
Genero
Etnia
Edad
Casado / Soltera / Union Libre
Tiene hijos?
a. gCuantos? g/Que’ edad? g/Donde ellos viven?
b. gCualquiera de sus nifios le ayuda economicamente? Explica.
Los miembros de la casa:
a. Cuantas personas viven en esta casa?
b. gQuién es ellos/que es su relacion a usted?

gDonde nacio?

LDénde crecio?

If moved:
a. gCuano movio usted? / Cuantos aﬁos tuvo?
b. Porque?

Describa todos los trabajos que usted ha tenido en su vida. 3, [Si para una
compar’ir'a 0 el barco: qué era el nombre?]

Describa todos los trabajos su esposo/a ha tenido.

LA HISTORIA DEL SOLAR RESIDENCIAL

l. gQuién es el duer’io de esta casa?

2. (Que edad esto es la casa? g/Cuando se construyo? g/Por quién?

-212-

3. gQuién es el dueﬁo de este solar?
4. LCuan largo tiene /ellos tuvieron esta solar?

5. (Como obtuve este solar?
0 (Si heredado, de quién?
0 {Si comprado, de quién? LCuanto costé?

7. gEsta solar esta privada o comunal?
a) (Si es comunal, qué esto signiﬁca a usted?

8. gTiene un titulo para esta tierra?
a. Si no: usted quiere uno? gPor que' / por qué no?
b. éHa tenido algunas problemas porque usted no tiene un titulo?
Explique por favor.

9. [Como utiliza esta tierra?
III. OTRA TIERRA

gUsted o cualquier miembro de su casa tienen otros solares en la comunidad? Si:
0 Donde esta?

gCémo usted/él/ella lo obtuvo?

g, Cuando?

3, Si era comprado, cuanto lo hizo costo?

3, Si era comprado, de quién lo compro?

IV. LA TIERRA DE LA COMUNIDAD/ TIERRAS AN CESTRALES

1. gSabe usted si hay alguna tierra comunal en Sambo Creek?
a. Si: Donde?

2. (“Que piensa usted es mej or: la tierra privada o comunal? gPor qué?

3. gSabe alguien en Sambo Creek quien cultiva la tierra?
a. {Si si, quién?

4. Conoce alguien quien todavia cultiva la tierra?
5. Recuerda un tiempo cuando la mayoria de la gente en Sambo Creek
siembra la tierra?

a. gCuando pararon las personas cultivar? gPor qué piensa usted que
ellos pararon?

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6. [Si hay mas tierra aqui en Sambo para cultivar, piensa que mas personas
hacen?

7. (Que es su conocimiento y la opinion de la lucha para las tierras
ancestrales?
a. gPor qué lucha la comunidad?
b. gQué organizaciones ayudan?

8. gRecuerda historias de de personas que invaden la tierra? Digame por
favor ellos.

9. {Si la comunidad gana las tierras, como ellos seran utilizados?

10. {Si ustedes ganan, quien puede usar esta tierra?

11. Hay una ley en Honduras que dice que extranjeros no pueden comprar la
tierra dentro de 40 kilometros de la playa. Esto incluye Sambo Creek. gQue’
piensa usted en esta ley?

11. [En su estimacion, cual son los limites de Sambo Creek?

V. ACTIVIDADES Y ORGAN IZACIONES

l. gDescriba las actividades en que usted participa, dentro de y fuera de la
comunidad?

2. gVa usted a reuniones de Patronato? gPor qué o por qué no?
a) gQuién participa en las reuniones de Patronato?
b) Piensa que el patronato representa bien la comunidad? Explica.
3. gUsted es un rrriembro de OF RANEH o ODECO?
4. gToma parte en usted las actividades de OF RANEH o ODECO? Describa.
5. {En su opinién, cual organizacion ayuda la comunidad?
6. gCuales servicios piensa que las organizaciones deben tener para la comunidad?
VI. HISTORIA DE COMUNIDAD
1. [Que es 108 problemas mas grandes en la comunidad?

2. {Que es muy especial de esta comunidad?

3. Como le gustaria ver el desarrollo de la comunidad en el futuro?

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3. gCémo ha cambiado Sambo Creek en su Vida?

4. Hablame lo que sabe sobre la historia de Sambo Creek
5. Hablame lo que sabe sobre la historia del Garifuna.

6. (Como describiria usted la cultura de Garifuna?

VII. TURISMO

l. (JCual es su experiencia con turismo?

2. (Que impacto tiene e1 turismo en la comunidad?

3. (Que piensa usted de los hoteles en la playa? gQué beneﬁcios traen ellos las
comunidades? gQué impactos negativos tienen ellos?

4. {Que usted pensarr'a si quiso un hotel como Barcelo querria abrir en la playa de
La Louba? Explique.

VIII. OTRO

1. Describa su experiencia con Huracan Mitch. — El impacto a su familia y su
comunidad?

2. Su nivel de la educacion.
3. gUsted es un miembro de una iglesia? gSi: cual?

4. LPractica usted la religion ancestral? Elabore por favor.

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10.

ll.

12.

13.

14.

Hotel / Tourism Facilities Guided Questions

. Tell me about the history of this establishment.

a. Why this type of business?
b. Why here
0. How you obtained land? From whom?
What services do you provide?
a. If hotel, get details on how many rooms, cost of room, how many
can hold per night, who are the clientele?
b. If restaurant, get details on who designed the menu? Cost of items?
Who are the clientele?
How do you market your business?

How many employees do you have? What do they do? What do you pay
them? Where did you ﬁnd them / where do they live?

Relationship to the nearby hotels / restaurants in terms of success levels.

What interactions do you have with the community of Sambo Creek?
Expand.

What do you think about the government advertising Gariﬁina culture to
bring tourists to the north coast?

Do you organize cultural events at your establishment in which people
from SC perform? Explain.

What do you think of the tourism development on the coast?
What has been your biggest challenge with this business?

What obstacles do you see in the future?

What has been your greatest accomplishment with this business?

Do you charge taxes and pay them to the government? If so, how much?
Would you agree to an increase in taxes if the gov’t pushed for one?

The constitution says — what do you think?

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SAMPLE GUIDING QUESTION LISTFOR OFRANEH LEADERSHIP”

General:
1 .

Cual es la historia de Ofraneh? [Cuando empece? Quien empece?
Porque?]

2. Como reciba dinero para la organizacién? [Becas? — de quien?]

p—a
O

.‘OWNP‘S‘PS”

Usted trabaja en otra oﬁcio e solo para Ofraneh? Con que frecuencia
hay cambios en los miembros de la junta directiva?

Cuantos personas estan en la Junta Directiva?

La Junta Directiva son voluntaries e recibe un sueldo?

Por cuantos afios Usted trabaja con Ofraneh?

Por cuantos aflos Usted es la Presidente?

Con que frecuencia hay cambios en la junta directiva?

Donde nacio?

Cuantos aflos tiene Usted?

Sn propuesta de ley para territories de comunidades Garifunas:

1.
2.
3.
4.

5.

Es basado en el modelo de la costa Atlantica de Nicaragua?

Cuando escribio esta propuesta? Para que?

Si ganan esta propuesta, entonces como va a estar para gente dentro de
comunidades — es solo para la tierra o quiere independencia en todos
maneras?

Y para comundidades mexclados como Sambo Creek — como esta ley
va a afectar los ladinos?

Odeco apoyo esta propuesta?

La Tierra de Sambo Creek

1.
2.

3.
4.

Otras -

La historia de la tendencia de tierra en Sambo Creek.

Historias de Como la teirra fue robado en la comunidad. [Quien sacc’r?
Cuando? Como?]

El papel de Ofraneh en la lucha para la tierra.

El titular Viejo? El titulo de 1997? Quien pidio para este titulo? [Si es
Odeco, como pidio sin apoyo de la comunidad? Sin apoyo de
Ofraneh?]

1. Entiendo que el Banco Mundial visito comunidades Garifunas. Porque?
gCual era este proyecto? Un amigo de Sambo Creek me dijo que los
representantes del Banco Mundial vinieran hablar con ellos y dij eran que
desearon ayudar con su lucha de la tierra. Es verdad o ellos tarnbién tienen
otros interes?

 

’3 I visited both Garifuna organizations a number of times and have not included all the question
lists in this appendix.

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6.

Tiene un comentario sobre el asesinato de Francisco José Garcia Valle, el
esposo de Maria Luisa Acosta, una lider en la costa de Nicaragua quien es
una defensora de los Derechos Humanos en la region y de trabaja para
tierras de las comunidades indigenas?

Yo lei inforrnes del Central American Research Council. Porque ellos
escribio estes informes?

Como identiﬁcan los Garifunas? Como indigenas, autoconos, e 105 dos?
Cual es la opinion de Ofraneh sobre el turismo en la costa?
[Especisifcarnente el proyecto de la Bahia de Tela y de la Bahia de
Trujillo?]

Cual es la opinion de Ofraneh sobre la ciudad ﬂotante (Freedom Ship)?

Solicitacion de documentos -

1. Comunicaciones con INA sobre la lucha de tierra.
2. Mapas de Sarnbo Creek.

3. Copias de noticias sobre cuando la gente de Sambo Creek
estuvieron en carcel el ano pasado?

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10.

ll.

12.

SAMPLE QUESTION LIST FOR THE INA

. Alguna persona me dijo que en 1995, INA paso una ley que reconoce

las tierras de las comunidades garifunas como communales. Es
verdad? Puede explicar este proceso legal a mi?

How are the limits decided and why are they communal?

Why is the title of domino pleno that they received in 1997 for less than
what they say is their land?

How did the title increase from 41 hectares to 184 hectares in 1997 and
home it is still only for 184 when the community says they are entitled
to more — saying they have more traditional ands?

When did Sambo Creek begin soliciting for the title they have?

Which organizations aided in the solicitation?

How come they are communal titles but I am ﬁnding that the vast
majority of people there has private titles or thinks that their land is

private?

Who can use/sell these lands that were granted in the communal title?
Can Mestizos too?

Do you know if women serve on the Patronatos in Garifuna
communities? If so, where?

What’s your opinion of the community’s request for Castillo’s lands?
Todos los grupos e'tnicos comenzaron a conseguir titulos de tierra en el
nrismo tiempo?

Are all lands titled now in Garifuna communities?

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APPENDIX B

INFORME PARA LA COMMUNIDAD DE SAMBO CREEK

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INFORME PARA LA COMMUNIDAD DE SAMBO CREEK

por Keri Brondo
brondoke@msu.edu
Michigan State University
Septiembre 2002

 

INTRODUCCION

Parte de mis requisitos para mi titulo universitario en antropologia, es conducir un
estudio afio-largo que pregunte a gente que vive en comunidades de Honduras
preguntas acerca de su cultura, historia, propiedad de terreno, luchas de la tierra,
turismo, e implicacion en organizaciones nacionales. Pasé una buena parte de mi
tiempo en Honduras que se entrevistaba con a gente en las comunidades Garifunas.
Desde febrero de 2002, me he entrevistado con a gente en algunas diversas
comunidades, asi c'omo la gente aﬁliada con las organizaciones ODECO y

OF RANEH. También he repasado los materiales escritos con respecto a tierra y el
turismo en la costa de Honduras, un area de Honduras que es casera alas
comunidades Garifuna.

Mi foco académico ha estado en cuestiones de como las politicas de desarrollo
intemacional y nacional afectan a grupos culturales. Porque el gobiemo de
Honduras esta promoviendo el turismo en un area habitada en gran parte por el
grupo cultural de Garifuna (la costa atléntica), deseé hablar con los miembros de
las comunidades de Garifuna sobre sus opiniones. Cuando comencé mi
investigacion descubri que un problema grande que debe primero ser solucionado
antes de que las discusiones del turismo podrian comenzar es el problematica de la
tierra. Consecuentemente, comencé a pasar mas energia que intentaba entender los
problemas con titular de la tierra y las luchas para recuperar tierras ancestrales. E1
informe siguiente detalla lo que aprendi de la gente de Sambo Creek. Me
entrevisté con ladinos y garifunas, porque Sambo Creek es una comunidad
mezclada.

Porque no he terminado mi coleccién de datos o analisis de los datos, este informe
es preliminar. No incluye toda la informacion que recogi - solarnente el que vino
de los miembros de la comunidad y de los materiales que yo recogi
especiﬁcamente sobre Sambo Creek. Después de que yo termino con mi
investigacion y escribo el informe ﬁnal para mi disertacion, enviare' una copia a la
comunidad en el aﬁo de 2004.

LOS PARTICIPANTES

Yo entrevisté forrnalmente a total de 60 participantes, pero hablé informalmente
con muchos mas que esto en Sambo Creek. Sin embargo, las 60 personas que
hablé a me dieron el permiso de utilizar sus respuestas en este informe. Para
proteger sus identidades, no utilizaré el nombre de nadie ni no daré los detalles de
su caracter que pudieron dar su identidad.

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Seleccidn del participante.“ Comencé mis entrevistas buscando a la gente con
poder politica en la comunidad y las ancianos que estaba bien infonnada sobre la
historia de la comunidad. Después de que estas 10 entrevistas, yo muestrearan
cada seccién de la comunidad, entrevisté-ndose con a un miembro del adulto de la
casa en aproximadamente cada 10 casa. Elegi las entrevistas de esta manera para
conseguir una muestra representativa de la comunidad. Comencé con entrevistas
en centro, después me entrevisté en la Colonia Libertad, entonces la Colonia
Suazo, entonces en Louba, entonces en el centro por el cemetario, y ﬁnalmente
Barrio Laureles.

Descripcidn de la entrevista: Las entrevistas eran algo inforrnales. Duraron
tipicamente entre una y dos horas. No grabe' respuestas, sino anoté notas. En
general las entrevistas ocurrieron en la casa del participante. Porque no hablo
Garifuna, y mi espaflol hablado no esta como mi espar’iol escrito, tenia la ayuda de
una ayudante durante la mayoria de las entrevistas. Mi ayudante ayudo el
entrevistado y yo siempre que tuviéramos problemas de comunicacion. Conduje un
porcentaje pequer’io solamente.

Las preguntas eran para la mayor parte i guales para cada persona, pero cada
entrevista diferencio levemente del siguiente. Dependiendo de los asuntos
levantados por el entrevistado, mis preguntas cambiarian a veces direcciones. For
10 tanto, no interrogaron todos los participantes todas las mismas preguntas.
Debido a esto, en la seccion en opiniones del participante, el nr'rmero de respuestas
no agrega siempre hasta el total de 60 participantes.

Demogrdﬁcos del participantes: De las 60 personas entrevistadas, 24 era hombres
y 36 eran mujeres. Esto demuestra la estadistica comr'rnmente citada que muchas
comunidades Garifunas tienen mas mujeres el vivir alli permanentemente, porque
sus esposos estan trabajando afuera de la comunidad. 36 de los 60 participantes
eran Garifuna. Los edades de los participantes eran: habia 17 participantes bajo
edad de 30; 23 entre las edades de 30 y 50; y 20 quiénes eran mas viejos de 50
aﬂos.

LAS OPINIONES DEL PARTICIPANTE

La seccion siguiente repasa las opiniones de participantes en un nr'rmero de
diversos asuntos. Ocasionahnente, la mayoria de gente conviene en un asunto
dado; en otras veces, discrepan. Mi meta es ayudar a la comunidad en saber qué
miembros de la comunidad piensan de situaciones contemporaneas en Sambo
Creek. Porque los participantes varian demograﬁco por edad, género, y étrrica, este
informe debe ayudar a demostrar la variedad de pensamientos presentes en la
comunidad.

I. La Problematica de la Tierra

Sambo Creek tiene muchos problemas con la titulacién, el saneamiento, y la
ampliacion de sus tierras de la comunidad. Repasaré cada uno de estos problemas,

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los participantes de la entrevista del conocimiento general tenian de estas
situaciones, y la corriente lucha para solucionar estos problemas. Pero primero
daré una breve historia del proceso de titular de la tierra.

La ldgica y la historia detrds del titulo de tierra de Samba Creek: Las
organizaciones que lucharon para este titulo hicieron para que un nr'rmero de
razones, y ellas dicen que intentaron ayudar a las comunidades Garifunas,
protegiendo sus tierras. Por muchos aflos, las organizaciones han estado luchando
con el gobiemo de Honduras para conseguir titulos a las tierras ancestrales de las
comunidades Garifunas. En 1989, el gobiemo de Honduras ratiﬁed la OIT
Convenio #169 err ley y éste ayudo a la lucha de Garifuna para la tierra de una
manera magrriﬁca. Esta ley garantiza y protege la tierra de grupos indigenas y
autéctonos, asegurando la derecha de legalizar las tierras que ocupan y que
ocuparon tradicionalrnente. Algunos discuten que el Garifuna no sea indigena;
otros discuten que sean. Pero cualquier manera, se protegen debajo del Convenio
#169 porque satisfacen las caracteristicas de un grupo autoctono en que estaban en
Honduras antes de que la republica fuera formada, con las tradiciones y las
costumbres particulares que todavia mantienen a este dia. Convenio #169 por lo
tanto se aplica a los siete grupos étnicos en Honduras, de las cuales el Garifuna es
una.

En 1996, Garifuna fue a! capital para La Marcha de los T ambores a exigir que el
gobiemo trabaja para resolver la problemética de la tierra. Como resultado de este
marcha, el Presidente Carlos Reina convino a el proceso de la legalizacion de las
tierras. El trabajo continuado con el Presidente Carlos Flores y el Presidente
Ricardo Maduro ﬁrmo recientemente una declaracion para terminar el proceso.
Pronto después de La Marcha de los T ambores, el gobiemo asigné 1,7 millones de
lempiras a INA y en enero de 1997, y el Instituto de Antropologia e Historia dono
200.000 lempiras mas. Todo de este dinero estaba para el proceso de titular las
tierras de los Garifunas. A pesar de estos grandes logros hay todavia problemas
con la titulacion de las tierras de los Garifunas. Por ejemplo, el hombre de
negocios, Miguel Facusse, acaparo las tierras de las comunidades Garifunas.

En junio e1 26 de 1997, él recibio un préstamo del Banco Mundial para $55
millones para consolidar sus inversiones en un proyecto llarnado Gran Proyecto de
T ransformacién Nacional - GPIN. Esta proyecto tarnbién recibida ayuda de
gobiemo y del negocio privado y de los sectores privilegiados del pais. En un
docurnento de ODECO, citan este ejemplo diciendo que, “esto signiﬁca que cada
dia que pasa es un dia contrario alas aspiraciones de la Comunidad
Afrohondurer’ias por materializar su legitimo derecho a la tenencia de la tierra.”

El T itulo de tierra de Samba Creek: En agosto el 27 de 1997, Sarnbo Creek
recibio un titulo del domino pleno, el grado mas alto de la propiedad de terreno
publicado por INA. El titulo esta para 184,23 hectéreas, cubre principalmente a
area urbano de la comunidad, y deﬁne los limites de la comunidad con las
colindancias siguientes:

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Norte: Playa de por medio con Mar Caribe 0 de las Antillas y Miguel Angel
Castillo

Sur: Parte de los predios 68, 69, 56 del Mapa LR-42 de Jorge Guevara

Este: Rio SAMBO CREEK, Miguel Angel Castillo Cruz, Adalberto Rodas,
Victoria Ponce Palrna, Jorge Guevara y Francis Alfredo Daniton

Oeste: Rio Cuyamel y Ricardo René Ugarte

Muchas comunidades Garifunas como Sambo Creek recibieron titulos del domino
pleno a sus tierras ocupadas. En el caso de Sambo Creek, el titulo de 1997 era su
primer titulo del domino pleno. Previarnente, la comunidad tenia solarnente un
titulo de ocupacién que protegio solarnente 41 hectareas y fue publicado por INA
en 1979. Las organizaciones que lucharon para el titulo de 1997 dicieron que
hicieron para proteger las tierras donde los Garifunas estan viviendo de problemas
potenciales con los inversionistas o los terratenientes quien desean comprar las
tierras costeras. Las organizaciones dicen que antes de que este titulo de 1997
fuera publicado, todas las tierras en las comunidades no fueron protegidas
legahnente. Sin embargo, ha habido preocupaciones expresadas por Sambo Creek
sobre el titulo de 1997.

Problemas con el titulo de tierra: Muchos de los lideres locales de Sambo Creek
discuten que la gente que buscé el titulo en 1997 no consultara con los miembros
de la comunidad antes de conseguir el titulo. Dicen que si hubieran consultado con
los hijos del pueblo, habrian realizado que Sambo Creek es mas grande que las
184,23 hectareas que ﬁreron tituladas. El presidente de Patronato tuvo que ﬁrmar
este titulo que fue publicado a la comunidad, asi que él debe haber sido informado.
Algunos entrevistados han especulado que quizas él no leyo el titulo, y apenas
ﬁrrnado 1e, el pensamiento de él estaba para mas tierra que publicaron.
Desgraciadamente, ese presidente tiene puesto que muerto y por lo tanto no
podemos conseguir sus propias palabras en el asunto.

El problema mas grande citado por los entrevistados es que el titulo de 1997 no
incluye todas las tierras ocupadas por los miembros de la comunidad, ni cubre sus
tierras ancestrales. El area del louba ha sido ocupada historicarnente por el
Garifuna de Sambo Creek y continua siendo, pero el titulo de 1997 no incluye su
tierra como perteneciendo a Sambo Creek. Con entrevistas descubri que el
municipio de J utiapa ahora esta pidiendo que la gente en louba le pagara
impuestos en vez a municipio de La Ceiba. Este solo demuestra e1 problema con el
titulo de 1997, puesto que los miembros de esta area de Sambo Creek pueden
remontar su ascendencia para los centenares de afios, viviendo en esa misma tierra,
y perteneciendo siempre a la comunidad de Sambo Creek.

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Tierras comunales. Otro problema grande en Sambo Creek con respecto a1 titulo
de tierra es que es un titulo comunal. Esto signiﬁca que la comunidad en general es
el dueﬁo de las 184,23 hectéreas bajo titulo, y que el Patronato tiene el poder
politica de tomar decisiones con respecto a la distribucion y al uso de la tierra. Sin
embargo, e1 titulo indica que esta regla se aplica solarnente a la tierra que
previamente no fire titulada privada. En Sambo Creek, la mayoria de las tierras
fueron privatizadas dentro de estas 184,23 hectareas, antes de la aplicacion e1 titulo
de 1997. Por lo tanto, la ley de la tierra comunal se aplica legahnente solarnente a1
porcentaje pequer’io que todavia no fue titulado en 1997. Como tal, el Patronato no
tiene e1 control legal sobre casi todas las tierras que fueron tituladas en 1997. Mis
entrevistas dan la evidencia de la cantidad de tierra titulada dentro de estos limites.

Yo pregunté 56 personas especiﬁcamente si tenian tierra comunal o privada, y si
tenian un titulo a sus tierras.
- 39 personas dichas que tenian tierra privada; 23 103 dijeron tenian un titulo,
8 108 dijeron tenian una escritura, y 8 105 dijeron no tenian ningunos
papeles, pero que la tierra sigue siendo privada.

o 9 personas dichas que su tierra es comunal. 3 de esta gente los dijeron
todavia tuvieron que pagar para estas tierras. Estas 3 personas viven en
Colonia Libertad.

0 Otra 1 persona que vive en Colonia Libertad dijo que su tierra era tierra
donada, pero que tenian un escritura a la tierra.

o 4 personas alquilan sus casas / tierra

- 4 personas no sabr'a responder a la pregunta. Esta gente no tenia ningunos
papeles para sus tierras.

Otro problema es que incluso las tierras que no fueron privatizadas antes de que
l997todav1'a se estén vendiendo como tierras privadas. Se parece que esto no se
debe perrnitir legalmente porque las tierras son oﬁciahnente comunales ahora y
como tal, no para la venta sin el permiso del Patronato. Incluso se han vendido las
tierras que la gente puede recordar como siendo donado por el gobiemo para ser
tierras comunales, tales como las tierras de Colonia Libertad. También, incluso
después de el titulo de 1997 era publicada, la gente todavia estén vendiendo tierras.
(Como esto sucede? Los participantes me dijeron que si un individuo desea
vender, solarnente necesiten conseguir la tierra medida por el Patronato, traigan
esto a un abogado, hagan que el abogado prepare la escritura, y entonces vaya a1
municipio para el titulo y a para pagar los impuestos. Aparece como si mucha
gente ha hecho eso. He encontrado que esto es en gran parte debido al hecho de
que la mayoria de la gente que vive dentro de Sambo Creek no realiza que existe
un titulo comunal para su tierra. Mueha gente no tiene el conocimiento que no
debe vender sus tierras. Dentro del aflo pasado, sin embargo, ha habido un

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movimiento local para educar a miembros de la comunidad sobre sus tierras. El
Comité Pro-Defensa de Tierra es en gran parte responsable de esto.

Crecimiento de la poblacirin. Una solarnente necesita caminar alrededor de la
comunidad de Sarnbo Creek para ver la necesidad seria del ampliacion en esta
comunidad. En el centro de la comunidad, las casas se construyen increiblemente
cerca de una otra - a menudo en las areas que eran los patios de las madres de una.
De los 49 participantes que especiﬁcamente pregunté acerca de cuénta gente vive
en su casa, las respuestas se extendieron a partir del 2 a 9 personas, con el
promedio de 5. Sin embargo, todo el tiempo gente mencionaria como hay muchos
hogares con 10 o mas personas que viven en ellas. Ademas, el cementerio local se
ha llenado a su lirnite.

No hay tierra para construir casas, para hacer un cementerio nuevo, para plantar
cosechas, 0 para construir centros de comunidad. Pero la cosa triste es, cuando
usted camina alrededor de Sambo Creek, usted puede ver muchos solares vacios,
cercadas. Esto esta porque tanto de la tierra de Sambo Creek habia sido vendida a
los dueﬁos privados. Ahora mucha gente tiene solares vacios que ella es ahorro a
retirarse o a vender. Algunos de estos dueﬂos son la gente de Sambo CreeK que
esta trabaj ando en los EE.UU. u otro pais y va a retirarse a la comunidad y a otros
dueﬁos son de Honduras 0 son extranjeros. Los motivos de estos terratenientes no
son claros para mi. Sé que algo esta planeando vender sus solares. Sin embargo, la
gente que posee solares de la tierra vacios dentro de Sambo Creek esta pidiendo un
precio para la tierra que es lej ana fuera de la gama posible de un nativo a Sambo
Creek. Mucha gente desea $10,000 0 mas para un solar de la tierra. Oi que alguien
es pidiendo $100,000 para su tierra. Cuando usted realiza que la mayoria de la
comunidad no tiene trabajo y las que trabaj an, gana solarnente 2,000 lempiras al
mes (aproximadamente $125 un mes), usted realiza que este precio para la tierra
esta a1 lado de imposible. Esto es una cosa terrible a venir pasar, porque hay tan
mucha gente de la comunidad que esencialmente se esta negando su propia tierra
porque no tienen dolares. Este problema de la poblacion y la carencia de las tierras
disponibles para las casas de la comunidad, centros comunales, y agricultura, es
parte de la razon que la comunidad esta intentando reclamar sus tierras ancestrales
perdidas.

T ierras ancestrales. Segr’rn miembros de la comunidad bien informados y un
informe por el Central American and Caribbean Research Council, los limites
ancestrales de Sambo Creek son los siguientes: a1 norte con mar caribe y cayos
cochinos, al oeste cerro Nombre de Dios, a1 este con el Rio Ramirez, a1 sur con el
Rio Piedra. Esta cantidad de tierra esta mas que 1000 hectareas, casi 10 veces
tanto como qué el titulo de 1997 dice perteneciendo a Sambo Creek. La mayoria
de los Garifunas entrevistadas puede recordar usando casi todas de estas tierras en
el curso de su vida. Estas tierras fueron utilizadas para recoger la madera, para
cosechar la fruta, para plantar cosechas, y para pescar. Casi todos los mas viejos
entrevistados habian plantado yuca u otras cosechas en el monte y los
entrevistados mas jovenes pueden recordar acompafiar a sus madres o abuelas al

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monte para plantar y para cosechar. También, casi todos los entrevistados
Garifunas recuerdan caminar hacia fuera a1 este y al oeste para recoger productos
alimenticios o madera. La mayoria de los entrevistados ladinos no utilizaron estas
tierras, sino que recuerdan que los Garifunas usa'ndolas, asi agregando ayuda
adicional para la discusion que estas tierras estaban tradicionalmente y
ancestralmente los tenitorios de los Garifunas. Pero en los t’rltimos veinte aﬁos 0
tan toda esta tierra se ha privatizado. Mucha gente vendio lotes de tierras a los
innrigrantes. Pero hay también historias de las tierras que fueron robadas de los
miembros de la comunidad

Historias de tierras robadas. La mayoria de participantes podria recordar unas o
mas historias de las tierras robadas de las Garifunas de Sambo Creek. Las historias
siguientes me fueron contadas durante entrevistas. La mayoria de estas historias
estaba sobre terratenientes ricos y politicos quien robaron las tierras de fuerza (por
la pistola) 0 con miedo que robaba las tierras. La mayoria de la tierra robada era la
que la comunidad sembrada hacia el monte y en Corinto.

1. Felipe Suazo obtuvo una parte grande de tierra en Sarnbo Creek como
préstamos. Alguna gente me dijo que cuando un miembro de la
comunidad no tenia bastante dinero a pagar algo en la tienda de Suazo o
necesito un préstamo del dinero, la persona prometiera su solar de la
tierra hasta él o ella le pago el dinero. F irmaron un papel indicando que
después de cierta cantidad de tiempo sin pagarlo, él tomarian la
propiedad de la tierra. Segt'm alguna gente, éste es Como Suazo obtenido
y vendido mas mucho de la tierra de Sambo Creek, y que lo que ahora se
llama Colonia Suazo fueron obtenidos de esta manera. Sin embargo,
otra gente de la comunidad que vive en Colonia Suazo dijo que éste no
es verdad y que Felipe Suazo ayudo al Gariﬁma. Esta gente dice que las
tierras de Colonia Suazo “fueron robadas por los indios que pusieron sus
vacas en las tierras” y que Suazo lucho para conseguirlas y entonces las
vendio barato de nuevo a la comunidad

2. F ordneos Caso Sampson: Oi historias que estaban en conﬂicto en como
él obtuvo su tierra. El tiene tierras en qué ahora se llama Corinto. Toda
la tierra que Sampson ahora ocupa era una vez donde los Garifunas
cultivaron.

o Este hombre era un maestro en la escuela de Sambo Creek. En los
aﬁos 80s, Sampson solicitaron las ﬁrmas de muchos adultos de la
comunidad, diciendo que él iba a utilizar la lista para solicitar
proyectos locales del desarrollo, tales como agua potable mejorada.
Los miembros de la comunidad lo conﬁaban en, porque él era
profesor en la comunidad. Pero 61 no utilizo estas ﬁrmas para los
proyectos y en lugar de otro usadas les para decir que el Garifuna
que poseyo solares de la tierra en que ahora se ha sabido como
Corinto 1e dio estas tierras.

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0 Un hombre de la tercera edad dicho, “Sampson solarnente compro
una sola pieza de la tierra y después bloqueado de mucho mas tierra
que no tenia dueflos. Esto es que' sucedio porque somos gente del
color. Sampson no tenia ninguna tierra cuando él llego, y ahora
todo es el suyo. Sampson era un amigo el mios, y él me pregunte
que ayudar al a conseguir la tierra, sino a me no deseé ayudarle.
Entonces, él busco a otro hombre - Sr. Antolin Vuelto. Después de
esto, no éramos amigos.”

0 Un hombre joven dijo eso: “Don Avencio puso sus vacas alli y las
vacas mataron a1 yuca, y entonces la gente se ﬁre. En el ﬁn, las
tierras fueron tomadas por Sampson.”

Miguel Angel Castillo: He oido historias que estaban en conﬂicto en
cémo este hombre obtuvo sus tierras - las daré todas aqui. Castillo tiene
40,7 manzanas registrados con INA. Sin embargo, Castillo tiene mas que
40,7 manzanas bloqueada. Una persona lo dijo tenia 70 manzanas
bloqueado apagado, pero mas gente dijo que e'l bloqueo realmente ilegal
de 8,89 manzanas. La comunidad esta luchando actualmente, con la
ayuda de OF RANEH, para recuperar esto tierra ilegal. Toda la gente
mencionada en esta tierra (Castillo, Suazo, y Fernandez) todo muerto

recientemente, asi haciendo la lucha de la comunidad un poco mas
diﬁcil.

Un informe sobre la comunidad escribié por Central American
Research Council dijo que Miguel Castillo obtuvo tierras pagando
Felipe Suazo, un hombre nativo de la comunidad.

Una muj er dijo esta historia: en la tierra de Castillo era una mujer
Garifuna que era un dueflo de esta tierra. Un cerdo de su vecino vino a
las tierras de ella y destruia su tierra, comiendo su yuca. Ella golpeo el
cerdo, pero entonces e1 vecino conseguido enojado en ella y ella se
asusto, y conclusion ella abandonandola las tierras por miedo. Luego,
este vecino tomo las tierras de la mujer y paso la tierra a sus hijos y
después a sus nietos. La tierra fue perdida eventualmente.

Un lider de la comunidad me dijo que: Miguel Castillo compro las
tierras de Avencio Fernandez. Fernandez las conseguido de Dorothia
Ramos, el dueﬁo original. Dorothia Ramos no tenia ningr'rn dinero y
ella no vendio las tierras. Qué sucedio era que su marido murio y ella
no tuvo dinero a pagar el atat'rd. Un atat'id costo en 7,50 lempiras.
Avencio Fernandez compro el atat’rd en el préstamo para su tierra. Pero
entonces Dorothia Ramos murio y su hija estaba asustada de
Fernandez, asi que ella no recupero las tierras. Tan después de tiempo
Fernandez las tenia y después vendido las tierras a Castillo hace 25

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aﬁos. Fernandez era abogado y asi que él trabajé en los papeles para
hacer este proceso.

4. Mas sobre Avencio Fernandez: F emandez fue mencionado muchas
veces por los participantes durante historias de tierras robadas.

o Una mujer dijo, “mi madre dijo que Avencio Fernandez tomara la
tierra de los Garifunas. El puso sus anirnales en los yucales y no
podriamos trabajar mas. El hizo esto en Suazo y Libertad, pero la
comunidad recupero la tierra en Liberta .”

0 Un hombre de 74 aﬂos recordo a gente quien robo tierras. El dijo,
“esta tierra era de nuestras, pero los jefes con dinero que vivo en La
Ceiba nos vio como menos que ellos y vinieron con las pistolas,
humillandonos, y dicho salir de nuestras tierras. Para e1 miedo
salimos de las tierras. Dij eron a nosotros, ‘aqui es 5 lempiras; no
vuelven.’ La gente se fue para el miedo. Ahora faltamos mucho
porque la comunidad esta carnbiando. Avencio Fernandez tiene un
potrero en el otro lado de la carretera. Avencio Fernandez tomé
mucha de las tierras y un Garifuna llamo a Lalo Fernandez ayudado
Chamorro para robar estas tierras. El solarnente compro un pedazo
pequer’lo de agua Ma y ahora él tiene toda la tierra. El era Secretaria
de la Municipalidad y como Secretaria él podia conseguir los
papeles para todas las tierras y porque los Garifunas no tenia
documentos, no podrian luchar. Ahora estamos luchando para
conseguir que es nuestras, porque e’ste estaba de los negros, esto
estabamos de los pobres. Fernandez compro un pequeﬁo pedazo y
después bloqueo todos.”

5. Senor Hugo: Un hombre dijo, “yo digo la verdad - un hombre se llama
Senor Hugo vino aqui con sus vacas y destruyeron las cosechas y la
gente comenzo a abandonar las tierras.”

La lucha local de la tierra para reclamar tierras ancestrales. Ha habido intentos
de reclamar tierras ancestrales por los lideres y los miembros de la comunidad. El
aﬁo pasado, los miembros de la comunidad invadieron estas tierras y las
comenzaron a limpiar para regresarlas a la comunidad y dividirse entre nriembros
de la comunidad. Estos invasiones eran fracasados porque algunas de estas tierras
son sostenidos por la gente que tiene titulos de domino pleno. Los nuevos duei’ios
fueron al municipio a luchar a la comunidad. Ahora la comunidad, a través del
Comité Prodefensa de la Tierra y OFRANEH esta luchando para reclamar sus
tierras ancestrales con otros medios.

El caso mas serio es de Miguel Castillo, quien ha bloqueado ilegalmente mas

tierras que él ha titulado. Cuando la comunidad invadié estas tierras, Castillo envio
a policia para arrestarlo. El policia dejado del gas lacrimogeno en la

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muchedumbre. Encarcelaron a siete personas - seis eran hombres y uno era una
mujer, que termino encima de perder a su bebé. La comunidad especula que su
pe'rdida era debido alas heridas inﬂigidas por el policia. OF RANEH asistio a la
comunidad y los siete fueron liberados de la prision en 34 horas. OF RANEH ahora
esta asistiendo a la comunidad en la lucha para reclamar todas las tierras
ancestrales. El Patronato de Sambo Creek y de el Comité Pro defensa de la Tierra
tienen documentos sobre las comunicaciones con INA y el proceso de esta lucha.
Por esta razon, no repetiré los detalles aqui.

Conocimiento y opinion de la lucha de la tierra. La mayoria abrumadora de gente
sabia sobre la lucha de Sambo Creek para reclamar las tierras. Muchos habian
atendido a las reuniones del Comité Pro-defensa de la Tierra. La mayoria de la
gente sabe en general donde estaban las tierras que la comunidad luchaba para y
porqué ella luchaba para estas tierras. La mayoria tarnbién sabia que cuando
reclamadas, estas tierras serian divididas entre los hijos de Sambo Creek quien
ahora no tienen tierra. Cada uno entrevistado apoyo la lucha de la tierra y espera
que la comunidad tiene éxito. Una edicién importante para pensar sobre es que si
se recupera la tierra, sera dada un titulo comunal. Esto trae la pregunta si 0 no la
gente que vive en Sambo Creek preﬁere tierras comunales o privadas.

De las 39 personas pidio si preﬁeren tierras privadas o comunales, 19 103 dijo
especiﬁcamente preﬁeren comunal, l9 preﬁeren privados, y l dijo quisiera que la
comunidad tuviera ambos. Esto es muy signiﬁcativo porque reﬂeja una division en
la comunidad y es algo que los lideres de la comunidad deben tratar dado el hecho
de que Sambo Creek tiene un titulo comunal para el area urbana y estan buscando
un titulo comunal para sus tierras ancestrales.

Los participantes dieron las razones siguientes en favor de la tierra comunal:

1. “La tierra privada siempre trae problemas.”

2. “El comunal es mejor porque entonces no hay un duefio y cada uno puede
tener acceso a e’l. Con privado, solarnente el duefio puede tener acceso.”

3. “Porque antes [cuando era todo comunal] nosotros no tuvimos que
comprar. Y si alguien necesita la tierra, no hay problemas en conseguirlo.”

4. “El comunal es mejor porque con comunal, si no tengo tierra y otra si tiene,
pueden prestar a mi. Podrr’a ir y construir. Con privado, no puedo.”

5. “Quisiera comunal porque entonces hay mas sitio de trabaj ar. Si
tuviéramos un Patronato bueno, responsable manejar las tierras comunales,
serian mejores que privados. Entonces podriamos crecer el yuca, maiz, y...”

6. “Si teniamos tierras comunales, nosotros podria realizar muchos proyectos.
Si nuestras tierras fueran privadas, tendriarnos que pagar impuestos y no
podemos hacer esto, porque no tenemos una fuente del trabajo. No tenemos
dinero.”

7. El comunal seria mejor porque los extranjeros que compran la tierra
pusieron a veces los leyes que no estan correctos, conduciendo a los
problemas. Pienso que si fueran comunales, entonces solarnente la
comunidad puede vivir alli y habria menos problemas.”

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Los participantes dieron las razones siguientes en el favor de tierras privadas:

1. “La gente respeta mas tierras privadas.”

2. “Privada es mejor porque entonces nadie puede venir tomar su tierra.” [Yo
aprendi que mucha gente temio que sin un titulo privado, alguien podria
venir toma su tierra]

3. “Con los leyes hoy, es mejor legalizar.”

Segt'm lo mencionado previamente, un hombre dijo que la comunidad necesita
ambos. Entonces la comunidad podria construir cosas como un centro comunal
en las tierras comunales, pero la gente podria tarnbién tener tierras privadas.

La r’mica recomendacion que yo tengo en los térrninos de la lucha de la tierra es
que cuando la comunidad gana la tierra y se titula comunal, e1 hecho de que es
comunal y puede ser pasado solarnente con herencia y no ser vendido, se debe
comunicar a todos los miembros de la comunidad. Como mencioné antes, una
mayoria enorme de gente no esta enterada del hecho de que Sambo Creek tiene
un titulo comunal a su tierra, y mucha gente continua vendiendo la tierra.

Comunidad mezclada. Otro punto que debo hacer sobre el titulo es que dice
especiﬁcamente “a favor de comunidad Garr'ﬁina Samba Creek. ” Seﬁalo esto
porque como las entrevistas demuestre clararnente, Sambo Creek es una
comunidad mezclada, con numeros casi iguales de ladinos y de Garifunas viviendo
en la comunidad. Los dos grupos tienen una historia larga en el area y por lo tanto
se dan derecho igualmente alas tierras de la comunidad. Se parece que no ha
habido ninguna negacion de tierras a los ladinos basados en el titulo de tierra y
esperanzadamente la lucha para recuperar las tierras ancestrales va a continuar con
cooperacion entre todos los hijos de la comunidad y que toda tendra igualdad de
acceso a las tierras recuperadas.

Prablema con las extranjeros y violen cia en comunidad. El problema con intentar
reclamar algunas de las tierras - especiﬁcamente esos solares llevados por las
familias pobres - es que alguna de esta gente ahora ha estado viviendo en las
tierras por veinte o mas aﬁos, y es diﬁcil de decir alguien que ha vivido en alguna
parte para e’se largo tiempo no es agradable alli. Alguna de esta gente son gente
buena, honesta, y trabaj adora. Puede ser verdad que ellos vinieron de a otra parte,
pero muchas de ellos compraron las tierras que ahora ocupan y no intentaron y no
trampearon a gente en la venta de sus tierras ancestrales

Sin embargo, hay los terratenientes grandes fuera de la comunidad, que se han
dicho para haber trarnpeado a la comunidad en abandonar o la venta de sus tierras
en los precios bajos muy. Para ser justas a la comunidad, las tierras que ahora
sostienen se deben investigar para calcular fuera como las obtuvieron y de si se
sostienen ilegal. La lucha para reclamar estas tierras se parece justa.

-23l-

Hay tarnbién una cuestion de la violencia en la comunidad. Mucha Garifuna
nativa de la comunidad me dij eron sobre cémo la violencia y la delincuencia ha
crecido en los aﬁos desde que los extranj eros vinieron a la comunidad. Esta
violencia esta entre la juventud, y asociado con el abuso de la droga. La violencia
también ha aparecido en la asociacion con los terratenientes extranj eros, que han
introducido diversas reglas a la comunidad. Por ej emplo, los terratenientes
extranj eros traen sus propios conceptos culturales de la propiedad privada y de la
proteccién de sus tierras, introduciendo nuevas ideas sobre propiedad de terreno a
la comunidad. Estos dueﬁos de tierra emplearén vigilancia para ‘proteger’ sus
tierras. Ellos tarnbién autorizaran la muerte de intrusos en las tierras. He oido
muchas historias sobre este fenomeno, y en un caso, un ‘watchiman’ matada
alguien que pasaba en su tierra en Colonia Suazo. Esta violencia y nuevas ideas
sobre la proteccion de la tierra no caben con la cultura, la tranquilidad, y los
tradiciones de la comunidad y por eso la comunidad tiene buena razon de ser
cautelosas de la entrada de extranjeros en su comunidad.

II. Articulo 107

El articulo 107 de la constitueién de Honduras indica eso: Los terrenos del Estado,
ejidales, comunales 0 de propiedad privada, situados en las zonas limitrofes a los
Estados vecinos, 0 en el litoral de ambos mares, en una extension de cuarenta
kilometros hacia el interior del pais y las islas, cayos, arrecifes, escolladeros,
penones, sirtes y bancos de arena, solo podran ser adquiridos, poseidos o tenidos a
cualquier titulo por Hondureﬁos por nacirrriento El articulo tarnbién dice que las
tierras pueden estar adquiridos de sociedades integradas en su totalidad por socios
hondurefios y por instituciones del Estado bajo la pena de nulidad del respectivo
acto o contracto. Por otra parte, el articulo dice que cuando estos destinos son
proyectos para el desarrollo del turismo, deben ser aprobados por e1 e1 Poder
Ejecutivo en conforrrridad con una ley especial. El ultimo pérrafo del Articulo 107
dice que la adquisicion de tierras urbanas esta conforrne a la legislacion especial.

El articulo 107 es relevante a las comunidades de Garifuna porque estan todas
dentro de 40 kilometros del mar. En noviembre el 30 de 1998, con todavia el pais
en los efectos horribles después del Huracan Mitch, el gobiemo abrogo el articulo
107 en una reunion de la sesion del congreso en el medianoche. El pais dijo que
esto era una medida necesaria de traer la relevacion monetaria al pais del poste-
Mitch. Esperaban eso que abrian la venta de tierras costeras animarian la inversion
extranjera para el turismo y otros progresos. Las organizaciones de los Garifunas y
los rrriembros de la Comunidad respondieron inmediatarnente con protesta a esta
reforrna. Fueron preocupados porque las porciones grandes de tierra en las
comunidades Garifunas no se titulan, y muchas tierras serian en peligro y se
podrian perder a los extranjeros. Algunos lideres tarnbién temieron que la entrada
del turismo en una escala grande va a causar el muerto de la cultura Garifuna. Una
gran cantidad de Garifuna protesto en el capital y consecuentemente Presidente
Flores acordado para no hacer cumplir la reforrna

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En mis entrevistas pedi a participantes sus opiniones acerca del Articulo 107 y su
reforrna. Un lider de la comunidad dijo como la reforrna del Articulo 107 no era
algo que afectaron solarnente Garifuna, pero que se parecia como solarnente
Garifuna, con OFRANEH y ODECO, luchara contra él. El dijo que la lucha
contra la reforrna seria mas fuerte si las cartas venian de todos los diversos tipos de
Hondureﬁos. Otro lider de la comunidad dijo como esta ley prohibe la venta de
tierras, pero que el problema no puede ser parado porque la mayoria’de la tierra no
esta en las manos de la comunidad, porque todos se ha privatizado. El dijo que si
el Patronato tenia las tierras en sus manos, podrian prohibir la venta. Segr'rn él,
esto es porque el Patronato esta luchando para hacer toda la tierra comunal.

Mucha gente dijo que aunque la ley prohibe a extranj eros de comprar la tierra en la
costa, muchos extranj eros poseen la tierra. Esto es verdad y es hecha posible por
las escapatorias en la ley. Por ejemplo, un extranj ero que casa con una Hondurer’io
puede comprar a tierra o a un extranjero puede entrar negocio con un Hondureﬁo.
También, cualquier area que se considere un area turistica esta oﬁcialrnente abierta
a la compra extranjera, y las Islas de la Bahia, por ejemplo, se considera las areas
turisticas.

La presencia de extranjeros. De las 60 entrevistas, especiﬁcamente pedi a 47
personas sus opiniones sobre si 0 no quisieran si los extranjeros pudiesen comprar
tierra en 0 alrededor de la comunidad. 2 personas (1 mujer Garifuna y l mujer
ladina) no desearon comentar respecto a la pregunta. Los 45 restantes hicieron y
sus respuestas siguen.

No desee a extranjeros: 14 personas (11 mujeres Garifuna y 3 hombres
Garifuna) no quisieran que los extranj eros compraran tierra en 0 alrededor
de la comunidad. Mencionan las razones siguientes de su opinion.

0 Mucho tiene esta opinion porque el Garifuna no desea el
turismo en sus playas. Discuten que los extranjeros deseen
sus playas, pero las playas pertenecen a la comunidad. Una
muj er tarnbién menciono que la gente teme que si el turismo
viene a la comunidad, empuj en a la gente de la comunidad
de sus tierras y no tener ningr’rn lugar a vivir.

o Otra razén contra la venta a los extranj eros es que compran
solarnente un poco, y después roba el resto. Un lider local
femenino me dio un ej emplo de un extranj ero desde quien
compro tierra de la playa en Sambo Creek y la tiene
extendio su tierra mas lejos. Otro hombre dijo que e'ste es
como la comunidad perdio su tierra - los extranjeros vienen
comprar un pequefio pedazo pero después ellos toman mas y
mas hasta que se va toda la tierra.

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o Otro rrriedo es que los extranjeros privatizaran las playas y
las tierras. Un lider local femenino menciono un nr'rmero de
ejemplos dentro de la comunidad donde los extranj eros han
bloqueado las tierras y no perrniten que la gente a pasar. De
discusiones con la gente Garifuna he aprendido que este
fenomeno esta contra la cultura del Garifuna, que para los
centenares de aﬂos ha vivido con el espiritu de tierras
comunales y del sentido de la libertad de pasar en toda la
tierra.

o Otra razén traida contra la venta de tierras es que la venta de
la tierra va a causar la desaparicion de las fuentes y de los
costumbres del alimento. Por ejemplo, una mujer menciono
como los pescadores ir a los cayos y si ellos vendieran esta
tierra, la comunidad no podria comer.

o Otra persona dijo que cuando vienen los extranj eros no
ayudan a la comunidad y que vienen solarnente hacerse
ricos.

Desee a extranjeros: 25 personas (11 mujeres Garifunas, 6 hombres
Garifunas, 5 mujeres ladinas, y 3 hombres ladinos) quisieran que los
extranj eros pudieran comprar tierra en y alrededor de la comunidad. Las
razones mas comunes eran las siguientes:

Muchos participantes dij eron que los extranjeros traen buenas
cosas a la comunidad, especialmente trabajo y por esta razon
estaban para la venta de tierras a los extranj eros. La gente
mencionaria repetidamente el indice de desempleo y como
trabajo es una necesidad de la juventud en la comunidad. Mucha
gente mira a extranjeros como fuente del trabajo. gUn lider local
dijo, “que puedo digo? No importo a mi si ellos traen negocios
aqui, porque usted sabe el mundo esta globalizando.” Otro lider
local dijo que “si no vienen los extranjeros, nosotros nunca
cambiara, pennaneceremos igual - sin trabajos y dinero.

Dos lideres de la comunidad dijeron que no tienen miedo a la
gente que tomaba sus tierras, como ODECO y OFRANEH
advertido podrian ser un problema para la gente sin titulos de
tierra. Uno de estos hombres dijo, “gente estaba asustado que la
tierra de la playa seria tomada de ellos. Pero nadie tomara su
tierra por la fuerza. Nadie le forzaran vender su tierra. Yo no
tuve un problema con la refonna del Articulo 107. Si la gente
desea vender su tierra, ella debe poder a vender.” El otro lider
de la comunidad dijo casi exactamente la misma cosa. Pero él
indico que si alguien desea vender su tierra, esta bien por él. El

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comento como Articulo 107 esta contra los extranjeros que
compran tierra, pero eso no prohibio los Hondurer’los de
comprar la tierra. Para él, seria mej or si los extranjeros podrian
porque “ellos pagan dos veces mas que Hondureﬁos.” Este lider
pregunto, “porque no perrrritir la gente aqui para ganar mas
dinero?.”

Depende de persona: 6 personas (2 hombres Gariﬁrnas, 3 mujeres
Garifunas, y 1 mujer ladina) dijeron que depende de las intenciones y de la
personalidad de los extranjeros. Todos dicen que si la persona tiene buenas
intenciones y viene ayudar a la gente y no lastimarla, entonces esta bien.
Pero como una mujer precisa, “la gente aqui no acepta la idea de
extranjeros de venir porque han traido desorden a nuestra comunidad en el
pasado.” Un lider local habia mezclado sentarnientos. Ella dijo que el
problema con los extranj eros que compran tierra de la playa es que
entonces la comunidad no puede gozar de las playas. Pero ella piensa que
si 10 compraran especiﬁcarnente para un proyecto del turismo, entonces de
que seria buena para la comunidad porque les ayudaria. Sin embargo, ella
dice que el problema es que la mayoria no compra tierra para el turismo.

III. Desarrollo del turismo

Pregunté a gente sobre si 0 no quisieran que el turismo aumentara en Sambo
Creek. La mayoria abrumadora dicha que lo hacen. La mayoria de participantes
dijo que tienen gusto de los turistas que visitan y quisieran que vinieran mas de
modo que pudieran vender sus productos o trabajar en la industria del turismo. La
mayoria de gente los dijo desea el turismo porque e1 turismo genera el empleo.
Pero, habia algunas preocupaciones mencionadas por el turismo. Estos
preocupaciones vinieron generalmente de los lideres locales. Las preocupaciones y
las precauciones que fueron expresadas eran:

0 Que algunos tipos de turistas - especiﬁcamente, los ‘de mochila’- traen
drogas a la comunidad.

0 El miedo de la gente puede perder sus playas a la industria turistica y el
acceso a la playa es un esencial parte de la cultura de Sambo Creek.

0 Que la comunidad exige ser socios en la industria del turismo, no
solarnente como empleados en la industria.

0 Que el turismo debe ser sostenible si se viene a la comunidad.

Una preocupacion que tengo es que aunque es verdad que el turismo genera el
empleo, tambie'n trae algunas cosas negativas con ella. Un impacto negativo
posible es que los precios de la tierra continuaran levantandose si el turismo en
escala grande llega a Sambo Creek. Por esta razon, es esencial que Sarnbo Creek
soluciona sus problemas con la tendencia de su tierra antes de que la tierra se

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privatice mas y se comercialice, o bien dejaran los nii'ros de la comunidad sin su
propia tierra y playas.

III. Los problemas locales

Pregunté a 60 participantes lo que pensaron eran el problema mas grande de la
comunidad de Sarnbo Creek. Enumeraré las respuestas y algunos comentarios que
fueron mencionados durante las entrevistas.

Problema # de respuestas
Ninguna tierra para plantar 0 para construir las casas 17
Desempleo y pobreza 10

Un hombre dicho: “Siempre estamos pobre, pero mas antes, menos ahora.
Pero seguimos siendo pobres, porque muchos hombres no desean trabaj ar,
ellos solarnente esperamos para la mujer para trabajar.”

Una mujer dijo, “la falta de trabajo y dinero. Mucha gente necesita el
trabajo y los que trabajan ganan poco dinero.”

Un hombre dijo: “porque no hay ningt'rn empleo, no podemos dar la
educacion a nuestros hijos y porque muchos hijos faltan la educacién y el
empleo, ellos roban.”

F alta de la educacion / de centros de capacitacion 5

“En las casas, no educan los niflos y usted puede ver en las calles que faltan
morales. Toman malos habitos y la adiccion a la droga. Esto es todo debido
a la educacion pobre.”

Salud - la desnutricion y infecciones del estomago 3

VIH/SIDA 4

Un lider local dijo, “Sambo Creek tiene una incidencia muy alta de
VIH/SIDA. Pienso el problema esta creciendo porque los niﬁos hacen
relaciones sexuales en las edades muy jovenes - 12 o 13 - y no creen SIDA
es verdadero y los padres no educan a sus niﬁos sobre él SIDA.”

Adiccion de la droga 5
Maras /corrupcion de la gente/ la falta de morales 5
La Falta de la autoridad 1

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Un hombre dijo, “la juventud esta perdiendo porque no hay vigilancia y
autoridad. Los nifios pueden vender drogas sin ningt'rn problema.
Necesitarnos mas vigilancia en el mar porque aqui es donde esta el traﬁco.”

Disunidad de la comunidad 2

Dos participantes dij eron la misma cosa y ambo dij eron que Corozal es
mas unido. En las palabras de una mujer: “El problema aqui es que no
somos unidos. No dire' es racismo, sino disunidad. Nos no unen para
solucionar cualquier cosa, y pues tales nosotros no pueden prosperar.
Corozal es muy unido- si usted tira basura en la calle, cada niﬁo y adulto
gritaran a usted. Pero usted no puede hacer eso aqui. Aqui la gente son
muy egotista. Usted no puede decir cualquier cosa aqui.”

La falta de la motivacion a estudiar o a trabajar para la juventud 1
“El huracan Fiﬁ era el problema peor” 1

No puede pensar de un problema 6

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APPENDIX C

ILO 169 ARTICLES REGARDING TERRITORIAL RIGHTS

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ILO 169 ARTICLES REGARDING TERRITORIAL RIGHTS

Article 13.1

Article 13.2

Article 14.1

Article 14.2

Article 14.3

Article 15.1

Article 17.1

Article 17.2

Governments shall respect the special importance for the
cultures and spiritual values of the peoples concerned of
their relationship with the lands or territories, or both as
applicable, which they occupy or otherwise use, and in
particular the collective aspects of this relationship.

The use of the term lands ...shall include the concept of
territories, which covers the total environment of the areas
which the peoples concerned occupy or otherwise use.

The rights of ownership and possession of the peoples
concerned over the lands which they traditionally occupy
shall be recognized. In addition, measures shall be taken in
appropriate cases to safeguard the right of the peoples
concerned to use lands not exclusively occupied by them,
but to which they have traditionally had access for their
subsistence and traditional activities. Particular attention
shall be paid to the situation of nomadic peoples and
shifting cultivators in this respect...

Governments shall take steps as necessary to identify the
lands which the peoples concemed traditionally occupy, and
to guarantee effective protection of their rights of ownership
and possession.

Adequate procedures shall be established within the national
legal system to resolve land claims by the peoples
concerned.

The rights of the peoples concerned to the natural resources
pertaining to their lands shall be specially safeguarded.

These rights include the right of these peoples to participate
in the use, management and conservation of these resources.

Procedures established by the peoples concerned for the
transmission of land rights among members of these peoples
shall be respected.”

The peoples concerned shall be consulted whenever
consideration is being given to their capacity to alienate
their lands or otherwise transmit their rights outside their
own community.

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Article 17.3

Article 18.1

Article 19

Persons not belonging to these peoples shall be prevented
from taking advantage of their customs or of lack of
understanding of the laws on the part of their members to
secure the ownership, possession or use of land belonging to
them.

Adequate penalties shall be established by law for
unauthorised intrusion upon, or use of, the lands of the
peoples concerned, and governments shall take measures to
prevent such offences.

National agrarian programmes shall secure to the peoples
concerned treatment equivalent to that accorded to other
sectors of the population with regard to: (a) the provision of
more land for these peoples when they have not the area
necessary for providing the essentials of a normal existence,
or for any possible increase in their numbers; (b) the
provision of the means required to promote the development
of the lands which these peoples already possess.

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