Afro-Descendant & Indigenous: News & Updates

The Pech Indigenous peoples were the original inhabitants of the Bay Island of Roatan but were relocated to the mining areas of the mainland by the Spanish during the early colonial period. The total population of Pech Indigenous peoples in Honduras today is only about 6,000, and they are divided into nine communities. About 90% of the Pech live in Olancho Department; others are in Colón and Gracias a Dios Departments. Resisting total assimilation, about half still speak their native Pech language. 

Residents of the community of Pueblo Nuevo Subirana in Dulce Nombre de Culmí, Olancho Department, found the bodies of Juana María Martínez and an unidentified companion the morning of September 23. Both had gunshot wounds and their bodies had been burned.

Julián Mass, Pech Indigenous chief of the Vallecito community in Dulce Nombre de Culmí, told the media that Juana María Martínez was a local leader of entrepreneurship projects who was dedicated to working on behalf of the Pech, actively participating in assemblies of Indigenous organizations.

On September 19 in the early morning, four armed men entered the home of Miriam Miranda, general coordinator of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH), in the Garifuna community of Vallecito, Colón, with the apparent intent of causing her physical harm.

For many years, the list of attacks on Miriam has grown to be quite extensive, while the list of those punished for such attacks is non-existent. In February 2022, Miriam received death threats by telephone. Months later in August 2022, the Attorney General’s (AG) office announced they were opening a criminal investigation against Miriam and other defenders for protesting in front of the AG’s office demanding justice and action related to the forced disappearance of four Garífuna land defenders from the community of Tríunfo de la Cruz. Years ago, Miriam was also abducted by armed men in Vallecito, despite having protective measures from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights since 2011.

The recent attack on Miriam Miranda exemplifies the danger facing Garífuna community leaders who are defending their lands across the north coast of Honduras

On August 3, the ELN (National Liberation Army) signed a 6-month ceasefire with the government of Colombia. But just one day before, they kidnapped two community leaders in the southwest department of Caquetá.

At 6:30 am on August 2, Alexis Chocho Chamapuro from the Wounaan-Nonán Puerto Pizario reservation was traveling with another 25 passengers in the community boat that provides transportation service to the Port of Colonias in Calima. Six armed men in another motorboat intercepted them between Puerto Pizario and Palestina. The armed men were holding a list and some photographs. They also had with them Geiler Lizalda, member of the Community Council of Palestina, an Afro-descendant community, whom they had forcibly seized from his home.  They proceeded on the Río San Juan toward the town of Istmina.

The ELN later admitted to the kidnapping. As of August 25, there has been no word from the ELN whether the two men are still alive.

Almost 30 years after the end of the armed conflict, Indigenous families in Guatemala are still feeling the violent effects of displacement and genocide.

This month we wrote to authorities about a violent eviction carried out by the Guatemalan National Police (PNC) on a Maya Indigenous campesino community in Kumatz, Barrillas municipality, Huehuetenango Department.

On July 19, 2023, the governor ordered 2,500 officers of the National Civil Police (PNC), including riot police, to carry out the violent eviction of these Indigenous families from their ancestral lands. Several community members, both men and women, were physically assaulted by police and dragged out by their hair. The following day, the families’ houses, personal belongings, and livestock were burned by the private security forces of private landowners who have been accused by the community of arbitrarily appropriating their land during the internal armed conflict.

Since the families returned to reclaim their ancestral lands after decades of displacement, they have been met with harassment, surveillance, and armed violence by the private finqueros (plantation owners) now occupying their lands, culminating in a shooting in June 2023 that left two Q’anjob’al Mayan farmers dead (cf our letter of 24 JUN 2023).

With the future of the community of Kumatz uncertain, we are urging that authorities legally settle the land dispute, recognizing the ancestral stewardship of this land by the Maya Indigenous peoples and their forced displacement during the internal armed conflict.

In Oaxaca, Mexico, Indigenous defenders pay a heavy price for their persistence in protecting their lands, waterways, and cultures against the forces of modern industrialization and global capitalism.

Zapotec Indigenous human rights defender David Hernández Salazar has been charged by the municipal authorities of San Blas Atempa in Oaxaca with the crimes of arson and attacks on roads. These charges are related to his active role in protesting against the installation of the “Polo de Desarrollo para el Bienestar” Industrial Park (PODEBI) in the communal territory of the Zapotec Binnizá Indigenous Community of Puente Madera as part of the Inter-Oceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (CIIT) project. The CIIT, which includes the construction of commercial ports, a network of primary and secondary roads, digital connectivity networks, a gas pipeline and ten industrial parks, poses significant risk to the environment and to the living conditions of the community.

David Hernández Salazar has been subjected to harassment and threats, and so have other inhabitants of Puente Madera and members of APIIDTT. He received two attacks in July. During the same week, two other members of APIIDTT were hit on the road in what appears to be an intentional “accident,” leaving 31-year-old Juan Cortés Meléndez dead and 17-year-old Kevin Alberto Solorzano Cortés seriously injured.

We are urging officials in Mexico to investigate the attacks and drop all criminal charges against David Hernández Salazar and provide protection mechanisms for members of APIIDTT.