The Honduras Solidarity Network Congratulates Miriam Miranda and OFRANEH on Winning the 45th Annual Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award
The Honduras Solidarity Network (HSN) in North America congratulates the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH) and its coordinator Miriam Miranda as they receive the 45th Annual Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award from the Institute for Policy Studies on October 13, 2021.
We celebrate this award for OFRANEH, which has worked for more than 40 years to defend the human, civil, social and cultural rights of the Garifuna people in Honduras. The Garifuna are an Afro-Indigenous group whose rights as such are recognized in international and Honduran law, yet they face threats and violence aimed at displacing them from their territories in Northern Honduras and destroying their existence as a people.
Since the 2009 coup d’etat, with the consolidation of dictatorship in Honduras, OFRANEH has confronted an escalation of the attempt to eliminate the Garifuna people, and ever more aggressive challenges from government militarization and government backed land-grabbing by agribusiness, tourist mega-projects, and neoliberal schemes like the Charter City/ Special Employment and Development Zones (ZEDES). In recent years OFRANEH has reported dozens of violent attacks and more than 20 suspicious deaths or assassinations. On July 18th, 2020, four young Garifuna leaders were kidnapped and forcibly disappeared by police. All of these crimes have been committed with impunity. Miriam Miranda’s leadership in OFRANEH during these years has won recognition for courage and vision as she has organized with the Garifuna communities and in collaboration with the country-wide movements in resistance to the dictatorship. Miriam has been arrested, beaten, kidnapped by narco traffickers and she faces continuous threats. Yet she remains active and outspoken in the fight for the right of people to live in dignity in their country and territory without oppression and without forced migration.
The Letelier-Moffitt Prize is especially significant for Hondurans, which suffered a coup in 2009, given its founding in commemoration of Orlando Letelier and Ronnie Moffitt who fought to defend human rights against the violent US supported coup in Chile 1973.
The Honduras Solidarity Network recognizes the courage and the inspiration of the resistance of OFRANEH and Miriam Miranda for communities under attack around the world. We also thank IPS for its work to bring truth to light and to celebrate those who are fighting for justice.
Article In These Times Viewpoint by Miriam Miranda: Afro-Indigenous People in Honduras Are Being Forcibly Displaced. Washington is Complicit https://inthesetimes.com/authors/miriam-miranda
IPS Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award
Honduras Solidarity Network
