Miskito Land Councils Receive Land titles

English language news sources reported this week that five Miskito federations received collective land titles through the Instituto Nacional Agrario.

The titles cover 970,000 hectares (approx. 1.6 million acres) of land in the eastern part of Honduras, along the Caribbean coast and the border with Nicaragua.  This constitutes almost 7% of the land area of Honduras.  The latest land titles add to titles for other lands allocated in 2012 and May, 2013.

The recipients of these titles are territorial councils. Twelve Miskito and Pech Federations are organized in territorial councils:

Rayaka - located in Belen,
Diunat - Brus Laguna,
Finzmos - Morocon - Segovia
Katainasta - Laguna Caratasca
Auhya Yari - Puerto Lempira
Lainasta - Laka
Wamakliscinasta - Auka
Watiasta - Eastern Mosquitia, along the Caribbean coast adjacent to Nicaragua
Bamiasta - Ahuas, Rio Patuca, Biosfera Río Plátano
Bakinasta - Wampusirpi, Río Patuca, Reserva TawakaAsagni
Batiasta - Barra Patuca
Truksinasta - Tipi

The councils and their territories are contiguous zones in far northeast Honduras:

 (Click to enlarge.  Map taken from page 16 of this source.)

Honduras acquired title to the land that has now been titled from Great Britain through the Cruz-Wyke treaty of 1859.  This treaty ceded British control of the Bay Islands of Utila, Guanaja, Roatan, Morat, Elena, and Barbarete to Honduras. It required Honduras to recognize existing land titles on those islands, and for Honduras to observe freedom of religion and worship for their residents.

Article II of the treaty recognized ownership by Honduras of  the land occupied by the Miskito, except for land that might be claimed by the government of Nicaragua. Otherwise, the treaty was non-specific about the boundaries involved.

Article III of the treaty is what underlies the new land titles. It reads:

The Misquito Indians in the district recognized by Article II of this Treaty as belonging to and under the sovereignty of the Republic of Honduras shall be at liberty to remove, with their property, from the territory of the Republic, and to proceed withersoever they may desire; and such of the Mosquito Indians who remain within the said district shall not be disturbed in the possession on any lands or other property which they may hold or occupy, and shall enjoy, as natives of the Republic of Honduras, all rights and privileges enjoyed generally by the natives of the Republic.

Article III went on to called for an annual fund to be established for educating the Miskito over a ten year period, the fund to be guaranteed by income from the logging rights to any state-owned land in the Bay Islands and Miskito territory.  That means the Treaty recognized that not all the land in the ceded territory was privately held.

Only some of the present-day territorial councils have received title to the lands they occupy, as prescribed by the treaty.  On August 30, 2012, the council of Katainaska received title to the lands around Laguna Caratasca, where the US is building a military base for the Honduran Navy.

In May, 2013, the council of Auhya Yari received title to lands around Puerto Lempira.

Five councils received land grants together totaling 970,000 hectares in the latest phase of complying with the treaty.  The council of Finzamos (26 communities, 1340 families) received title to lands around Morocon - Segovia.  The council of Truksinasta (26 communities, 840 families) received title to lands round Tipi.  The council of Wamakliscinasta (19 communities, 790 families) received title to lands around Auka.  The council of Lainasta (39 communities, 1800 families) received title to lands around Laka.   The council of Waitasta (18 communities, 1200 families) received title to lands along Honduras's eastern border with Nicaragua.

These titles are corporate, indivisible, and non-transferable.

Sounds great, right?

The Consejo Coordinador de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras (COPINH) suggests, through its spokesperson, Bertha Caceres, that the Lobo Sosa government has an ulterior motive in granting these land titles at this particular time.  She said:

"What a coincidence.  They authorize land titles just as they are to begin asking the Misquito people to approve oil and gas exploration by the English company British Gas Group."

In May this year, at the same time as the second set of Miskito land titles were being issued, the Lobo Sosa government announced it had granted British Gas Group a license to explore for off-shore oil and gas all along the coast of Honduras, from Tela east to Nicaragua.

Honduras has had at least one test well yield oil in the sea off the Moskito lands, and the area around Tela contains suspected gas reserves.

The grant to British Gas Group will bring in a substantial sum for the government, whether or not the company finds gas or oil.  However, to get their environmental license, they must get the consent of the Miskito peoples, through a series of public meetings that are just about to take place.

So maybe the timing on these land titles is coincidental. Or maybe it is meant to influence local attitude toward the environmental license for British Gas Group, in the hope of avoiding the kind of conflict that is happening everywhere else the Lobo Sosa government has authorized exploitation of natural resources near indigenous communities.

Either way, titling this land is long over due, a treaty right, not a gesture the government should be credited with taking out of the goodness of its heart.

Honduran Development Leads to Death of Indigenous Leader

Honduran and international press have reported the murder of Tomás García, a Lenca leader, on July 14.

The immediate cause: a bullet from the gun of a member of the engineering battalion of the Honduran armed forces.

But it would be too simple to stop the story there. This is a story of exploitation of Honduras' natural resources, and of popular opposition to their destructive effects, largely ignored outside activist media outlets.

The bare outline of the facts, relayed from Radio Resistencia host Félix Molina by Adrienne Pine, starts simply:

Allan García, 17 year-old Lenca boy, was checked in to the Santa Barbara hospital this Monday at 1:00pm, injured by the Honduran military in the community of Río Blanco, Intibucá. The medical diagnosis is that a high-caliber bullet went through his thorax and that he requires urgent medical intervention. He was sent via emergency transfer this afternoon to Hospital Mario Rivas in San Pedro Sula. In the same attack, his father —Tomás García Domínguez, Lenca community organizer—was murdered around noon, also by the army which is guarding the DESA Company of the Chinese state firm SYNOHIDRO, which plans to build a dam on the Gualcarque River against the will of the indigenous community.

The Mexican news outlet El Informador reported that "close to 400,000 indigenous people are opposed to the construction of a dam by a Chinese company". That company, SYNOHIDRO, is well known as the contractor for controversial dams proposed on the Patuca River in Olancho, in eastern Honduras, expected to cause major environmental damage in the Rio Platano Biosphere, and protested by indigenous people in eastern Honduras as prejudicial to their livelihoods.

In April, International Cry posted notice of the beginning of protests by Lenca residents against the Agua Zarca dam, located on the opposite side of the country in southwest Honduras, on what some news reports call the Rio Blanco, more accurately, the Rio Gualcarque. They reported that this project was one of "around 360 newly accepted development concessions in Honduras, 30% of which are on indigenous lands".  The post describes actions taken by the protesters in April to disrupt the attempt to initiate dam construction.

SOA Watch reported in April about how the local Lenca community mobilized, both to lobby the Honduran government to rescind the Agua Zarca project, and to actively block construction efforts on the dam, which was made possible by legislation passed in 2009 during the de facto regime of Roberto Micheletti. SOA Watch quotes an unnamed woman from the community eloquently describing what is at stake in this struggle:

“What we’ve decided as the community of Rio Blanco, together in one voice, is that they withdraw those machines… Because we haven’t given permission for dams to be built. As the community of Rio Blanco, when the Mayor came for a town hall meeting, what we said was No and No. All in one voice, we said No. He got mad and he got up and left. He went to make a decision with those who like money under the table. That’s what they did. And today they have us oppressed. On the land where we harvest corn, beans, rice, yucca, coffee, they have buried the harvest with the dirt that they throw from the machines. Because of this, today, as the Rio Blanco community we have decided that the hydroelectric company will not continue working. We will not leave the blockade until they withdraw the machines. Because we are poor campesinos and there are about 300 children. Where will the children go? We have to pass this piece of land onto our children, each one of them, so that they can survive.”

According to Indian Country Media Network, on May 23 "police forcibly removed the indigenous demonstrators from the area with tear gas and arrests". The next day, Berta Caceres, Director of the organization COPINH (Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares y Indígenas de Honduras) was arrested on what are widely seen as false charges of possession of firearms, charges suspended but not dismissed by a Honduran judge.

This seemed to be an attempt to intimidate the leadership of COPINH. Taken in this context, the death of Tomás García is an escalation from intimidation to deadly force, against indigenous leaders of protests.

Perhaps predictably, Honduran press reports accused the indigenous protesters of initiating the most recent violence. This is a familiar approach in Honduran reporting, presenting protests as illegitimate interference with the rights of property owners, with "destruction of property" raised as justification for fatal violence.

Coverage by El Heraldo was particularly egregious: the Honduran paper largely quoted a press release from the company. Their story goes that "owing to the violent intervention of the demonstrators of COPINH Tomás García died, and Allan García Domínguez also was injured", leaving a bizarre impression that it was the protesters, not the military, who resorted to firing on the crowd.

While the company press release leaves out the details of just who fired the fatal shots, Berta Cáceres explained that as 300 members of the group were protesting, "members of the armed forces who were accompanied by the police" committed the fatal shooting. In contrast, Vos el Soberano describes the demonstration as peaceful, the latest of 106 days of peaceful protests.

COPINH characterizes the protest as an assertion of Lenca sovereignty, "based on Convenio 169 about Indigenous Peoples, our historic memory, and the right to life and to collective rights as original people" of Honduras. Under ILO Convention 169, indigenous people in Honduras expect to be consulted about development projects that will affect them.

ILO 169 was adopted by Honduras in 1995, and while it would be a stretch to say that previous governments were enthusiastic in implementing it, after the 2009 coup indigenous groups experienced marked reversals in progress in asserting rights of consultation as Honduras rapidly expanded exploitation of natural resources. The post-coup congressional development process ran roughshod over environmental protection. Bad deals for energy generation were common. Increases in gold mining were encouraged, destroying the health and environment of rural communities.

Indigenous activists have fought back-- with little notice from mainstream news media internationally.

Perhaps that will change, now that intimidation has turned deadly. But we aren't counting on it.

ebido a la intervención violenta de los manifestantes del Copinh falleció el señor Tomas García, resultando herido también el señor Alan García Domínguez

Leer más en: http://www.elheraldo.hn/Secciones-Principales/Pais/Dos-muertos-y-un-herido-en-protesta
Síganos en: www.facebook.com/diarioelheraldo y @diarioelheraldo en Twitter

Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras

Leer más en: http://www.elheraldo.hn/Secciones-Principales/Pais/Dos-muertos-y-un-herido-en-protesta
Síganos en: www.facebook.com/diarioelheraldo y @diarioelheraldo en Twitter

Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras

Leer más en: http://www.elheraldo.hn/Secciones-Principales/Pais/Dos-muertos-y-un-herido-en-protesta
Síganos en: www.facebook.com/diarioelheraldo y @diarioelheraldo en Twitter

debido a la intervención violenta de los manifestantes del Copinh falleció el señor Tomas García, resultando herido también el señor Alan García Domínguez

Leer más en: http://www.elheraldo.hn/Secciones-Principales/Pais/Dos-muertos-y-un-herido-en-protesta
Síganos en: www.facebook.com/diarioelheraldo y @diarioelheraldo en Twitter