Land Rights and Garífuna Identity

...The entire population was imprisoned for a year in a camp on a nearby island, where more than half perished...

...Garifuna communities now ring the coast from Belize and Guatemala to Honduras and Nicaragua...

...nous" that the Garifuna have gained political leverage...

...When the English pushed out the French settlers of St...

...Some community members have responded by illegally selling their land to outsiders, often fearing they will lose their land without financial compensation if they refuse to sell...

...These reforms reflected increasing governmental acknowledgment of the pluricultural and multiethnic character of the region's populations...

...From there, they fanned out throughout the Caribbean coast of Central America...

...Ironically, however, the same international bodies are also indirectly undermining Garifuna gains...

...Mestizo cattle ranchers, real estate speculators, large businesses and foreigners target these territories for invasions...

...Mauricio and J. Velasquez, editors...

...The survivors were then loaded onto the H.M.S...

...With respect to land rights, the Garifuna occupy a complex position...

...These titles grant the community rights to a given area in perpetuity They may not sell the land or transfer its ownership outside the community Improvements, such as houses and other buildings, can be bought and sold within the community, but the land remains inalienable...

...The representative political institutions of Garifuna communities, known as patronatos, hold the communal land titles...

...Although several Garifuna agricultural cooperatives did surmount these powerful competing interests and receive title in 1998, the struggle is clearly unfinished and the obstacles remain substantial...

...Women are also responsible for the sale of surplus fish and agricultural products...

...ODECO, the more powerful of the two nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in terms of its international reach and funding, serves as an intermediary between international aid agencies and Garifuna communities...

...Moreover, they have won special amplified th4 legal status by virtue of their pre-European and dimensi presence in Honduras...

...Not all rural black communities can successfully claim such rights: only those able to document their history as communities founded by escaped slaves...

...As a central element of this struggle, rural blacks across Latin America are demanding recognition as distinct ethnic groups with group-specific rights, including to land and territory...

...While other commercial interests have historically threatened encroachment on Garifuna lands, tourism has greatly amplified the intensity and dimensions of this threat...

...3. For example, in Choc6, Colombia, residents refer to themselves as AfroColombian and view themselves as an ethnic group...

...Many of these practices are inextricably linked to the group's conceptions of land and territory: Community festivals mark the planting and harvest seasons and particular fishing activities, for example, and Garifuna cosmology invokes very specific notions about the land and how it is to be treated...

...For a grassroots activist's perspective, see Vicente Murrain...

...As the centerpiece of the country's tourism effort, its ecotourism program offers an extensive system of national parks and protected areas created over the past 20 years...

...In particular, they allowed for land reform, one category of which was ethnic-specific, introduced to address Afro-descendant and indigenous land claims...

...Women cultivate and grate yucca, dry it, and then bake it over hot coals into the finished product, cassava bread, some of which is reserved for local market consumption...

...4 These issues of racial and ethnic identity further overlap with land titling and natural resource use and require better integration, both analytically and practically...

...Although some Afro-descendant communities define themselves in ethnic terms, the dominant societies in which they exist insist upon viewing them still as strictly racial groups, negating these communities' diverse self-conceptions...

...Such requirements imply the prerequisite of cultural or ethnic distinctiveness...

...It is empowThe victories of the Garifuna's land rights struggles in Honduras cannot be understood without taking into account the ways in which this community has successfully politicized and linked identity and land...

...Access to land has long been documented to play 22 a vital role in reducing rural poverty and remains an important political and policy issue in the region...

...THESE COMPLICATED ISSUES ARE ALL AT PLAY IN THE LAND struggles of Honduras' Gartfuna...

...0 Estado do Maranhio, "Comunidades Negras: Terras e cultural preservadas," Sjo Luis Maranhio, May 21, 1996...

...Here, the distinction between race and ethnicity is important...

...In sharp distinction, no such privileges have been granted Afrodescendant communities...

...They have also gained considerable ground through analogous policies within multilateral development banks, such as the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank...

...For instance, they successfully pressured the Honduran state to recognize the applicability to their status of International Labor Organization Convention 169 on indigenous peoples...

...See, http://wbln0018.world bank.org/MesoAm/UmbpubHPPnsf/917d9fOf503e647e8525677c007e0ab8/aa7 c3cbbf399e7ee8525682c006fl B89?0penDocument...

...Indigenous groups have often been granted additional rights not afforded to Afro-descendant groups...

...Powerful Honduran military, business and political actors hold land in these areas and have sponsored a number of legislative efforts designed to reduce the size of Garifuna territory...

...The Garlfuna are one of nine recognized ethnic groups in Honduras, which collectively represent about 13% of the country's population...

...These threats to Garifuna land have generated a massive grassroots political response...

...Vincent and sought possession of the island, they encountered fierce resistance from the Garifuna...

...Because of such sales, and because Honduran political and legal institutions are often ineffective and corrupt, nearly all Garifuna territories suffer from multiple ownership claims...

...Historic indicators of their exclusion include their concentration in low-wage labor positions and their lack of access to public spaces and higher learning...

...These claims confer upon them indigenous-like legal status...

...The conflict erupted into a yearlong war in 1772, ending in a treaty considered by most accounts to be the first signed between the British and an indigenous Caribbean population...

...6 Honduras' tourism plan centers on a combination of six attractions: archaeology, colonial cities, nature and adventure, beaches and culturas vivas (living cultures...

...LAND CONFLICTS HAVE OCCURRED REGULARLY IN LATIN American societies for centuries, and they continue to do so despite the regional trend toward rapid urbanization...

...Indeed, the partial victories of the land rights struggles of Honduras' Garifuna cannot be understood without taking into account the ways in which this community has successfully politicized and linked identity and land, and forced the Honduran government to recognize this linkage...

...In Colombia, for example, indigenous communities were granted not only rights over land but also political, jurisdictional autonomy, so that local, indigenous-led governments now govern their own territories...

...Foreign investment in the tourism sector necessitates clarity around existing land ownership...

...To the extent that the reality of cultural While other difference has been acknowledged and addressed in conceptions of national identity, legal frameworks and public policies have historic in Honduras, this largely has been the threatened accomplishment of indigenous people...

...Most Afro-descendant communities in Latin America are still heavily reliant on access to land for their cultural, economic, environmental and social security...

...In recent years, these communities have asserted collective claim to the lands they have inhabited since the colonial era, pressuring national governments to provide them formal title...

...The high degree of coherence and continuity that characterizes their cultural identity and residency patterns has become central to their renewed struggles to secure land...

...Garifuna children in Tela, Honduras sell cassava bread to a tourist...

...There, they have managed to preserve their language and many cultural practices, including unique musical, culinary and religious forms...

...15-24...

...Typically, these groups first seek legitimation based on social memories of their battles, dating from the colonial era, against racial oppression...

...It is exclusionary to the extent it demands strict ethnohistorical "proof" that draws potentially controversial boundaries within and between communities, excluding those unable to generate acceptable documentation...

...As a result, in some Latin American countries rural Afro-descendant communities are now legally recognized as having a distinct ethnicity and as commanding 0 the right to collective and communal land title...

...Securing Legal Rights for Afro-Colombians: A Grassroots Organizer's View," in Margaret H. Frondorf, editor, Local People and Lawyers: Building Alliances for Policy Change (Washington, DC: Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies Program on Social Change and Development, The Johns Hopkins University), pp...

...Second, they are "indigenous" to Honduras in that they arrived before the republic won independence from Spain in the 1800s...

...LAND RIGwrs AND GARIFUNA IDENTIY 1. See CoordenagCo Estadual dos Quilombos Maranhenses, CCN, SMDDH, PVN, "Documento Referente as Chamadas Terras de Preto no Estado do Maranhlo," Slo Luis-Maranhbo May, 1996...

...They also hunt, mainly deer and iguana...

...21NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS REPORT ON RACE, PART 1 Experiment, no less, and transported thousands of miles away to the Honduran island of Roatan...

...In the notable cases of Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador, for example, to be eligible to claim land rights a community must be able to clearly demarcate the territory linked to its historically rooted identity...

...Tourism has become Honduras' sec- erests ond largest source of foreign exchange...

...y According to the National Tourism Institute, in 2001 tourism generated $256.2 million from 483,300 tourists-the on majority from neighboring Central American countries, about a third from the United States...

...These titles acknowledged the community's presence on the land but not its right to full and legal ownership...

...Eva T Thorne is Meyer and Walter Jaffe assistant professor of politics at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts...

...In 1988, r the Brazilian Constitution adopted Transitory Article 68, which recognized the land claims of descendants of SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2004 REPORT ON RACE, PART 1 the country's escaped slave communities, known as quilombos.1 In Colombia, the land rights of blacks on the Pacific coast gained constitutional recognition in 1991 with Transitory Article 55, which was implemented with the 1993 approval of Law 70.2 Article 83 of the 1998 Constitution of Ecuador granted AfroEcuadorians collective rights to ancestral lands...

...Honduran constitutional recognition of Garifuna land rights puts valuable lands under a communal titling regime that is, at least theoretically, immune to market logic...

...Their "blackness" has also excluded them from Honduran national identity, which, as in most Latin 23NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS REPORT ON RACE, PART 1 American countries, is characterized as mestizo...

...These groups have successfully command- encroachme ed official recognition as distinct, collec- Garifuna lan tive subjects with specific languages, cosmologies, and relationships to land and tourism has territory...

...Legal and constitutional instruments are often too narrow to acknowledge the diverse ways in which Garifuna self-perceive and position themselves externally Although they have been racialized within the categories of negro (black) and moreno (darkskinned), the Garifuna see themselves, and are seen, as both a racial and an ethnic group...

...For more on land titling of black lands in Choc6, see Ministerio del Medio Ambiente and Instituto Colombiano de la Reforma Agraria - INCORA, La Capacitacitn y la litulacidn Colectiva en los Territorios Afrocolombianos...

...In agricultural production, men are usually responsible for soil preparation as well as slashing and burning, while both men and women are involved in the sowing, harvesting and storage of the crop...

...3 Their social and political marginalization partly stems from their identification as racially Other and, complicating matters further, in some instances the communities themselves claim both ethnic and racial identities...

...Some patronatos have also engaged in illegal land sales to outsiders...

...Both have played a key role in pressuring the Honduran government to honor its constitutional commitment to title Garifuna land...

...In most cases, however, the titles are limited and apply only to the casco urban of the community...

...Quilombos in Brazil often see themselves racially, however...

...This has made foreign investment in coastal tourism contentious and difficult to manage...

...For example, they organize their communities communally, especially with respect to land tenure and agricultural practices, much like their indigenous counterparts...

...It is within this rubric of "the indige- threat...

...Garifuna men engage in non-commercial, low-intensity fishing in both the ocean and rivers...

...Until 1992 all the Garifuna communities in Honduras, with the exception of those of Cristales and Rio Negro, possessed only titulos de ocupaci6n (titles of occupation) for their lands...

...This strategy stems from the constitutional reforms that became an integral part of the Latin American political landscape as democratization swept the region in the 1980s...

...In 1996, Garifuna NGOs and patronatos united under the umbrella of the National Coordinator of Black Organizations of Honduras (CNONH) to mobilize more than five thousand people for the "First Grand Peaceful March of the Black People of Honduras...

...A second war broke out over the failure of the British to honor the terms of the treaty, but this time the overpowered Garifuna surrendered on British terms...

...In Honduras, some Garffuna see themselves as both racial and ethnic, depending on context...

...As a group, they have experienced high levels of discrimination ever since their arrival in Honduras, characterized by the denial of social and civil rights...

...These legal instruments and institutional policies, with their provisions for group land rights, have offered the Garifuna a critical foothold by which to proceed with 24 their claims...

...The World Bank has provided the government of Honduras with a loan for coastal and tourism development, which may have profoundly negative consequences for Garifuna communities and their struggle for land...

...With massive male migration abroad from Garifuna communities, a growing non-traditional male subsistence role is the provision of remittances, while women increasingly assume the formerly male responsibilities of property transactions and maintenance...

...In other words, communal titles have generally been granted only to areas where Gartfuna houses are actually located, leaving untitled areas where the communities' agricultural activities take place...

...ering insofar as it accepts the legitimacy of deeply rooted, ethnically distinct community identities...

...While these reforms often legally enshrined authoritarian enclaves that shaped the emerging democratic regimes, they also contained elements of promise for the promotion of popular interests...

...First, the Garifuna originated from a mixing of Africans with an indigenous Caribbean population...

...In fact, the increasingly powerful Garifuna community in Honduras leads one of the more successful Afrodescendant land rights movements in Latin America...

...Through the coordination of the Honduras Tourism Institute and the Ministry of the Environment (SEDA), the government has made a concerted effort to attract foreign investment to the industry...

...In these ways, their experience recalls that of blacks in the United States during the Jim Crow era...

...Two are especially prominent: the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH) and the Ethnic Community Development Organization (ODECO), both of which have offices in La Ceiba, on the Atlantic coast...

...The legal logic behind ethnically based land claims can be both empowering and exclusionary...

...Alexander Cifuentes, "Propuesta de desarrollo legislativo: del Articulo Transitorio 55 de la Constitucibn Politica de Colombia," in A. Cifuentes, Al...

...In Honduras and Nicaragua, groups must show that they have traditionally used their lands...

...Honduras currently has the largest population of Garifuna at 250,000, according to the country's Special Office on Ethnicity and Cultural Heritage...

...San Juan: A Case Study," unpublished manuscript, written for a World Bank-funded study on Garifuna and Miskito land rights, October 2002...

...Among those practices that distinguish the Garifuna as a separate ethnic group are a particular set of subsistence activities and a related gendered division of labor...

...Garifuna leaders have used this indigenous framework to promote their case with the Honduran state...

...Meanwhile, the tourism boom of recent years and the consequent demand for valuable beachfront property has created incentives for land invasions and intimidation, as well as bribery and outright violence againstSEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2004 REPORT ON RACE, PART 1 Garifuna communities...

...They are active in public education and consciousness-raising, political advocacy and lobbying, community organizing, development work and fundraising...

...Yet these areas-in addition to those used historically by the community for hunting, fishing and other activities-comprise the majority of Garifunas' territorial claims...

...Since the late 1980s, a number of Garifuna-led organizations have arisen...

...Between 1997 and 2002, most Garifuna communities received formal ownership titles to a significant portion of land...

...OFRANEH is a grassroots support organization...

...6. Edmund T Gordon...

...This concept incorporates a mix of European and indigenous qualities, but largely ignores and/or marginalizes Honduran society's African legacy...

...The Garifuna maintain other unique cultural practices such as the Garifuna language, a particular set of religious beliefs and associated practices, as well as culturally specific festivals...

...5. In July of 2001 the World Bank's soft loan window, International Development Association, approved a $5 million, interest-free credit for The Sustainable Coastal Tourism Project...

...Vincent, the island's indigenous ArawakCaribs integrated runaway and shipwrecked African slaves into their communities...

...The government projects a !atly more than 5% annual increase in tourism itensity and anticipates Honduras will attract one s of this million foreign tourists and generate 30,000 direct and 40,000 indirect jobs over the next four years...

...Active political mobilization, however, has largely attenuated the Latin American myth of the mestizo nation...

...A Garffuna man in Tocamacho on Honduras' north coast...

...2. For more on blacks in Colombia, see Jaime Arocha, "Afro-Colombia Denied," NACLA Report on the Americas, 25(4), pp 28-31...

...Their communities reside, as they have for generations, along the northern coast of the country and La Mosquitia in the east...

...The Coordinadora, as the coalition was known, succeeded in securing a meeting with a presidential commission, which resulted in an agreement to set aside the equivalent of $227,000 for the National Agrarian Institute to title Garifuna lands...

...This demonstration sought to pressure the Honduran government into addressing titulaci6n (titling), ampliaci6n (enlargement) and saneamiento (dealing with third parties) in Garifuna communities...

...European colonists first referred to their progeny as "Black Caribs" and later "Garifuna," as they are still known...

...They also affirm their distinct ethnic identity and link this to longstanding occupation of a given territory, dating from before the founding of the independent Latin American nationstate...

...La Nueva Constitucidn y La Territorialidad en El Pacifico Colombiano (Cali: Corporaci6n SOS Colombia, 1993...

...Thus, most Afro-descendant groups pursuing collective land rights have begun their struggles for land by first upholding a set of claims relating to ethnic lineage and historic residency...

...5 inte gre ein on Since Garifuna communities are located along the country's spectacular northern beaches, the growth of tourism imperils their land claim efforts...

...This major accomplishment reflects the Garifuna's success in pressing for the recognition of their ethnic distinctness and their linking of this identity to lands of traditional occupation...

...4. In Panama, Colombia, Nicaragua, and elsewhere, mixed black/indigenous identities are common...

...Significant elements of their language are Amerindian in origin, as are other elements of their unique, indigenous-like identity...

...They have also reached out for international points of leverage, taking advantage of the overarching institutional framework characteristic of this era of globalization...

...The Garifuna alone account for approximately 2...

...As part of their political mobilization, they have affirmed their racial and ethnic identity to strengthen their collective territorial claims...

...This exclusion from the hegemonic understanding of national belonging previously undermined the ability of the Garifuna to make group-specific claims...

...In the juridical context of most countries of the region, historically derived ethnicity, and not race per se, forms the legal basis for collective claims to a distinct territory...