[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 1278 Introduced in House (IH)]
<DOC>
118th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. RES. 1278
Affirming the importance of the survival of Garifuna culture and
identity, condemning the violent and illegal appropriation of Garifuna
territory, urging the Department of State and multilateral development
banks to respect the rights of the Garifuna people, and calling on the
Government of Honduras to fully comply with the resolutions of
multilateral human rights bodies which mandate the return of Garifuna
land and territory, and for other purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
June 5, 2024
Ms. Bush (for herself, Mr. Bowman, Mr. Garcia of Illinois, Ms. Omar,
and Ms. Schakowsky) submitted the following resolution; which was
referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the
Committee on Financial Services, for a period to be subsequently
determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such
provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Affirming the importance of the survival of Garifuna culture and
identity, condemning the violent and illegal appropriation of Garifuna
territory, urging the Department of State and multilateral development
banks to respect the rights of the Garifuna people, and calling on the
Government of Honduras to fully comply with the resolutions of
multilateral human rights bodies which mandate the return of Garifuna
land and territory, and for other purposes.
Whereas the United States and the Republic of Honduras share an important
relationship, which includes deep and long standing economic, social,
and cultural ties;
Whereas the Afro-Indigenous Garifuna people, descendants of the Arawak
Indigenous people of St. Vincent Island and of African castaways
destined to be sold into slavery in the Americas, are 1 of 9 Indigenous
peoples of Honduras;
Whereas the Afro-Indigenous Garifuna territory that has stretched along the
Caribbean coast of Honduras since before the nation was declared
independent from Spain on September 15, 1821, is the ancestral home of
the majority of the world's Garifuna, and as such is essential to the
cultural survival and well-being of the Garifuna people;
Whereas the Government of Honduras ratified the Inter-American Convention on
Human Rights on September 5, 1977, and the Constitution of Honduras
establishes that the human rights treaties to which Honduras is a party
are considered to hold the same legal effect as the Constitution, and
therefore the judgments of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights are
binding on the Government of Honduras;
Whereas the presence of diverse Garifuna immigrant communities in the United
States has been recorded by oral history and scholarly research since
the early 20th century and has long contributed to the cultural
diversity that we, as a Nation, so deeply cherish;
Whereas, on September 4, 2020, the coordinator of the Black Fraternal
Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH) publicly denounced a third wave of
violent dispossession against the Garifuna people and signaled that
special development zones, the massive production of African palm
cultivation, and tourism enclaves are drivers of the destruction of
Garifuna life in Honduras;
Whereas Garifuna communities have been heavily impacted by the effects of
climate change, manifesting in droughts, coastal erosion, and floods
during hurricane season that have caused irreversible damage to
communities, disruption of food availability, and forced migration;
Whereas, since 2018, there have been more than 150 Garifuna people killed, 37
criminalized, and 5 forcibly disappeared for defending their ancestral
lands and territories from corrupt economic and political interests,
which form a part of institutional and systemic racism that manifests in
police brutality, illegal detentions, harassment by local authorities,
and forced displacement;
Whereas the experience of forced and systematic displacement has emptied
communities and put Garifuna identity and survival as a differentiated
ethnic unit in Honduras at risk;
Whereas the Garifuna communities along the northern coast of Honduras are
located in territories disputed by organized crime that, driven by
consumer demand in the United States, has converted much of these
territories into drug laboratories and cocaine plantations, and is
responsible for multiple threats, disappearances, and murders of
Garifuna defenders;
Whereas the Government of Honduras and its judiciary have engaged in a pattern
of falsely accusing the Indigenous people of the north coast of engaging
in drug trans-shipment as justification for violating their fundamental
rights, including the right to life and liberty, and the Honduran
military forces have engaged in a pattern of deadly use of force against
Garifuna and other Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean coast with
similar justifications;
Whereas the former President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, was extradited
to the United States on April 21, 2022, and convicted on March 8, 2024,
of Federal charges relating to his use of public office, law
enforcement, and the military to facilitate major drug-trafficking
operations along the north coast from 2004 to 2022;
Whereas testimony given in 2019 during the trial of the former Honduran
President's brother, Tony Hernandez, also directly implicated then-
Security Minister Julian Pacheco in drug trafficking carried out along
the north coast;
Whereas the United States provided Honduras with millions of dollars in security
aid throughout the Hernandez Presidency and continues to train Honduran
military units on the northern coast of Honduras, including at bases
such as the 15th Battalion and 4th Naval Base that have been implicated
in serious human rights abuses and corruption associated with organized
criminal activity;
Whereas, on June 21, 2012, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) signed a
$60,000,000 loan agreement with Hernandez's Security Minister Julian
Pacheco that was used to finance the creation of the new Direccion
Policial de Investigaciones (DPI) of the Honduran National Police, among
other Honduran security forces activities;
Whereas, in September 2013, the Hernandez-aligned legislature passed the Organic
Law of the Employment and Economic Development Zones (ZEDE), which
authorized foreign companies to create quasi-sovereign private
governance zones within Honduras and establish their own laws, courts,
and police force, among other powers;
Whereas this law declared coastal departments consisting of large swaths of
Garifuna and other Indigenous territory as ``low-population zones''
subject to the imposition of a ZEDE without community consultation and
consent;
Whereas, since 2012, Garifuna communities have actively resisted the development
of the ZEDE ``Prospera'' and the associated areas of ``Port Royal'' and
``St. John's Bay'' on the Honduran island of Roatan, which were
established without community consent and which threaten the local
population with the disbanding of ancestral, collective land titles and
the displacement of the Garifuna people;
Whereas, on March 18, 2021, the Port of Satuye, located in the Garifuna
communities of Sambo Creek and Corozal, was incorporated into ZEDE
``Prospera'';
Whereas, on April 21, 2022, following months of national protest, the newly
elected Honduran Congress voted to unanimously repeal the ZEDE law but
has yet to ratify the repeal of a ZEDE-related constitutional provision;
Whereas ZEDEs remain an existential threat to the Garifuna people, as the
``Prospera'' ZEDE on the island of Roatan continues to expand and as the
Delaware-based company Prospera, Inc., pursues an abusive
$11,000,000,000 lawsuit against the state of Honduras challenging the
repeal of the ZEDE law under the Dominican Republic-Central America-
United States Free Trade Agreement;
Whereas tourist complex projects such as Indura Beach Resort, Shores
Plantations, Marbella, Playa Escondida, and Rosa Negra operate under a
modality that resembles the ZEDE and displaces the Garifuna people;
Whereas the United States controls 15.49 percent of the Board of Directors of
the World Bank and 30 percent of the Board of Directors of the IDB, and
uses its voice to exert a significant degree of influence on the
decisions of these institutions;
Whereas, on June 12, 2007, in response to a complaint from OFRANEH describing
the potential and already consummated illegal disenfranchisement of
Garifuna land rights facilitated by World Bank-supported projects, the
World Bank Inspection Panel found that the safeguards provided for the
project were not adequate to protect Garifuna rights to their ethnic
lands, while observing that the Garifuna communities did not have a
meaningful option to opt out of the project;
Whereas, on December 8, 2008, the Board of Directors of the International
Finance Corporation (IFC) approved a $30,000,000 loan to the Dinant
Corporation, whose supply chain includes palm oil from plantations in
areas claimed by Garifuna communities, including Punta Piedra, despite
publicly available information implicating the company in violent land
disputes, illegal appropriation of Garifuna land, and reports of drug
trafficking on land controlled by the Dinant Corporation;
Whereas, in May 2011, the IFC's Board of Directors approved an equity and
subordinated debt investment in Banco Ficohsa, which acted as a
financial intermediary of the IFC to provide further financing to the
Dinant Corporation following international outcry over the involvement
of that company's security forces in violence stemming from land rights
disputes, and whose supply chain includes palm oil from plantations in
areas claimed by Garifuna communities, including Punta Piedra and
Triunfo de la Cruz;
Whereas the United States Overseas Private Investment Corporation, whose
holdings have been transferred to the United States International
Development Finance Corporation, approved on March 17, 2014, the
financing of the Jaremar palm oil corporation, whose supply chain
includes palm oil from plantations in areas claimed by Garifuna
communities, including Triunfo de la Cruz;
Whereas, in October 2016, in response to a complaint from OFRANEH, the
Compliance Advisor Ombudsman of the IFC initiated a compliance review of
a tourism complex developed with land and resources from the territory
of the Garifuna communities of Barra Vieja, Tornabe, San Juan Tela, and
Triunfo de la Cruz, a project that attracted, and continued to seek,
investment from corporations in the United States;
Whereas, on February 1, 2006, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled
that the rights to personal liberty, to a fair trial and to judicial
protections, to freedom of thought and expression, and to personal
integrity of the then-president of the Land Defense Committee of the
Garifuna community of Triunfo de la Cruz and vice president of OFRANEH
had been violated by his arbitrary imprisonment for a period of 6 years
and 4 months;
Whereas, on October 8, 2015, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that
the Government of Honduras had violated the rights of the communities of
Triunfo de la Cruz and Punta Piedra, and had failed to investigate acts
of violence against the communities, ordering the restitution of land
rights to the communities and the effective investigation of the violent
deaths of 4 community members of Triunfo de la Cruz and 1 community
member of Punta Piedra;
Whereas, on November 5, 2019, in a statement to a local Honduran publication,
OFRANEH condemned the death of 16 Garifuna people, including 6 women,
highlighting the murder of Mirna Suazo Martinez, president of the board
of the Garifuna community of Masca, who was leading the defense of
Masca's rivers and territory in opposition to the construction of a
hydroelectric plant, and who had made public statements describing
several threats against her a few days before her murder;
Whereas, on July 18, 2020, 4 Garifuna men from Triunfo de la Cruz, including the
president of the Community Development Committee who had led the
community's recent efforts to stop the illegal appropriation of Garifuna
land and demanded that the Honduran Government implement the 2015 Inter-
American Court of Human Rights ruling, were abducted at gunpoint by men
wearing uniforms bearing the logo of the DPI National Police unit and
have not been located since;
Whereas, on November 11, 2020, the families of the disappeared and the Garifuna
communities, outraged by the lack of investigation into the whereabouts
of the victims of the July 18, 2020, forced disappearances, created the
Comite Garifuna de Investigacion y Busqueda de los Desaparecidos de
Triunfo de la Cruz (SUNLA), an independent commission to investigate and
bring about the prosecution of the crime;
Whereas, on March 3, 2021, sisters Marianela and Jennifer Mejia Solorzano were
the first to be arrested as a result of criminal proceedings brought by
the Public Prosecutor's Office against over 30 Garifuna rights defenders
for alleged land theft, despite the land in question belonging to the
Garifuna communities of Cristales and Rio Negro;
Whereas, in a communique, OFRANEH stated that on August 9, 2022, the
organization visited the Public Prosecutor's Office and demanded
progress in the investigation of the July 18, 2020, forced
disappearances from Triunfo de la Cruz, but instead of reporting on the
investigation and prosecution of those responsible for the forced
disappearances, the Attorney General's office, in another episode of
persecution, harassment, and criminalization, instructed the
Prosecutor's Office Against Common Crimes and the Technical Agency for
Criminal Investigation (ATIC) to initiate criminal proceedings against
OFRANEH's General Coordinator Miriam Miranda, OFRANEH member Luther
Castillo, and OFRANEH lawyer Edy Tabora;
Whereas, on September 19, 2023, an armed group of men entered the home of Miriam
Miranda in Vallecito, Colon, in an ongoing pattern of intimidation that
was utilized against Berta Caceres right before her murder;
Whereas, on February 2, 2024, the Government of Honduras, acting through the
Honduran Cabinet, decreed the creation of the High-Level Intersectoral
Commission for the Compliance of the Commitments and Recommendations
issued by the International Human Rights Protection Systems
(Commission), with the objective of ensuring the rights of Garifuna
communities to their collective property, judicial protection and
guarantees, right to life, and all other human rights protections; and
Whereas, on March 9, 2024, a group of defenders of the Triunfo de la Cruz
community who carried out a peaceful march to demand compliance with the
Inter-American Court of Human Rights judgment in favor of their
community faced intimidation by third parties who illegally occupy
Garifuna territories: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) condemns the violence against Garifuna communities,
specifically against Garifuna land rights defenders;
(2) calls for the Comite Garifuna de Investigacion y
Busqueda de los Desaparecidos de Triunfo de la Cruz's (SUNLA)
full participation in the investigation into the whereabouts of
Sneider Centeno, Milton Joel Martinez, Suami Aparicio, and
Gerardo Trochez, and the prosecution of those responsible for
their disappearance;
(3) calls for the creation of an effective and independent
office for a Special Prosecutor for Enforced Disappearances in
Honduras;
(4) condemns the illegal separation of Garifuna communities
from their legitimate land rights;
(5) calls for the swift and full implementation of the
October 8, 2015, ruling of the Inter-American Court of Human
Rights that obliges the Government of Honduras to restore land
rights to the communities of Triunfo de la Cruz and Punta
Piedra, and to investigate the murder of 5 members of both
communities;
(6) strongly disapproves of the decisions of multilateral
development banks that finance projects that contribute to the
extinction of the legitimate land rights of Garifuna
communities and finance security forces involved in serious
human rights violations;
(7) is concerned that United States bilateral assistance to
Honduras may jeopardize or otherwise contribute to the
violation of the fundamental rights of Garifuna communities;
(8) urges the Government of Honduras to--
(A) fully and immediately comply with the 2015
judgment of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
restoring land rights to the communities of Triunfo de
la Cruz and Punta Piedra and investigating the murders
of 5 members of both communities, including by fully
implementing the International Human Rights Protection
Systems (Commission);
(B) grant SUNLA formal status in the investigation
of the forced disappearance of Sneider Centeno and 3
other Garifuna men from Triunfo de la Cruz; and
(C) establish a Special Prosecutor for Enforced
Disappearances within the Prosecutor's Office;
(9) requests the institutions of the World Bank Group and
the Inter-American Development Bank to--
(A) immediately suspend funding for any project
that may contribute to violence against Garifuna
communities or violations of their human rights and
consult with the affected communities on possible
corrective measures;
(B) identify measures that the institutions could
implement to promote compliance with the 2015 judgments
of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, acting on
the measures only after full consultation with and
consent of the legitimate authorities of the Garifuna
communities;
(C) undertake a comprehensive and independent
review of the projects that any such institution has
supported over the past 25 years that have an impact on
the land rights of Indigenous communities or have
otherwise contributed to human rights violations in
Honduras, and publish a report with their findings;
(D) carefully review their loan portfolios, and the
structure for on-the-ground implementation of those
projects, in order to identify funding that may benefit
government agencies implicated in human rights
violations, violence, and dispossession directed
against Indigenous communities in Honduras; and
(E) ensure compliance with the provisions of the
International Labour Organization Convention 169
regarding prior consultation before the approval of
projects that affect the communities, and the
completion of the respective environmental impact
studies for each project; and
(10) urges the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the
Treasury, and the Administrator of the United States Agency for
International Development, in coordination with the heads of
other relevant Federal departments and agencies, to--
(A) engage at the highest level with the Government
of Honduras, and maintain close coordination with
international allies and multilateral organizations
with influence in Honduras, to promote compliance with
the resolutions of the Inter-American Court of Human
Rights, in particular the 2015 judgments to restore the
rights of the Garifuna communities of Triunfo de la
Cruz and Punta Piedra;
(B) alert United States-based companies and other
investors in Honduras to the risks and potential
liabilities associated with investing in lands whose
rights may have been illegitimately severed from
Indigenous communities; and
(C) use its vote and voice within multilateral
development banks to oppose any loans or technical
assistance projects that may threaten the rights of
Garifuna communities, and to advocate for reparations
for communities affected by multilateral development
bank financing that have contributed to human rights
violations, in accordance with international standards
for reparations.
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