The Garifuna defenders Miriam Miranda and Melissa Martínez of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras were defamed on a program on the HRN radio station. The program conductor stated that Ritzy Norman Jones had denounced OFRANEH for “promoting land invasions with full ownership” in Punta Gorda, Bay Islands.
Ritzy Norman Jones, of United States nationality and residence, has declared that she is the owner of property consisting of 28 acres of land based on a legal document granted to her by a notary public in 1968. This is the site of the Garifuna “Wageira Le” encampment, an ancestral territory recovered by the Garifuna community in a legal process dismissed in favor of the Punta Gorda community.
Punta Gorda was the first Garifuna community in the country, a space where recovery projects of ancestral lands have taken place as part of an emancipation project for more than 200 years. This was confirmed by the National Congress in 1996, Decree Number 68 – 96, which recognized Punta Gorda as the point of arrival of the Garifuna people to Honduras on April 12,1797; accordingly, the community was declared “National Patrimony.”
Despite this fact, Norman Jones stated on the radio program that “no piece of land on the Bay Islands is registered as ancestral property.”
It is important to note that the Norman family has maintained an ongoing attack against projects in defense of the territory carried out by defenders of OFRANEH, and is recognized for dispossessing the Garifuna community of its ancestral territories. It has also committed a series of attacks that range from smear campaigns on television programs to actions that attempt against the integrity and security of the Garifuna community. Evidence of this was clear in attempts carried out on May 15th and 26th of this year against Garifuna Wageira Le, in which men identified as members of the Norman family used fire as a means of harassment and intimidation.
Ritzy Norman Jones and her legal representative, Samuel Ortega, accused OFRANEH of fomenting supposed invasions in order to sell terrain to third parties, thereby denouncing a false process of urbanization. Moreover Jones spoke in a threatening tone of voice during the interview, stating that “the only enemies we have are Melissa Martínez, Miriam Miranda and OFRANEH” as she referred to the rights defenders as ‘delinquents’”.
This defamation and smear campaign against defenders Melissa Martínez, Miriam Miranda, OFRANEH and the Garifuna people intensifies constant attacks and the systematic persecution against the Garifuna people. We recall the evacuation perpetrated on November 9, 2022, in which the lives of community members and defenders were endangered by the repressive use of force by the national police and by the process of criminalization and stigmatization perpetrated by the Judiciary. And we can’t fail to mention the attack in March 2023 in which unknown persons fired at the gate protecting the OFRANEH camp, or the police harassment experienced by Melissa Martinez in April of 2022 or the denunciation against OFRANEH Coordinator Miriam Miranda in August of 2022.
We of IM-Defensoras and the National Network of Women Human Rights Defenders in Honduras denounce and condemn this recent attack against Melissa Martínez, Miriam Miranda and OFRANEH, along with the situation of persecution, racism, and harassment against the Garifuna communities.
We demand respect for the right of the Punta Gorda community to recover its ancestral territories and win compliance with the sentences of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights regarding the rights of the Garifuna people in Honduras.
Likewise, we are alarmed to hear that news media contribute to spreading such racist, defamatory messages that criminalize and delegitimize the struggle for the defense of the ancestral Garifuna territory.
The territories of the Garifuna communities are continually invaded by third parties and displaced by entrepreneurs who have plundered the natural resources and taken control of ancestral knowledge. The inhabitants have been subjected to persecution, criminalization, court trials, imprisonment, forced disappearances, and assassinations.
We endorse the legitimate, ancestral demands of the Garifuna people and call on the Honduran government to assure that their ancestral territorial rights will be restored and their identity and autonomy respected.
Finally, we demand an end to the threats and persecution against the Garifuna people and call on national and international organizations to stay on the alert in the face of this risk situation faced by the defenders of the ancestral territories and rights of the Garifuna people.
NO MORE persecution, harassment, or dispossession of the Garifuna communities or OFRANEH!
Compliance with the verdicts of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights now!
#TheirLivesAreOurLives