Post by CHAOTIC on Mar 5, 2003 19:54:05 GMT -5
This was written by Gregory Volgnau an aurthor for the Seattle Times.
This is a very interesting piece that every Garifuna person needs to have an eye on. It really should also be fought against in Belize with our Garifuna Villages such as, Hopkins and Seine Bight.
BIG THINGS A GWAN.
Many Garifuna are leaving their coastal homes because their lands are gone or because they want a better life and better jobs. At home, they might make as little as $150 a month fishing, farming or picking coffee beans, bananas and other fruits in the nearby mountains.
They go to cities such as Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. For the children in a Spanish-speaking urban world, the Garifuna language is an embarrassment. They no longer speak it.
And back in Honduras, the land rush continues. Thousands of acres are being scooped up along the shoreline.
Alvarez looks up from his painting and says the only Garifuna land along that stretch of beach in San Juan "is where my house is."
Maxima Thomas, director of the Garifuna Museum in Tela, says, "Investors not only are buying beachfront but also farmland. The Garifuna will have no place to grow crops."
To the west of Tela in Tornabe, where village kids have learned to say "Give me money" in English, Canadian developers have fenced off land and begun construction of a tourism complex with 1,600 hotel rooms and a water park.
To the east in the village of Triunfo de la Cruz, vacation mansions are popping up right next to ragged Garifuna homes. Ten- foot-high walls surround hotel-sized vacation homes.
And just a bit farther east, hundreds of acres are blocked off by barbed-wire fences for a tourist development called Marbella.
Manuel Marques, Tela director of tourism, says investors from Tegucigalpa and the United States have multimillion-dollar plans for Marbella, including hotels, apartments, a shopping mall, supermarket, swimming pools, a golf course, tennis courts and even an airport.
Thomas just shakes her head at the loss of land. "Now we must go around all these walls and the security officers and the guard dogs to get to our beaches," she says.
By law, the beaches are free and open to everyone. Access is another matter. And as Alvarez says, "The fences tell us something, too: We don't want to see you."
BY HOOK, CROOK AND MURDER
The developers and those in search of vacation property get the land in various ways. Some buy it legally, paying good lempiras, the inflation-battered Honduras currency. Others squat on what has been Garifuna land for 200 years.
Most Garifuna never bothered to get deeds, because the land had always been theirs. But a law-savvy squatter can get title to the land simply by occupying it for three years and applying for the papers, says Bernard Martinez, an official with the Honduras black rights organization known by the acronym ODECO (Organization for Ethnic Community Development).
What if the Garifuna don't want to sell? What if they urge others not to sell? Well, things can go badly.
Last October, two men from Triunfo--where land issues are especially touchy--were shot to death in the nearby village of Ensenada. In the spring, a Garifuna leader from San Juan was killed in Tegucigalpa.
In each case, police linked the killings to other reasons, such as drugs. But Garifuna leaders say each was connected to land-sale protests. No killers were ever found.
In October 1996, another Garifuna was shot. He died three months later of the wounds. A young money-changer from Triunfo, the man was gunned down as he sat eating with his son in a Tela restaurant. Locals say he had often urged his Garifuna neighbors not to sell their land.
"The newspapers said it was a robbery, pure and simple," says Francine Simonetta, a Canadian-born restauranteur in Tela. "But do you shoot somebody 15 times to rob them? I don't think so."
The best-known killing was of environmentalist Jeanette Kawas, a Garifuna who fought to preserve land for parks.
"She fought with everyone to protect the environment," says Simonetta, a close friend. Developers hated her because they did not want good land preserved for just birds and trees. Farmers did not want to lose precious growing areas.
She was shot to death three years ago while sitting in her office at home. A nearby national park was named in her honor.
This is a very interesting piece that every Garifuna person needs to have an eye on. It really should also be fought against in Belize with our Garifuna Villages such as, Hopkins and Seine Bight.
BIG THINGS A GWAN.
Many Garifuna are leaving their coastal homes because their lands are gone or because they want a better life and better jobs. At home, they might make as little as $150 a month fishing, farming or picking coffee beans, bananas and other fruits in the nearby mountains.
They go to cities such as Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. For the children in a Spanish-speaking urban world, the Garifuna language is an embarrassment. They no longer speak it.
And back in Honduras, the land rush continues. Thousands of acres are being scooped up along the shoreline.
Alvarez looks up from his painting and says the only Garifuna land along that stretch of beach in San Juan "is where my house is."
Maxima Thomas, director of the Garifuna Museum in Tela, says, "Investors not only are buying beachfront but also farmland. The Garifuna will have no place to grow crops."
To the west of Tela in Tornabe, where village kids have learned to say "Give me money" in English, Canadian developers have fenced off land and begun construction of a tourism complex with 1,600 hotel rooms and a water park.
To the east in the village of Triunfo de la Cruz, vacation mansions are popping up right next to ragged Garifuna homes. Ten- foot-high walls surround hotel-sized vacation homes.
And just a bit farther east, hundreds of acres are blocked off by barbed-wire fences for a tourist development called Marbella.
Manuel Marques, Tela director of tourism, says investors from Tegucigalpa and the United States have multimillion-dollar plans for Marbella, including hotels, apartments, a shopping mall, supermarket, swimming pools, a golf course, tennis courts and even an airport.
Thomas just shakes her head at the loss of land. "Now we must go around all these walls and the security officers and the guard dogs to get to our beaches," she says.
By law, the beaches are free and open to everyone. Access is another matter. And as Alvarez says, "The fences tell us something, too: We don't want to see you."
BY HOOK, CROOK AND MURDER
The developers and those in search of vacation property get the land in various ways. Some buy it legally, paying good lempiras, the inflation-battered Honduras currency. Others squat on what has been Garifuna land for 200 years.
Most Garifuna never bothered to get deeds, because the land had always been theirs. But a law-savvy squatter can get title to the land simply by occupying it for three years and applying for the papers, says Bernard Martinez, an official with the Honduras black rights organization known by the acronym ODECO (Organization for Ethnic Community Development).
What if the Garifuna don't want to sell? What if they urge others not to sell? Well, things can go badly.
Last October, two men from Triunfo--where land issues are especially touchy--were shot to death in the nearby village of Ensenada. In the spring, a Garifuna leader from San Juan was killed in Tegucigalpa.
In each case, police linked the killings to other reasons, such as drugs. But Garifuna leaders say each was connected to land-sale protests. No killers were ever found.
In October 1996, another Garifuna was shot. He died three months later of the wounds. A young money-changer from Triunfo, the man was gunned down as he sat eating with his son in a Tela restaurant. Locals say he had often urged his Garifuna neighbors not to sell their land.
"The newspapers said it was a robbery, pure and simple," says Francine Simonetta, a Canadian-born restauranteur in Tela. "But do you shoot somebody 15 times to rob them? I don't think so."
The best-known killing was of environmentalist Jeanette Kawas, a Garifuna who fought to preserve land for parks.
"She fought with everyone to protect the environment," says Simonetta, a close friend. Developers hated her because they did not want good land preserved for just birds and trees. Farmers did not want to lose precious growing areas.
She was shot to death three years ago while sitting in her office at home. A nearby national park was named in her honor.