Garifuna Communities Of Honduras Resist Corporate Land Grabs
By Samira Jubis for Council on Hemispheric Affairs - The fate of the Garifuna people of Honduras hangs in the balance as they face a Honduran state that is all too eager to accommodate the neoliberal agenda of U.S. and Canadian investors. The current economic development strategy of the Honduran government, in the aftermath of the 2009 coup against the democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya, has not only benefited the political and economic elite in Honduras, but it has also encouraged the usurpation of some of the territories of indigenous peoples of this Central American nation. The often-violent expropriation of indigenous land threatens the Garifuna’s subsistence. The Garifuna people are descendants of African slaves and two indigenous groups originally from South America—the Arawaks and the Carib Indians.