[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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