BELIZE CITY, Wed. Feb. 16, 2022– The Garinagu people—who are one of the two indigenous groups within the country of Belize, and who have been declared “Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity” by UNESCO—comprise a nation of approximately 800,000 persons, without borders, and international in its scope. It’s thus notable that an entity which represents this transnational group and which carries the global clout of Garifuna people worldwide—the Garifuna Nation—in a scathing press release, officially stepped into the debate between the GoB and rhe Maya about the implementation of communal land rights and asserted their right, as an indigenous group occupying the south, to be involved in this discussion. In the release, the Garifuna Nation rejected the Free, Prior, Informed Consent (FPIC) protocol submitted by the government to the Caribbean Court of Justice and railed against this PUP administration for its lack of consultation of its people in the drafting of the proposed protocol.
“We—Garifuna people – are recognized through a major holiday celebrated in Belize. The Government of Belize and all its members of parliament are aware of our indigenous status. How is it, then, that they can draft FPIC protocols without our input as Garifuna or consulting us about policy that will affect us?” the release from the Garifuna Nation states.
In an exclusive interview with AMANDALA today, the president of the Garifuna Nation, Egbert Higinio, and representatives from the governing body of the organization registered their “umbrage” at the government’s apparent disregard of the Garinagu’s status as indigenous people of southern Belize; and they emphasized the fact that both the Maya and the Garinagu people were living in communities still occupied in Belize today before Guatemala gained its independence from the Spanish and Belize gained its independence from the British.
“The Garifuna don’t exist, as far as I’m concerned, with this PUP, but we are saying the nation was here before 1700; the nation, Garifuna Nation, we are like the Irish, we want our land, we will not call it reserve. We declare the Stann Creek District belongs to the Garifuna people; we respect the Maya land in Toledo belongs to the Maya,” Higinio stated.
In reference to what is taking place in the Garifuna community of Seine Bight, where residents have and are continuing to protest the sale of land and the granting of approval for the construction of a gas station near an area used by the indigenous people as a ceremonial site, Higinio noted, “We were not consulted. It violates every human law on the planet. We want to see the environmental impact assessment, we want to see the building codes, we want to know if it’s an insult to our religion … this PUP never insulted the Mennonites with their religion, they don’t insult the Mormons, they don’t insult the Catholic Church … I take umbrage to the fact that we have not been consulted on anything!”
It is worth noting as well that a number of news outlets have reported on protests that began around 4:00 p.m. yesterday, in the Garifuna village of Barranco, after villagers became aware of a logging concession that was granted to a reportedly politically connected person without any consultation with, or attempt to seek the consent of, the villagers. This community action coincides with this call from the Garifuna nation for a seat at the table in the drafting of the FPIC protocol—a protocol which they say applies to them as indigenous people despite their not being named explicitly in the CCJ consent order.
“We reject this FPIC supposedly being proposed, based on the simple concept that it violates our own right to be consulted about any policy that will affect us … simple logic will teach all of us that you cannot go to court and say we will violate Garifuna’s rights to follow the order of the court for Maya. There is a term for that, discrimination. We refuse to sit quietly and watch such utter lack of respect for our Garifuna rights continues unabated,” the release from the Garifuna Nation states.
The ruling from the CCJ upholds the customary land rights of the indigenous Maya communities and indicates that those rights are protected under the Constitution just as other property interests in Belize. The ruling focuses especially on the Maya, since it is bodies such as the Maya Leaders Alliance that brought the case on behalf of the Maya communities; however, Garifuna Nation representative Joseph Guerrero says this government cannot continue to ignore the indigenous status of the Garifuna people, and as such, their right to the traditional use of lands occupied by them for centuries. This is the case in the village of Barranco, where riled residents engaged in protest yesterday following the granting of the logging concession to an outsider, while villagers have been denied permission to carry out logging in that area for years.
“There may be some misinformation going to the Barranco residents. Garifuna own Barranco; they own the area where the government gave license for logging to third parties, so they are taking out resources without telling us, without informing us, without getting our consent. The people from Barranco, from what I heard, believe that it is an issue of them going to the government for a license to use their own resources; that is not the legal standard. They own the area, so they have a right to take it at will. Garifuna and Maya in that area, for millennia, had used the area, and they had managed it, and they sustained families; now the government come along and all that forestry is gone, so indigenous people were doing a better job at managing the resources than the government or the British,” Guerrero outlined.
He said it is high time for the government to stop administrating Garifuna lands without the consent of the Garifuna people traditionally living in those communities.
“As we speak, the government of Belize is willfully violating the rights of the entire Garifuna nation by pretending that we are not indigenous people; they are pretending, they think the world is buying this nonsense that Garifuna are not indigenous because we are black people, and nobody have ever seen black people who are indigenous in this area. Well, hello, here we are! In living color. Now what the government has been doing is just simply at will going into Garifuna land, giving it away to third parties, taking money, selling out the land, the government benefits, and its own land … So anything that they do with the Maya, the Garifuna currently have the right by the Constitution. The government, however, and Minister Dolores Balderamos gave us a clue in Seine Bight when she said that the consent decree Garifuna do not benefit from the consent decree; that’s what she said … What she is saying is that because the court did not say ‘Garifuna’, there has to be a presumption that they think they can violate our rights because the court didn’t say so, even though it’s in the Constitution. So if the judge interpreted the Constitution that the human right extends to a group of people, the Maya, it has to also extend to the group of indigenous people, the Garifuna. It has to. You cannot separate it; otherwise, it’s discrimination,” Guerrero argued.
The Garifuna nation is thus demanding to be a part of any consultation carried out as part of the process of formulating an FPIC protocol in southern Belize and calls the current unilateral approach of GoB— even in regard to the Maya people—disrespectful.
Wellington Ramos, an Amandala columnist, has commented that both mass parties when in government show no true intention to allow indigenous people the control and use of their traditional lands.
“The government is doing what we call deflection, because they have no intention to abide by the judgment made by the Supreme Court and the CCJ, because all the judgment says is for them to go into the National Assembly and demarcate the land that belongs to the Maya people, and the indigenous people which is us (the Garifuna people, stop using their police power to use our land, grant leases and issue titles to their people, that all the judgment is saying, and instead of them abiding by the judgment they are playing these ring-around-the-roses not to abide by the judgment and interestingly, both the parties, PUP, and UDP, are in agreement with each other that they are not going to grant the indigenous people of Belize their rights, they are going to keep stalling, they’re going to try everything in the book. Because, this nuh mek no sense … even if they were to say that the Garifuna people are not indigenous, they do admit that they Maya are indigenous, yet they still don’t want to grant them their rights, so what is really their point, they don’t want to grant no rights …” Ramos said.
The history of the Garifuna as indigenous people in the Caribbean and Central America is widely known and taught in Belize. The Garinagu people are the only surviving speakers of an indigenous language native to the Caribbean that predates the arrival of Europeans.
An article published by Hubert Devonish of UWI Mona and Enita Castilo of Gwen Lizarraga High School that was presented to the 14th Biennial Conference, Society for Caribbean Linguistics, St. Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago, August 2002 states, “The language they speak, Garifuna, is an Arawakan language. Its closest relative is Arawak (Lokono) spoken in Guyana and Suriname. Important items of its vocabulary, however, come from Carib (Karinya), also spoken in Guyana and Suriname but belonging to the Cariban language family. This Karinya influence comes as a result of interaction between original speakers of an Arawakan language living in the Lesser Antilles and incoming Karina from South America.”
In an article published by Garifuna scholar, Joseph Palacio, entitled “How did the Garifuna become indigenous people?” published in 2007, he explores how the Garifuna people became indigenous people and in his introduction states, “The short answer to the question, ‘how did the Garifuna become indigenous’ is that they added the label ‘indigenous’ onto themselves when they and other bio-cultural groups of Native American descent within the Circum-Caribbean acquired the generic term in the late 1980s. Beforehand, these people, also called Amerindians, had used their own traditional names, such as Maya, Kekchi, and Garifuna. The acceptance of ‘indigenous’ came through the influence of indigenous activists in the political movement originating in North and Central America. One regional indicator was the formation in 1989 of the Caribbean Organization of Indigenous Peoples (COIP) by peoples in the former British colonies from Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Vincent, Dominica, and Belize.”
The United Nations and the Organization of America States both recognized the Garifuna as an indigenous people.
“Although the banishment to Central America took place in 1797, it has not been until the past fifty years that their ethnic identity has been subjected to rigorous anthropological study. The people themselves have shifted in their identity from being mere appendages in often unwelcoming national societies to reclaiming an indigenous identity, which had always been theirs prior to their exile.” Palacio states in his article.
Ultimately, the status of Garifuna people as an indigenous people and nation, not tied to any single geographical area, was a point the Garifuna Nation desired to drive home. Cynthia Ellis, Ambassador of the Garifuna Nation in Belize, said that despite the systematic discrimination, the cultural fidelity of the Garifuna people has persevered. She said she has no doubt that they are an indigenous people and calls on this administration to respect that status and include the Garifuna people in their consultations regarding this FPIC protocol that affects their people directly.
“If the ministers of government have no knowledge of their role as servants to the people, and they continuously breach the social contract by not ensuring the right to prosperity, property, and justice, we the people must assert our power and it being with us indigenous people, who have a justified right to our lands … because the lands were stolen,” said Garifuna Nation president Higinio.