PBI-Honduras remembers four disappeared Garifuna defenders on the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearance

The Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project has posted on social media:

“On the International Day of the Victims of #EnforcedDisappearance, we remember the names of Alberth Snider Centeno, Suami Aparicio Mejía, Milton Joel Martínez and Gerardo Misael Rochez Cálix.

Would you like to support the #Garifuna people’s struggle? Find three ways to do so on the last slide.”

That last slide says:

“Would you like to support the Garifuna people’s struggle in Honduras?

Read OFRANEH’s open letter to the Supreme Court of Justice (link here)

Share this post on your social media

Follow @OFRANEH-Garifuna/Organización Fraternal Negra Hondurena on Facebook.”

The letter to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Justice and the Judiciary of Honduras calls on them to: “Guarantee the immediate and definitive cessation of the illegal judicial persecution against the five defenders who are members of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH): Deinor Osmany Mejía Arzu, Irbin Rene López Cortes, Carlos Enrique Fernández Guzmán, Onil Rigoberto Hernández Zelaya, and Sara Abigail Acosta.”

This letter from OFRANEH shared by PBI-Honduras has been endorsed by the PBI-Honduras accompanied Rainbow LGBT Association of Honduras and National Central of Rural Workers, (CNTC) Progreso, the PBI-Mexico accompanied Zeferino Ladrillero Human Rights Center (through Espacio OSC), the PBI-Colombia accompanied José Alvear Restrepo CAJAR Lawyers’ Collective, and the Canadian-based organizations Rights Action and Simcoe County Honduras Rights MonItor.

The Garifuna

The Garifuna are descendants of Carib, Arawak and West African peoples from the Caribbean region. They resisted European colonization, living independently of the slave labour system on the island of Saint Vincent for over a century, before being exiled to the Honduran island of Roatán by the British in 1797. Many moved to mainland Honduras and re-migrated throughout central America, also settling in Belize, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and later the United States.

OFRANEH emerged in 1978 as a Federation of Garifuna peoples, defining itself as an anti-racist organization that advocates for the identification of the Garifuna as an autonomous (Afro)indigenous people of African descent.

Canadian investors have been linked to the displacement of the Garifuna as noted in these PBI-Canada articles: “OFRANEH denounces Canadian Randy Jorgensen for trafficking archaeological items, usurpation of Garifuna lands” (November 28, 2024) and “PBI-Honduras accompanies meetings that reject ZEDEs, while Canadian investor pursues the Mariposa ZEDE” (September 4, 2021).

We continue to follow this.

Additional reading

–Four Afro-Indigenous Garifuna land defenders kidnapped in Triunfo de la Cruz, Honduras (PBI-Canada, July 21, 2020)

–PBI-Honduras observes march in Tegucigalpa demanding the return of four missing Garifuna land defenders (PBI-Canada, July 20, 2021)

–PBI-Honduras observes presentation of amparo appeal in the disappearance of four Garifuna social leaders (PBI-Canada, August 25, 2022)

–PBI-Honduras observes OFRANEH and UN Working Group reconstruction of facts of the disappearance of four men in July 2020 (PBI-Canada, March 31, 2023)

–PBI-Honduras accompanies Garifuna People’s Camp for Life outside the Supreme Court of Justice in Tegucigalpa (PBI-Canada, August 12, 2026).

Photo: On October 31, 2024, PBI-Honduras and PBI-Canada visited with Mabel Robledo in Nueva Armenia on Garifuna territory in Honduras.