Essential Afro-Latino/ Caribbean Current Events

[Yehuda]

Beatriz Mojica to boost recognition of Afro-descendant peoples

NOTIMEX 11.06.2018 - 10:46H

The flag-bearer of the coalition Por México Al Frente to the Senate, Beatriz Mojica Morga, proposed to bring the constitutional recognition of Afro-descendant peoples to the Upper House, which she considered important for Guerrero because it will bring more investment and resources.

In an interview with Notimex, minutes before going to her campaign activities in Simón Bolivar and San Agustín, in the suburban area around the port, the candidate said that it is important to advance the recognition of Afro-descendant peoples that has been stalled in the Senate.

Mojica Morga, who has Afro-Mexican roots, along with her sister Teresa Mojica Morga, president of the "Petra Morga" Afro-Mexican Foundation and former member of the Chamber of Deputies, opened in the city of Huehuetán, in the Costa Chica, an Afro-Mexican Community Museum where more than 150 pieces of the daily life of the inhabitants are exhibited.

The representative of the Party of the Democratic Revolution noted that the bills that have been made and sent to the Senate for the constitutional recognition of Afro-descendant peoples have not been approved and in each parliamentary term they have to start over.

Although there has been some progress before the National Council to Prevent Discrimination, with public policies that encourage non-discrimination, there is no recognition in the Constitution which implies that these communities do not have access to a budget to achieve equality, she said.

Moreover, Mojica Morga explained that she has traveled during the campaign to 25 municipalities of the state and the seven regions, where she has found concern on the security issue and the disappearance of social programs.

She has proposed a change in the security model and pointed out that it has to do with the justice system where the Public prosecutor's office and the prosecutor must be totally autonomous at the national level, so that investigations against crime can be guaranteed.

She proposed applying the model to prevention and management of resources to invest in cultural programs, sports and reactivate all the strengthening of the social fabric and attack the social causes of violence, which is one of the major issues that must be reviewed.

Other proposals that Beatriz Mojica has include the universal basic income for all people ranging from 500 pesos to 1,500 per person and that would help combat the poverty issue.

At the same time, she will seek to provide free internet so that people can communicate and expand networks. "Guerrero is a state with little infrastructure for access to digital communication, we have municipalities where the people don't even have cell phones", she added.

The Senate candidate for the PRD–PAN Citizens' Movement for Guerrero also offered to review the electricity tariffs, because in Guerrero the electricity price is higher in the municipality of Montaña than it is in Polanco or Lomas de Chapultepec in Mexico City.

She also made an unrestricted commitment with women to a life free of violence and committed to review everything that has to do with feminicide, because in Guerrero the number of cases has increased.

Beatriz Mojica to boost recognition of Afro-descendant peoples

 

[Yehuda]

 

[Yehuda]

Babalawos and environmentalists seek consensus in Havana

This the first known meeting where both sides discussed religious practices and environmental care in Cuba.

June 20 2018

Environmentalists from Havana raised their concerns to Ifa priests. Photo: IPS_Cuba

Havana, June 20 — Environmentalists, babalawos, researchers and other Cuban social activists held an unusual meeting in the ABRA Social Center and Libertarian Library, located in Lawton, in the capital's periphery.

Brought together by the Guardabosques environmental project and the Desde la Ceiba electronic newsletter, the event, which took place on June 16, hosted a debate on the links between the Yoruba world view, the environment and the challenges facing the Cuban communities when it comes to sanitation.

The deplorable hygienic-sanitary state of Havana, the situation of the small garbage dumps and the laying of religious offerings on public roads, especially animal carcasses, shaped the issues to be reviewed during the meeting.

For the researcher Heriberto Feraudy, it is a complex issue, but one that needs to be addressed immediately.

"If this landfill is more complicated with the dead animals that are seen every day (in public spaces), then it is even more complicated". insisted the babalawo, who stressed the need to "cooperate to beautify Havana, but always respecting our traditions and taking into account the voice of believers in this subject".

Babalawo Fernando Varona Villet does not perform animal sacrifices in his religious practices. Photo: IPS_Cuba

Ifá priest Gonzalo Castillo, after pointing out what he described as an "ecological disaster the entire country is suffering from", stated that many religious families "do terrible things with religion".

"The moment is for action: we have to make a change", he said.

Lázara Menéndez, a professor at the University of Havana, pointed out that it is not possible to only blame priests or practitioners of African religions for current environmental problems; it is a responsibility the whole society shares.

Yoruba world view

The same concern that environmentalists took to the meeting was shared by many of the Ifa priests and present believers, who also reiterated the pro-environmental essence of African religions.

"A mother gives birth to a son, and later on that son has the duty to give birth to his mother", said researcher and journalist Tato Quiñones, recalling the essence of an Ifá premonition.

For Quiñones, the relationship between this religion and nature is not a distant relationship of respect, but "practice is nature; to disrespect nature would be to disrespect ourselves".

Carlos Viltre, teacher and priest of Palo Monte (Afro-Cuban religion), considered that the educational dimension is vital.

"My religious guide has always told me: if you have to make an offering, why do you have to kill the plant? Hold on to the tree and nourish yourself from its energy", he said as an example.

In the Afro-Cuban council in the Eastern city of Holguín where the religion is professed, priests like Viltre and practitioners have tried to cultivate and educate themselves. They teach that the offerings are not to be placed in inadequate places and the plants for the consecrations should not be collected indiscriminately.

"The environment is the most important aspect of African religions", said the environmentalist and anti-racism activist.

Women stand out among animal rights defenders in Cuba. Photo: IPS_Cuba

No sacrifices

In the conversation, the existence of Cuban Ifa priests who do not resort to the sacrifice of animals transpired.

One of them is babalawo Fernando Varona Villet, who shared with the people the theological and philosophical principles of his animal-friendly practice.

"Even if nobody follows me, I will still give the testimony", said the Ifá priest, while at the same time talking about the existence of other babalawos in Havana who also do not include animal sacrifices in their ceremonies.

An alliance between environmentalists and Ifa priests to reduce the occurrence of this type of sacrifice was proposed by environmental scientist Isbel Díaz, coordinator of Guardabosques.

Díaz also warned of the proliferation of the giant African snail (exotic invasive species) in the Cuban capital, and the need to sensitize the Yoruba priests.

Several of the activists in attendance spoke of the importance of having the national media address these problems.

"This is a timely and urgent topic", said researcher Dianelis Diéguez, of the Scenic Laboratory of Social Experimentation. "A misinterpretation can affect one's religiosity, Cuban culture and social practices," she said.

On the one hand, activist Lidia M. Romero considered that "it is the responsibility of the religious to get ahead, to study the existing spaces in Cuba well, and to carry out their proposals with great intelligence".

At the conclusion, practical proposals were raised such as planting trees and plants, disseminating these ideas in the media and calling for a second, larger meeting.

The ABRA Social Center and Libertarian Library offers its space for debates among social activists. Photo: IPS_Cuba

What is ABRA?

The venue for the debate opened on May 5, coordinated by members of the Alfredo López Libertarian Workshop and the Cuban Critical Observatory.

"A space where we do not have to ask for permission or wait for authorizations, being that is the product of our initiative, of our desire", this is how professor and historian Mario Castillo defined the place.

After almost three years of international campaigns to raise the necessary funds, without resorting to governments, political parties, or NGOs of any part, these activists managed to make their dream come true.

According to its organizers, ABRA is a space to promote self-managed experiences and practices, with an emphasis on social change through environment-friendly relationships. (2018)

Babalawos and environmentalists seek consensus in Havana

 

[Yehuda]

India to provide USD 51 million development aid to Suriname

Jun 21, 2018 03:27 PM IST | Source: PTI

India will extend a Line of Credit of USD 31 million and a concessional financing of USD 20 million to Suriname as the two countries agreed to strengthen their economic relations and development partnership after President Kovind held talks with his Surinamese counterpart Desire Delano Bouterse. President Kovind, who is on a three-day visit to the Latin American country, announced that India will extend concessional financing of USD 20 million for setting up a solar project to provide clean energy to a cluster of 49 villages in Suriname.

India will also extend a Line of Credit of USD 27.5 million to support a power transmission project in Pikin Saron area and another Line of Credit of USD 3.5 million for maintenance of Chetak helicopters.

The president also received the Ratification Instrument of Suriname joining the International Solar Alliance from Bouterse. India also agreed to assist Suriname to establish a Centre of Excellence in information technology. A MoU to take forward this project was signed.

Besides, the two sides also concluded four MoUs in the fields of elections, diplomatic academies partnership, employment for spouse of diplomats of the two countries and archives. Suriname invited Indian investment in areas such as agriculture, mining, energy and timber.

During the talks, Suriname accepted India's invitation to attend the 11th World Hindi Conference to be held in Mauritius in August 2018 as well as the Business Conclave to be held between India and CARICOM in Trinidad and Tobago soon.

Addressing the National Assembly of Suriname, Kovind, who arrived here on June 19 on the second leg of his three-nation tour to Greece, Suriname and Cuba, said development cooperation, under the rubric South-South cooperation, is an important pillar of Indo-Surinamese relations.

Kovind was the first foreign Head of State to address the National Assembly of Suriname. In 1988, then Vice-President of India Shankar Dayal Sharma had addressed the House.

"Paramaribo and New Delhi are almost 14,000 km apart. Yet, despite this trans-oceanic gap, our countries have much in common. Both Suriname and India are multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-ethnic democracies," he said.

Speaking on the climate change, he said, "This is an international concern, a foreign policy issue – and yet, for the people of Suriname it is a deeply-felt existential challenge. I must commend your country for its enlightened approach on climate change. You have shown a determination that even much larger and wealthier nations have shied away from."

Kovind said India has extended financial grants for a craft market project and a digital literacy programme. "We hope our assistance will help in promoting economic sustainability and capacity building of women and children in Suriname," he said.

He said India wants to strengthen our capacity building partnership with Suriname through the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation programme as well. "We have, therefore, offered to raise the annual scholarships to Suriname under the programme from 40 to 50," he said.

Kovind said that President Bouterse has expressed Suriname's continued support for India's aspiration to be a permanent member of the UN Security Council. "We also expressed our deepest concern on the threat posed by terrorism and conveyed strong support to each other to fight the global menace," he said.

India and Suriname also agreed to enhance cooperation to promote Ayurveda and other traditional medicinal systems of both countries.

Suriname has been celebrating 145 years of arrival of Indian diaspora to the country and Kovind's visit coincided with the celebration.

India to provide USD 51 million development aid to Suriname

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

India to provide USD 51 million development aid to Suriname

Jun 21, 2018 03:27 PM IST | Source: PTI

India will extend a Line of Credit of USD 31 million and a concessional financing of USD 20 million to Suriname as the two countries agreed to strengthen their economic relations and development partnership after President Kovind held talks with his Surinamese counterpart Desire Delano Bouterse. President Kovind, who is on a three-day visit to the Latin American country, announced that India will extend concessional financing of USD 20 million for setting up a solar project to provide clean energy to a cluster of 49 villages in Suriname.

India will also extend a Line of Credit of USD 27.5 million to support a power transmission project in Pikin Saron area and another Line of Credit of USD 3.5 million for maintenance of Chetak helicopters.

The president also received the Ratification Instrument of Suriname joining the International Solar Alliance from Bouterse. India also agreed to assist Suriname to establish a Centre of Excellence in information technology. A MoU to take forward this project was signed.

Besides, the two sides also concluded four MoUs in the fields of elections, diplomatic academies partnership, employment for spouse of diplomats of the two countries and archives. Suriname invited Indian investment in areas such as agriculture, mining, energy and timber.

During the talks, Suriname accepted India's invitation to attend the 11th World Hindi Conference to be held in Mauritius in August 2018 as well as the Business Conclave to be held between India and CARICOM in Trinidad and Tobago soon.

Addressing the National Assembly of Suriname, Kovind, who arrived here on June 19 on the second leg of his three-nation tour to Greece, Suriname and Cuba, said development cooperation, under the rubric South-South cooperation, is an important pillar of Indo-Surinamese relations.

Kovind was the first foreign Head of State to address the National Assembly of Suriname. In 1988, then Vice-President of India Shankar Dayal Sharma had addressed the House.

"Paramaribo and New Delhi are almost 14,000 km apart. Yet, despite this trans-oceanic gap, our countries have much in common. Both Suriname and India are multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-ethnic democracies," he said.

Speaking on the climate change, he said, "This is an international concern, a foreign policy issue – and yet, for the people of Suriname it is a deeply-felt existential challenge. I must commend your country for its enlightened approach on climate change. You have shown a determination that even much larger and wealthier nations have shied away from."

Kovind said India has extended financial grants for a craft market project and a digital literacy programme. "We hope our assistance will help in promoting economic sustainability and capacity building of women and children in Suriname," he said.

He said India wants to strengthen our capacity building partnership with Suriname through the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation programme as well. "We have, therefore, offered to raise the annual scholarships to Suriname under the programme from 40 to 50," he said.

Kovind said that President Bouterse has expressed Suriname's continued support for India's aspiration to be a permanent member of the UN Security Council. "We also expressed our deepest concern on the threat posed by terrorism and conveyed strong support to each other to fight the global menace," he said.

India and Suriname also agreed to enhance cooperation to promote Ayurveda and other traditional medicinal systems of both countries.

Suriname has been celebrating 145 years of arrival of Indian diaspora to the country and Kovind's visit coincided with the celebration.

India to provide USD 51 million development aid to Suriname

India providing aid to Suriname. What a big shame

 

[Red Shield]

India providing aid to Suriname. What a big shame

Suriname has a a huge indian population

 

[BigMan]

India providing aid to Suriname. What a big shame

suriname is plurality indian

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

@Dip and @Red Shield

I’m aware of the Indian diaspora in countries like Suriname and Guyana. I still thinks it’s shameful to receive aid from a country like India which has a low GDP per capital and as many people living in extreme poverty as all of Africa.

 

[Yehuda]

Indigenous Garifuna use radio to fight for their land

BY CHRISTOPHER CLARK ON 25 JUNE 2018

Cesar Benedict goes on air at Faluma Bimetu community radio station in Triunfo de la Cruz. Image by Christopher Clark for Mongabay.

LA CEIBA, Honduras — In the small, sky-blue studio at the Faluma Bimetu community radio station, 32-year-old Cesar Benedict reaches for the controls and slowly fades out the fast percussive rhythms and flighty guitar of a well-known Garifuna praise song. He leans his considerable bulk closer to the microphone and delivers a clipped message about the threat of deforestation and global warming in Honduras. Then he adeptly fades the track back in.

Located in the rural village of Triunfo de la Cruz, in Honduras’s Atlántida department along the country’s palm-fringed northern Caribbean coast, Faluma Bimetu broadcasts the plight of the Garifuna people. The station’s name means “sweet coconut” in the distinctive Garifuna language.

The Garifuna are a unique Afro-indigenous ethnic group descended from mutinous West African slaves and indigenous Carib and Arawak groups that dispersed across parts of South America and the Caribbean. The Garifuna have inhabited this part of Honduras since the late 18thcentury, collectively owning and conserving large tracts of Honduras’s rich coastal ecosystems and sustaining themselves on subsistence agriculture and small-scale fishing.

In recent decades, however, both their way of life and their ancestral lands have been increasingly threatened by the relentless encroachment of powerful private interests in Honduras’s burgeoning tourism and biofuel industries.

According to reports from organizations including Global Witness and Amnesty International, Garifuna communities along the Honduran coast have routinely faced threats, harassment and gross human rights violations. Faluma Bimetu was set up in 1997 in response to the murder of three local land activists.

Cesar Benedict looks out to sea in Triunfo de la Cruz. Image by Christopher Clark for Mongabay.

Benedict was born here in Triunfo de la Cruz. When he was just 11 years old, he decided it was time to “join the social struggle,” as he puts it, to help protect the Garifuna’s land and culture against what he saw as an onslaught by external forces. He started volunteering at Faluma Bimetu, carrying out various menial tasks after school and picking up a few tricks of the trade from the radio hosts, who included his older brother.

Today, Benedict is Faluma Bimetu’s hardworking director. With no salary and minimal funding, he manages a team of seven radio hosts and oversees a 24-hour schedule that includes shows on health and nutrition, domestic violence and substance abuse, the environment, youth and women’s leadership development, religion and spirituality, and traditional music.

The Garifuna community of Triunfo de la Cruz. Image by Christopher Clark for Mongabay.

A “strong means of mobilization”

Benedict quickly creates a playlist to cover the next hour of his show, then we duck out for a short tour of Triunfo de la Cruz, a village of approximately 2,000 inhabitants characterized by pastel-colored wooden houses divided by uneven dirt roads. The sound of Benedict’s music selection pours through the open windows of many of the households we pass.

Benedict says that Faluma Bimetu, which broadcasts almost exclusively in Garifuna, plays a pivotal role in both informing and mobilizing the community of Triunfo de la Cruz. “I’d go so far as to say that the radio has saved the life of this community. Without it, I’m not sure we’d still be here,” he said.

To illustrate his point, Benedict cites a 2016 judgment by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, an international appeals court in Costa Rica for countries in the Americas. The judgment found the state of Honduras responsible for the violation of collective ownership rights and a lack of judicial protection in Triunfo de la Cruz and the nearby Garifuna community of Punta Piedra, after the municipal government sold off Garifuna land to private developers.

Benedict believes that Faluma Bimetu was crucial in raising awareness of the case and reiterating the importance of conserving ancestral lands. Recordings of on-air discussions that included call-ins from aggrieved local residents were also submitted to the court as evidence.

Miriam Miranda, a prominent Garifuna activist and the general coordinator of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH), sits in her office in the city of La Ceiba. Image by Christopher Clark for Mongabay.

Miriam Miranda is a prominent Garifuna activist and the general coordinator of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH is its Spanish acronym), a Garifuna advocacy group that finances Faluma Bimetu and facilitates the training of its team. She shares Benedict’s sentiment that the radio station has served as a “very strong means of mobilization” in Triunfo de la Cruz, adding that “it’s also a very cheap one.”

Furthermore, Miranda points out that community radio can still operate with relative freedom in Honduras’s increasingly repressive media environment, where most commercial radio stations and television channels are either state sponsored or forced to self-censor for fear of heavy-handed state reprisal. In small and largely neglected Garifuna communities, independent stations like Faluma Bimetu have a better chance of flying under the government’s radar.

Miranda’s organization helps run a total of six Garifuna community radio stations across Honduras, all of which have close links with other indigenous radio stations and causes. In a country renowned as the most dangerous in the world for environmental rights activists, these stations have helped raise the profile of people on the frontlines of the struggle to protect indigenous lands and ways of life. They also highlight the regular injustices activists face at the hands of the Honduran state.

In November 2016, Radio Lumamali Giriga, a Garifuna community radio station in the coastal town of Santa Fe, 130 kilometers (80 miles) east of Triunfo de la Cruz, ran an interview with local Garifuna leader Madeline David Fernandez. The activist had been detained and allegedly tortured by Honduran police in response to her attempts to occupy ancestral Garifuna land that the municipal government had sold to a Canadian company for a large-scale tourism development. Lumamali Giriga was first to pick up this story, then a number of other community radio stations and human rights organizations followed suit.

According to Francesco Diasio, secretary general of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters, radio is a particularly powerful and accessible medium in indigenous Latin American communities, which often have low internet connectivity and literacy rates and strong oral traditions.

Cesar Benedict poses in the doorway of Faluma Bimetu’s small studio in the Garifuna community of Triunfo de la Cruz. Image by Christopher Clark for Mongabay.

Persistent threats

However, Diasio cautioned that there is “very little protection and often considerable risk” for journalists and activists working in community radio in Central American countries such as Honduras. “You only have to do a quick Google search to see that the Garifuna community radio stations have faced harassment from the Honduran government,” he adds.

In January 2010, after various incidences of intimidation and theft, Faluma Bimetu was the target of an arson attack that destroyed broadcasting equipment and badly damaged the building. No arrests have ever been made in connection with the incident. Benedict places the blame at the feet of Indura Beach and Golf Resort, a flagship luxury tourism destination near Triunfo de la Cruz that was initiated in 2008 as a joint venture between the Honduran Tourism Institute and a number of the country’s most powerful business figures.

A January 2017 Global Witness report titled “Honduras: the deadliest place to defend the planet,” wrote of Indura that “Beneath the perfect travel brochure surface, is a story of threats, harassment and human rights abuse.” In the months preceding the arson attack, Faluma Bimetu had frequently criticized Indura on air.

The report also claimed that the boundaries of Jeanette Kawas National Park, located just west of Triunfo de la Cruz, were redrawn to allow for the construction of Indura. In addition, Global Witness alleged that in 2014 police and military units tried to forcibly evict 157 Garifuna families from the same area as part of a plan to expand the tourism complex, incorporating two new hotels that would take the total number of rooms to 600.

Playa Escondida Beach Club is one of two luxury tourism developments that have been built on land claimed by the Garifuna in Triunfo de la Cruz. Image by Christopher Clark for Mongabay.

Keri Brondo, an anthropologist with the University of Memphis in Tennessee, U.S., who has written extensively on the Garifuna, testified before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2013 for the case brought by Triunfo de la Cruz and Punta Piedra. In her testimony she said that creating protected tourism areas that excluded local populations had led to overcrowding and the perpetuation of poverty in places like Triunfo de la Cruz. She added that lack of access to these protected areas had “hindered the community’s ability to maintain its traditional way of life.”

Mark Bonta, an assistant professor of earth sciences at Penn State Altoona in Pennsylvania, U.S., who has been working in Honduras for almost 20 years, told Mongabay that coastal tourism development in this region threatens not only local communities’ environmental sustainability, “but also coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass, strand, and other marine and coastal ecosystems.”

Bonta added that “local communities themselves, against all odds, if left alone, are able to protect their own resources sustainably, and there are many cases of their doing so.” He believes that community radio can make a “huge difference” in propagating such causes.

Indura Beach and Golf Resort declined to comment for this story, but in a January 2017 press release the resort stated that it had “all legal permits required by law for the development of the project” and that Global Witness had made “several false allegations.” Indura denied any attempt to force out Garifuna and said it had sought to work hand in hand with local communities.

 

[Yehuda]

A red dirt road cuts through expansive oil palm plantations en route to the Garifuna settlement of Vallecito. Image by Christopher Clark for Mongabay.

The fight for Vallecito

About five hours southeast of Triunfo de la Cruz, in the department of Colón, a red dirt road cuts through tightly packed rows of tall African palms. Large bunches of the red fruits used to make palm oil, which is exported for the lucrative biofuel industry and a wide variety of consumer products, sporadically dot the roadside.

As the road approaches the Caribbean coast, the expansive plantations finally give way to an open grass clearing. A smattering of mud-brick houses, a communal kitchen and a bumpy soccer field form a rough semicircle around two towering wooden temples with thatched roofs. The temples serve as the centerpiece of the Garifuna community of Vallecito. Behind them, a new wooden structure, which will house Vallecito’s community radio station, is nearing completion.

Two recently constructed temples serve as the centerpiece of the Garifuna community of Vallecito. Image by Christopher Clark for Mongabay.

Like Triunfo de la Cruz, Vallecito is a significant site of Garifuna resistance. In 2012, the Garifuna reclaimed the 980 hectares (2,420 acres) of ancestral lands that comprise the community after almost a decade of struggle against the late palm oil magnate Miguel Facussé, as well as drug-trafficking networks that had infiltrated the area.

According to a 2014 Human Rights Watch report, Facussé’s company, Dinant, which produces approximately 60 percent of the palm oil in Honduras, was at the center of a “series of bitter and often violent land disputes” in Colón and the neighboring department of Yoro. Between 2009 and 2014, approximately 100 local land activists were murdered.

In an email, Dinant said, “All allegations that Dinant is, or ever has been, engaged in systematic violence against members of communities are without foundation.” The company also said that in recent years it had “invested significantly in modernizing security procedures, environmental practices and community engagement programs.”

But according to Bonta, “enormous environmental and social harm” has arisen from Dinant and other agricultural interests cutting down original forests and replacing them with monocrops that have very low biodiversity. “Like all big projects in Honduras,” Bonta said, these forest conversions “are subject to the worst problem of all: corrupt biologists and scientists who, for large profit, greenwash the environmental impact statements Honduran law requires for projects to be approved.”

OFRANEH is in the process of building a new community radio station in Vallecito. Image by Christopher Clark for Mongabay.

Kendra McSweeney, a geography professor at the Ohio State University, has previously stated that drug trafficking has had a similarly detrimental impact to that of big agribusiness in eastern Honduras. “When drug traffickers moved in … they brought ecological devastation with them,” she told Mongabay in 2014. Among other things, the traffickers have cleared large sections of forest to make way for scores of illegal airstrips.

Until recently, one such airstrip existed on the outskirts of Vallecito. “You used to hear the planes landing and taking off almost every night,” Francisca Arreola, who is among approximately 100 residents currently living in Vallecito, told Mongabay.

The clandestine landing strip was destroyed in 2014 after representatives from OFRANEH alerted authorities to its existence. Today, a few deep craters where the Honduran army had planted bombs still mark out the airstrip’s former course. Meanwhile, a cluster of houses beyond the airstrip that Arreola said were once inhabited by traffickers have either been knocked down or taken over by the Garifuna.

In the past few years, OFRANEH has also helped the local community build a secondary school and a large hall for community meetings, as well as the new radio station. Vallecito also boasts an organic vegetable garden and a small coconut plantation. Henry Norales, the community’s head agricultural engineer, believes Vallecito will soon be entirely self-sufficient for all of its nutritional requirements.

Norales added that planting coconut trees and other sustainable crops is also the most effective means of “fighting back” against encroachment on the Garifuna’s land. “Our culture is founded on conservation, on protecting Mother Earth. We need to ensure we can preserve this legacy and pass it on to our children,” he said.

Clinton Martinez prepares a meal in the communal kitchen at the Garifuna settlement of Vallecito. Image by Christopher Clark for Mongabay.

Clinton Martinez, 25, who works for OFRANEH as a youth coach and splits his time between Vallecito and the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, believes that the new radio station will help inculcate this central facet of Garifuna culture in Vallecito’s children. In turn, he hopes this will stem the sizeable tide of young Garifuna who have migrated from small rural communities like Vallecito to Honduras’s major cities, to Mexico and even to the U.S. to escape violence or search for economic opportunity.

“This land is ours,” Martinez said. “We can show our people that it is more than enough. Through the radio, we can encourage them to see that even if they are still afraid of the risks, this land has value and we need to protect it.”

Bonta concurs that fostering a conservationist culture is crucial to the survival of indigenous groups like the Garifuna as well as the well-being of their ancestral lands. “Local communities are the only significant environmental players, period,” he said. “Everything else I’ve seen has failed, except a few private landowners’ projects. Honduras’s communities are still highly autonomous, and this is the saving grace of a failed state where the long arm of corrupt military, law enforcement, and private militaries employed by corporate interests still can’t completely force local communities to submit.”

Henry Norales, Vallecito’s head agricultural engineer, stands in the community’s coconut plantation. Image by Christopher Clark for Mongabay.

“A community without its land cannot survive”

Back in Triunfo de la Cruz, Benedict sits beneath the shaded porch of a ramshackle beach shack and looks across the deserted white sand out to sea. Away to his left, the staggered terracotta roofs of another major tourism development, called Playa Escondida Beach Club, interrupt the blanket of verdant forest that wraps around the western perimeter of the village. “We may have won the court case against the developers, but they’re still here,” Benedict says. “The fight isn’t over.”

With minimal funding and persistent threats of closure from the Honduran government, Benedict admits that Faluma Bimetu is struggling to stay afloat. One of his seven hosts has just joined the caravan of Honduran immigrants headed for the U.S., and Benedict is clearly strained by his growing workload.

“When I first started at the radio there were more than 20 of us working here, there was an excitement, every hour there was a different presenter. But things have changed. As director, I’ve trained many people, but most of them just stay for a few months and then they move on and never come back.”

For all the trials and tribulations, Benedict’s sense of responsibility to his community remains unwavering: “This land is everything to us. We live from it, we draw our spiritual beliefs from it. We have no choice but to keep doing what we can to protect it. A community without its land cannot survive.”

Garifuna children on their way to school in Vallecito. Image by Christopher Clark for Mongabay.

Honduras: Indigenous Garifuna use radio to fight for their land

 

[Yehuda]

Puerto Rico pushes for statehood by 2021

By Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN
Updated 1707 GMT (0107 HKT) June 28, 2018

Washington (CNN) — In the wake of Hurricane Maria, the island territory of Puerto Rico is making a new push to become a state within the next three years.

Puerto Rico's representative in the House, Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González-Colón introduced the bill Wednesday that would make the territory a state "no later than January 1, 2021."

This is the second time González-Colón, who has no voting power in the House except in committees, has pushed for statehood since elected resident commissioner.

"The catastrophe left behind by Hurricanes Irma and María unmasked the reality of the unequal treatment of the American living in Puerto Rico, forcing the Executive to approve waivers and Congress to make exceptions so that we could receive help," González-Colón said in a news release Wednesday.

"My colleagues saw firsthand the effects of this unequal treatment due solely to our territorial situation. Statehood is nothing else than Equality; and this Admission Act provides the means to put into effect the values of Democracy and Respect upon which our Nation is built."

Ricardo Rosselló, Puerto Rico's governor, echoed her.

"The fight for Puerto Rico's Equality is one of civil rights," he said in the release.

So far the bill has bipartisan support and currently 37 co-sponsors — a majority of which are Republicans.

The Puerto Rico Admission Act of 2018 proposes creating a bipartisan task force — the Congressional Task Force on Equality for American Citizens of Puerto Rico — of nine members to help with the transition and make recommendations to Congress.

The Caribbean island is still recovering from Hurricane Maria and is currently in a financial crisis.

Last year, 97% of Puerto Ricans voted in favor of statehood in a nonbinding referendum, though only 23% of voters cast a ballot. Congress would have to pass a statute to admit Puerto Rico as a state, which President Donald Trump would also have to approve.

Héctor Ferrer, the president of an opposing party in Puerto Rico that favors keeping the island a commonwealth, pushed back against the bill, saying it's dead on arrival and intends to distract from the country's problems.

Puerto Rican residents have been American citizens since 1917. Its residents can vote in US presidential primaries, but not in presidential elections.

"For some issues we are considered a domestic territory, for others we are a foreign country. Those differences in federal law have to end," González-Colón told CNN en Español's Juan Carlos Lopez in an interview Wednesday. "If not, the economic situation and the civil rights issues will not improve until we put a stop to this."

She added that if granted statehood, "Puerto Rico would definitely be a battleground for both" Democrats and Republicans.

During a lunch at the White House last Thursday, Rosselló told President Donald Trump that Puerto Ricans "want to be a state. We want equal treatment."

Trump joked that the process would go quickly since "Ricardo is going to guarantee us two Republican senators."

CNN's Catherine Shoichet and Juan Carlos Lopez contributed to this report.

Puerto Rico pushes for statehood

 

[AB Ziggy]

Puerto Rico pushes for statehood by 2021

By Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN
Updated 1707 GMT (0107 HKT) June 28, 2018

Washington (CNN) — In the wake of Hurricane Maria, the island territory of Puerto Rico is making a new push to become a state within the next three years.

Puerto Rico's representative in the House, Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González-Colón introduced the bill Wednesday that would make the territory a state "no later than January 1, 2021."

This is the second time González-Colón, who has no voting power in the House except in committees, has pushed for statehood since elected resident commissioner.

"The catastrophe left behind by Hurricanes Irma and María unmasked the reality of the unequal treatment of the American living in Puerto Rico, forcing the Executive to approve waivers and Congress to make exceptions so that we could receive help," González-Colón said in a news release Wednesday.

"My colleagues saw firsthand the effects of this unequal treatment due solely to our territorial situation. Statehood is nothing else than Equality; and this Admission Act provides the means to put into effect the values of Democracy and Respect upon which our Nation is built."

Ricardo Rosselló, Puerto Rico's governor, echoed her.

"The fight for Puerto Rico's Equality is one of civil rights," he said in the release.

So far the bill has bipartisan support and currently 37 co-sponsors — a majority of which are Republicans.

The Puerto Rico Admission Act of 2018 proposes creating a bipartisan task force — the Congressional Task Force on Equality for American Citizens of Puerto Rico — of nine members to help with the transition and make recommendations to Congress.

The Caribbean island is still recovering from Hurricane Maria and is currently in a financial crisis.

Last year, 97% of Puerto Ricans voted in favor of statehood in a nonbinding referendum, though only 23% of voters cast a ballot. Congress would have to pass a statute to admit Puerto Rico as a state, which President Donald Trump would also have to approve.

Héctor Ferrer, the president of an opposing party in Puerto Rico that favors keeping the island a commonwealth, pushed back against the bill, saying it's dead on arrival and intends to distract from the country's problems.

Puerto Rican residents have been American citizens since 1917. Its residents can vote in US presidential primaries, but not in presidential elections.

"For some issues we are considered a domestic territory, for others we are a foreign country. Those differences in federal law have to end," González-Colón told CNN en Español's Juan Carlos Lopez in an interview Wednesday. "If not, the economic situation and the civil rights issues will not improve until we put a stop to this."

She added that if granted statehood, "Puerto Rico would definitely be a battleground for both" Democrats and Republicans.

During a lunch at the White House last Thursday, Rosselló told President Donald Trump that Puerto Ricans "want to be a state. We want equal treatment."

Trump joked that the process would go quickly since "Ricardo is going to guarantee us two Republican senators."

CNN's Catherine Shoichet and Juan Carlos Lopez contributed to this report.

Puerto Rico pushes for statehood

Fools. They will have to pay federal taxes and all of the burdens that comes with it being a state.

 

[BigMan]

Fools. They will have to pay federal taxes and all of the burdens that comes with it being a state.

Fools. They will have to pay federal taxes and all of the burdens that comes with it being a state.

They pay every tax except personal income.

I don't think having to pay federal income tax is "foolish" given the benefits of statehood (I do not necessarily support statehood)

What do you propose PR do instead?

 

[Yehuda]

Understand the effects of the end-of-the-world amendment on black youth

By Amauri Eugênio | June 29, 2018

Alma Preta spoke with young black men from the periphery of São Paulo who are part of a popular cram school, Uneafro Brasil, and historic activists of the anti-racist movement. For them, the measure is a major setback for black youth.

The proposed constitutional amendment to establish a budget ceiling, known on the Chamber of Deputies as PEC 241 and PEC 55 on the Senate, approved by both houses and sanctioned in 2016, has been the subject of public debate and is systematically rejected by civil society and social movements, especially the Black movement. At the time of the constitutional proposal's sanction in December 2016, 60% of the population rejected the law enforcement measures.

The proposal states that the Brazilian state shall have a ceiling of 20 years for investments in strategic areas such as education, healthcare social programs. According to Michel Temer's economic team, the amendment was created to contain public spending and balance government accounts.

Unesp's journalism professor, Juarez Xavier, believes that PEC 55 is the representation of a shady policy aimed at ending what has been and is the main vector for overcoming inequalities in the country and in the world: the State.

"It was like this in Europe and in the newly liberated countries in Africa. Wherever there was an overcoming of inequality, the State played an important role."

For Juninho Junor, militant of Círculo Palmarino of Embu das Artes and state president of the Socialism and Liberty Party, it is an attempt to strengthen the market, especially the rentier state.

"The proposal puts aside our wealth to serve the financial sector and the payment of interest and amortization of public debt to the detriment of social investment".



In 2015, the federal government allocated R$ 962 billion to the payment of interest and debt repayments, corresponding to 42.43% of the Brazilian budget. The figure is almost ten times higher than the investment on health.

In addition to criticism, young people point out that the sector most affected by this measure will be the most vulnerable sector of Brazilian society, that is, the black population. This is the understanding of Kaique Gabriel, a resident of Jardim Keralux and a member of UNEafro Brasil.

"The black population is, in general, the one that most uses public services such as health and education, which are already of poor quality and will become worse."

The head of the National Youth Secretariat (SNJ), Assis Filho, disagrees with possible negative impacts and believes that the amendment does not propose cutting public spending, but rather setting the ceiling for investments.

"There is no reflection of cuts in public spending. Investments in the areas of Health and Education remain and are still happening. PEC 55 comes out of a need for rebalancing public spending. Therefore, there is no negative impact on access to education at the basic, fundamental and higher levels. No negative reflexes".

Image by Rovena Rosa / Agência Brasil

Education

A report published by the G1 website shows that 90% of federal universities in Brazil had a reduction of federal government transfers. Federal higher education institutions received a budget 28.5% lower than that of 2013.

For Juarez Xavier, to penalize education — the arena of political discussion where the black movement has most advanced in recent years — is to attack the black community in a direct manner.

"Education is the area where the black movement has been most successful in these 40 years of modern political struggle. We achieved, for example, Law 10,639, which brought to schools content on the issue of black people, our struggles, our projects, our trajectories and the achievement of quotas in public universities".

The success of recent years with the quota policy might be suspended with a possible cut in the budget of public universities.

According to Kaio Gabriel, in addition to facilitating the entry of black youth, it is necessary to guarantee their stay in college.

"Black youth still have difficulty accessing higher education, for example. When they have access, they will have difficulty staying there".

The cut on expenses is the opposite of what was guided by the Federal Law of Quotas of 2014, which demanded the expansion of investments in universities in order to guarantee the permanence of these students in quality public higher education.

Some examples are already felt in the daily life of higher education institutions. Unifesspa (Federal University of Southern and Southeastern Pará) had to cut, for example, the value of scholarships offered to students by 25%. In absolute numbers, the unit amount was reduced from R$ 400 to R$ 300.

The degradation of higher education, a more recent practice in Brazil, follows the same path as the stripping of basic education — this program has already undergone a long process of dismantling. Unlike higher education, which has recently received more young black students, basic education is marked by the black population and the deterioration of education directly affects this group. This is what Douglas Belchior, a teacher of Uneafro's network of popular cram schools, thinks.

"You do not invest in education and there is an increase in the precariousness of public schools. This way, the investment in teachers is diminished, they become discouraged, the service worsens and the students become even more distanced. This is a vicious cycle, that has only one result: the widespread rise in violence, inequality and poverty."

Dropout rates and the youth's withdrawal from education have a considerable racial discrepancy. In elementary school, for example, which is for children between the ages of 6–14, 66.4% of black students complete this stage, against 82.9% of white students.

"We know there are high dropout rates among the black youth. This is an amendment that hits us and makes us less hopeful", says Débora Dias, a social science student at UNIFESP, youth worker, former student and now a volunteer at Uneafro Brasil.

The Ministry of Education (MEC) says that PEC 55 does not act specifically in education. The governing body points out that the budget of the portfolio grew in 2016 and 2017 and the main actions of the federal government have not suffered cuts.

"On the contrary. ProUni offers this year the largest amount of scholarships in history. FIES was modified and became sustainable, offering a greater number of vacancies than last year and, for the first time, with a zero interest rate credit line. MEC created, for the first time in history, a program that will create 500,000 full-time positions in schools throughout Brazil", says the government ministry in response to Alma Preta.

Image by Marcelo Camargo / Agência Brasil

Public security

Seven out of ten people murdered in Brazil are black. This is the ratio cited by the Atlas of Violence published in 2018, released in early June, made by IPEA (Institute of Applied Economic Research) in partnership with the Brazil Forum of Public Security and based on 2016 data from the Ministry of Health.

The lack of investment in public education and social programs may increase inequality in Brazil, as well as increase violence, according to Juninho Jr.

"The less you invest in health, education, social programs and income distribution, you widen inequality and worsen people's living conditions. Automatically, you increase violence, and in doing so, the consequence that government finds is to amplify repression."

Áurea Carolina, a councilwoman for the Socialism and Liberty Party in Belo Horizonte, believes that the government will have a free pass to invest in more repression and thereby increase mass incarceration.

"This end-of-the-world amendment, which mutilates social policies, has a direct impact on the prison system, also because there may be an increase in the logic of repression by calling for more repression and arrests".

Brazil has the third largest prison population on the planet, surpassed only by the United States (2,217,000) and China (1,657,812). According to a survey conducted by G1 at the beginning of 2017, there are 668,2 thousand prisoners (37% are remand prisoners) in the country.

About 61.6% of Brazilian prisoners are black. Within the penitentiary system, 28% of detainees are responsible for crimes related to drug trafficking. And a total of 55.4% is represented by young people between the ages of 15–29.

Assis Filho agrees that the numbers of violence against black youth are alarming and, therefore, he reiterates some measures adopted by the government, such as the re-evaluation of the Juventude Viva program.

"We launched the Viva Juventude Plan, which will be negotiated with states and municipalities, so that the Federative Republic, as a whole, can agree on a comprehensive plan to combat violence in order to reduce these numbers."

SNJ has R$ 50 million in 2018 to get the program going, in addition to other funds.

The amount defined by President Michel Temer for the military intervention in Rio de Janeiro, R$ 1.2 billion, is 24 times higher than the budget of the Juventude Viva Program for the year 2018.

Understand the effects of the end-of-the-world amendment on black youth

 

[Yehuda]

How to recognize the diversity of afrocolombianidad?

June 27, 2018
By David Jáuregui Sarmiento

Image: Dancers of the Afro-Colombian Cultural Corporation SANKOFA

Colombia's diversity goes beyond afrocolombianidad, the indigenous peoples and the different religious cults that are practiced in the country. Afro-Colombian identity, for example, which is usually thought of as one, has its own diversity and, without a doubt, it gives an account of how wide the melting pot of the country's diversity is: even its divisions have other subdivisions that make the population even more varied.

That is no small deal, the Afro-descendant population in Colombia is the third most extensive after the United States and Brazil, according to the study Multiculturalismo en Colombia: Política, inclusión, y exclusión de poblaciones negras (Multiculturalism in Colombia: Politics, inclusion, and exclusion of black populations), carried out by Carlos Efrén Agudelo, who has made a judicious analysis of the Afro-Colombian population of the Pacific, it mas been made clear that within the country's Afro-descendant population there are more subdivisions that are not limited to the ones that inhabit the continental territory, the Palenqueros and the ones belonging to Raizal communities.

"There are subregional distinctions that go from physical aspects but also from political, cultural and administrative differences, sub-peculiarities in the settlement processes and mobility of its inhabitants. A first division occurs between the so-called North Pacific (basically corresponding to the current department of Chocó) and the South Pacific (the Pacific coasts of the Valle, Cauca and Nariño departments), said Agudelo.

The researcher added on the aspects that differentiate people of African descent in the Colombian Pacific: "The factors that determinated the administrative and political divisions throughout the Colony and the beginnings of the Republic until the current situation have to do with factors such as the way how the territory's conquest came about, the differences in the forms of resistence and subsequent framing of the decimated indigenous populations, the amount of mineral resources found, the location of the ports, the characteristics of the rivers (their navigation possibilities and mining potential), the conditions to develop other productive activities, the dispute from the power centers of the Andean interior to control said riches, the greater or lesser accessibility or proximity of said centers with the region and the forms of settlement of both urban concentrations and the ones that occurred in rural areas".

But this differentiation is important not only because of its diversity, but also because its presence in the country can be much wider than what the Colombian governments have divulged since we called ourselves an independent republic: according to the last population census conducted by the National Administrative Department of Statistics, in 2005, Afro-Colombians accounted for about 11% of the population and the highest population concentration is found in the departments of Valle del Cauca, Antioquia, Chocó and Bolívar.

However, according to the Colombian Cimarrón Movement, the figure released by the government's measuring body is far from reality and the leader of the movement, Juan De Dios Mosquera, has reiterated that the Afro-descendant population is much more extensive and can reach almost 40% of the total Colombian population, well above the 11% stated by the government almost 14 years ago.

Regardless of which one of the two positions is giving the most accurate figure, in what Mosquera and Agudelo agree is that the traditional distinction to refer to this important Colombian population is quite reduced, and its diversity goes beyond the Afro-descendants (including mulattoes), the Afro-Colombian Raizals and Palenqueros.

How to identify afrocolombianidad's diversity?

Agudelo explained that the political, philosophical and academic debate on multiculturalism has developed with special intensity in North America and more recently and with other emphasis in Europe, but in Latin America the focus of this discussion has revolved around indigenous peoples. According to the scholar, one could say that, in general, the common axis of these debates revolves around the management of cultural differences in the public sphere.

For this reason, efforts such as that of Colombia Aprende with the Atlas de las culturas afrocolombianas (Atlas of Afro-Colombian cultures) show that today there are not only very diverse types of Afro-Colombian identities, but that this diversity is due to the fact that their African ancestors also came from different places with different customs, ways of living in community and physical differences.

"The African people that came to what is now Colombia came from vast territories of the African continent. The Mandinka, the Wolof and the Fula came from a region called the Sahel, where water is scarce. The Brame, the Balanta, the Biafada, the Aja and the Igbo were from the tropical forests. The Monjolo, the Anziko and the Angola inhabited the Congolese forests", as described in the atlas' chapter "Gente y Entornos" (People and Environments).

According to researches like the one made by Colombia Aprende, one way to make a differentiation in a more simple manner is to distinguish those who inhabit the Caribbean coast, the archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina; the Pacific coast and those who live in Cali, Medellín and Bogotá. For research on the subject, the place of origin by itself is no longer enough but also how the Afro-Colombian identity developed in the different regions.

Caribbean coast

According to the Atlas de la Afrocolombianidad report, in the Caribbean coast the Afro-Colombians have made great contributions to the cultural history of the region, because in the colonial period it was this population that embodied the labor force of society, performing mainly as masons, domestic servants, oarsmen in the Magdalena River, metal casters, craftsmen and builders of defenses and fortifications, pearl fishers, miners and laborers in the agricultural haciendas, livestock and mill workers, which allowed them contact with the country's interior.

Likewise, they founded villages with the establishment of palenques. In the province of Santa Marta there were resistance redoubts such as La Ramada, Santacruz de Masinga and some villages located around Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and Valledupar. To the North of Cartagena were the Betancour and Matutere palenques and to the center there were San Miguel and Arenal in Sierra de María. After the abolition of slavery there were large movements of people seeking better living conditions.

In this period of national history, Afro-descendants also contributed to the formation of societies, as was the case of the braceros, who were the main labor force in the business of banana plantations.

San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina

The Afro-descendant population of the islands arrived in 1633 when a small number of enslaved people were driven from Tortuga island by English Puritans who had settled for the purpose of creating a new Calvinist religious-based society dedicated to agricultural production; especially the cultivation of tobacco, sugar cane, indigo and cotton. Since then their number grew steadily, brought mainly by pirates and smugglers.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the population had settled in a linear manner along public roads, close to coconut growing areas and related activities. There were three defined areas: North End, where there were some food stores and imported items, Gouph (San Luis) was the coconut boarding area, commercial and administrative center and The Hill (or La Loma) was the cultural religious and economic center and of greater Baptist influence. In Providence Island, on the other hand, once slavery was abolished, the sectors of Bottom House (Casa Baja) and South West Bay (Bahía Suroeste) were assigned to Afro-descendants, while the other sectors were left to whites and mulattoes.

In other words, not only have they developed different religious customs as well as internal social organizations different from those of the Afro-descendants on the continental shelf, but their lifestyle is deeply framed in the life of the islands and it can be differentiated from other Afro-Colombian identities by the influence of other cultures such as Lebanese, Jewish, Palestinian and Hindu, while these cultures did not permeate life on the mainland.

Pacific coast

The first settlers of this region arrived as slaves and were forced to work in the gold extraction of the alluvial mines located along the main rivers and their tributaries. Since the sixteenth century, as the processes of conquest, pacification and ethnocide of the indigenous population progressed, the increase of African people's numbers was vertiginous. This situation implied a much more pronounced Africanization of the Colombian Pacific compared to other regions and the Afro-descendant community became the majority, reaching 90% of the total population. By representing the majority of the population and maintaining economic activities such as mining and being able to sustain a fluvial economy more or less independent from the country's interior, the Afro-Colombians of this region have a less distorted connection with their African ancestry, as well as having undergone a process of miscegenation that was less pronounced than in other regions.

In this region the Afro-descendant population developed a system of settlement or colonization of the lower areas of the river basins. The complex fluvial system generated a communication network between communities of neighboring basins that influenced the cultural dynamics where there are areas of family or community use and where certain relatives remain seasonally. This way, as explained by Colombia Aprende, the dyadic and kinship relations that are a fundamental part of their culture are maintained. The settlement system is through scattered villages; their maintenance depends on the exploitation of resources such as timber, harvesting, hunting, fishing, mining activities and the rotation and mobility system of crops for self-sustainability.

How to recognize the diversity of afrocolombianidad?