OFRANEH Canadian speaking tour: Impacts of Tourist Investments on Afro-Indigenous Garifuna Communities in Honduras
Since 1998, Rights Action has worked with and supported OFRANEH. Over the decades, we have regularly shared information (OFRANEH archives) about the slow ethnocide of the Garifuna people as powerful interests (including countless Canadian and U.S. tourism operators, investors, etc.) use or take advantage of corruption and violence to coerce and or forcibly remove Garifuna communities and people from their ancestral lands along the north Caribbean coast of Honduras and on Roatan and other nearby islands.
First announced early this year, Rights Action is happy to announce that Karen Spring is organizing and will be a co-speaker on this OFRANEH (Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras) speaking tour in Canada.
Impacts of Tourist Investments on Afro-Indigenous Garifuna Communities in Honduras
Tour dates: September 25 to October 9, 2026
Cities: Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal, & surrounding areas (see below)
***If interested in hosting a public presentation, contact Karen Spring (see below) as soon as possible, to start the planning
Background context
Since before the U.S. and Canada-backed 2009 military coup that ousted the elected government of Honduras, and increasing during the next 12+ years of a military-backed, narco-trafficking regime, Afro-Indigenous Garifuna communities have denounced and resisted the impacts of Canadian investors in Trujillo Bay, Honduras. Impacts include land and territory dispossession, disregard for Garifuna ancestral land and communal rights, violence, criminalization, and defamation, all fueled by racism and unjust structural privileges enjoyed by foreign investors.
As these land conflicts in Trujillo intensify and tourism operators and investors use their power to impose their investments in Trujillo, Garifuna communities, the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH) has repeatedly denounced the effects of these investment projects on their culture, peoples, and lands, and propose alternatives.
The tour
This tour is an opportunity for OFRANEH to speak directly to and build relationships with Canadians and Canadian organizations around these issues. OFRANEH will be accompanied by Karen Spring, who will also speak based on more than 15 years of living and working in Honduras.
Throughout the almost 40 years of its existence, OFRANEH is a federation representing over 46 Garifuna communities across the north coast of Honduras. The organization places a strong focus on protecting the cultural integrity, survival, and the ancestral land rights of the Garifuna people. OFRANEH participates in national and global solidarity movements and spaces and is one of the leading Indigenous organizations in Honduras.
Who: Rony Castillo of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH) and Karen Spring (HSN)
Cities: The tour will begin in Toronto and surrounding cities (Guelph, Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Elmvale/Barrie, etc.); east to Peterborough, Kingston and surrounding areas; to the Ottawa region; then to the Montreal area. (Pending interest, we are willing to explore travel to eastern or western Canada.)
Sponsors: Honduras Solidarity Network (HSN), Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) Social Justice Fund, and Rights Action
Confirming the tour, pending interest
If you are interested in hosting a public presentation, helping to fundraise or otherwise support the tour, contact Karen Spring as soon as possible.
If you and your organization, university, and/or community are interested in hosting an event, please respond and let me know. We are looking for event hosts, co-sponsors of the tour, any financial contributions you or your organization can make to help with the tour costs, and ideas about how to get the word out.
Thanks so much,
Karen
karen@hondurassol.org
+504-8785-5757 (Whatsapp)
+1-705-816-1849 (Canadian number)
EcoJustice Radio interview with Grahame Russell
Garifuna people & Honduras in resistance to U.S. & Canadian exploitation, violence & corruption