Take Action: OFRANEH encampment of Garifuna people outside Honduras Supreme Court
Below
Sign-on letter from Grassroots International in support of OFRANEH and Garifuna people in their second weekend of encampment outside the Supreme Court of Honduras
Karen Spring’s Day Nine Update on the OFRANEH encampment
Hondurans are suffering through 17 years of almost unbroken corruption and repression, exploitation and dispossession by “open for global business”, drug-trafficking governments supported fully by the U.S. and Canadian governments, investors and business operators in the global extractivist economy, including: mining, African palm production, tourism, and ZEDE “model cities”.
During this entire time (without going back further in history), the territories, lands and communities of indigenous Garifuna people and communities along Honduras’ north coast have been under siege by wealthy Honduran elites and international (mainly U.S. and Canadian) tourism investors and operators, and by organized crime rings. This includes on the infamous-becoming-notorious Roatan Island.
For years Rights Action, and groups such as the Honduras Solidarity Network, have directly supported OFRANEH (the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras) as it courageously leads Garifuna land, rights, and community defense struggles along the Caribbean shoreline.
“The Garifuna people are not land invaders. We are recovering our ancestral territories”
“The government must investigate illegal sales of land and assassinations and threats against land defenders”
“The Garifuna people demand full compliance with the binding decisions of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights”
Photo @ criterio.hn, August 17, 2026
A very U.S. and Canadian problem
While the roots of this global extractivist onslaught to dispossess the Garifuna people go back decades, the violence, corruption and aggression spiked seriously after the U.S. and Canadian-backed military coup in June 2009 brought these traditional Honduran elites back to power.
Please sign the letter in support of OFRANEH
Here, link for sharing on socials: https://tinyurl.com/GarifunaAction
OFRANEH Encampment outside the Supreme Court in Tegucigalpa
Day Nine Update with photos
August 18, 2026, by Karen Spring
https://www.hondurasnow.org/day-nine-update-ofraneh-encampment-outside-the-supreme-court-in-tegucigalpa/
Since Monday, August 10, the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH) has maintained an encampment outside the Supreme Court in Tegucigalpa. They are demanding a definitive closure of the judicial case and charges against five Garifuna leaders from San Juan, Tela who have been accused of usurpation related to an ancestral land recovery effort.
The land being recovered and in dispute in San Juan has been taken by the wealthy Rosenthal family and is located within the land that belongs to San Juan according to national land titles and the 2023 InterAmerican Court sentence against the State of Honduras.
Ancestral land recuperation
Photo: Red Nacional de Defensoras de Derechos Humanos en Honduras
Last week, the Supreme Court agreed to meet with OFRANEH on Friday, August 14th but OFRANEH and the Committee for the Compliance of the InterAmerican Court Sentence, both of which originally presented the request for the meeting, were informed that only four representatives could attend the meeting. Both bodies consist of 17 individuals, all of which form a collective including representatives of the four Garifuna communities that participated in the IACHR cases. The conditionality of the Supreme Court in regard to the meeting was rejected by OFRANEH.
In the evening on Sunday, August 16, Honduran police arrived at the encampment and threatened to evict OFRANEH despite their peaceful presence. These threats are on-going.
On Monday, August 17, the National Jurisdiction court in San Pedro Sula, where the case had been sent by a judge in Tela, annulled their presentation in the case and sent the case back to the courthouse in Tela. OFRANEH announced yesterday that the San Pedro Sula court’s decision to transfer the case is insufficient and continues to demand a definitive closure of the judicial case and charges against the five Garifuna leaders.
The case is not based on any valid investigation of the ownership of the land, and the application of the Law for the Strengthening and Protection of the Agro-industrial Sector was irregularly applied to the case, as San Juan and the land in dispute is Indigenous land and subject to an InterAmerican Court Sentence.
Join us in signing this letter to the President of the Supreme Court, Wagner Vallecillo and demand that the case be definitively closed against the five Garifuna from San Juan, Tela!
More background: See Honduras Now X, Instagram page, here
Karen Spring, Honduras Solidarity Network, karen@hondurassol.org
OFRANEH
@ofraneh / garifuna@ofraneh.org / https://x.com/ofraneh / http://www.ofraneh.wordpress.com
EcoJustice Radio interview with Grahame Russell
Garifuna people & Hondurans in resistance to U.S. & Canadian exploitation, violence & corruption
TESTIMONIO
Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala
(Book, 2021)
13 BRAVE GIANTS
How We Won the Landmark Hudbay Minerals Lawsuits in Canada the Mynor Padilla Criminal Trial in Guatemala, and at What Cost!
(Rights Action report)