Category: Chapter 8

Land disputes in southern Costa Rica

Chapter 8 / Land disputes and encroachments into indigenous territories in Central America / Other Central American indigenous land disputes

By Jiri Spendlingwimmer with material from Liz Richmond.

October 2020 

This section of Chapter 8 of The Violence of Development website includes articles on the assassinations of Jehry Rivera and Sergio Rojas, Indigenous Costa Ricans who fought for the rights of their Indigenous communities in the south of the country.  Jiri Spendlingwimmer, a Costa Rican anthropologist, has sent us an update on the trials and on the tense situation in China Kichá, one of the Indigenous territories experiencing the conflicts between the claims of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. Jiri’s account was translated by Liz Richmond who added more details about the situation. We are grateful to both Jiri and Liz for the news and article.

 

The case against the Indigenous people of China Kichá

Jiri writes: An eviction is pending against the Indigenous people of China Kicha (20 minutes from Cooperative Longo Mai). For the moment it is suspended due to the pressure of solidarity groups organised throughout Costa Rica – see below.

 

Update on a visit to China Kichá by Jiri Spendlingwimmer (27 Sep 2020)

This week a small delegation from the Movimiento Ríos Vivos (Living Rivers Movement) went to visit and show solidarity with the Indigenous land defenders at the Kono Ju farm, in China Kichá. For me it was my first visit to the territory.

We were surprised at how the police control access to the area; there is a permanent Police post around 1 km before the farm; and the police check each vehicle and person who enters, recording every car registration and personal identity numbers.  They determine who enters, and possibly investigate them.

The land defenders are very brave; they are resisting this very difficult fight whilst under constant threat.  In summer their crops were burnt, along with their water supply hoses. In total there are 38 people, including families with children. They have some necessities such as first aid kits, torches, batteries and face masks.

An eviction date is scheduled for the Konu Ju families for 29 September 2020, however due to the support and solidarity of individuals and groups nationally, there has been a temporary suspension of eviction, declared 25 September 2020.  Albeit temporary it is important, as this legal action will allow for more time.

The government’s reaction was reflected in a statement from the Vice Minister of the Presidency in Citizen Dialogue, Randall Otárola, in which he positioned himself for the temporary suspension of eviction. However he did not propose a concrete alternative solution, or speak in favour of granting the Indigenous land defenders their legitimate territory.

On the contrary, Deputy José María Villalta of the Frente Amplio suggests, among other solutions, that the executive power could disobey the orders of the judge, as these are contrary to the International Treaties applicable in Costa Rica regarding the autonomy and rights of Indigenous peoples, which are above national legislation.

At the same time, the Public Ministry dismissed and recommended the closing of the case regarding the cause of homicide of Sergio Rojas, land defender assassinated in March 2019 in the Indigenous territory of Salitre.  This sets a dangerous precedent, as it grants impunity to the murder of Sergio Rojas, and the same could therefore occur with the case of Jehry Rivera. This gives the green light to racism, violence and deaths towards Indigenous people in the process of recovering their territories, which has recently extended from the Southern regions of Costa Rica to the North, in the Indigenous territory of Maleku.

 

The case of Sergio Rojas

Sergio Rojas was assassinated in March 2019. Rojas was President of the Association for the Development of the Indigenous Territory of Salitre and coordinator of the National Front of Indigenous Peoples (FRENAP) in Costa Rica. He was a staunch defender of the Bribri of Salitre Indigenous people who have been fighting for years to regain their rights to over 12,000 hectares of land in southern Costa Rica pledged to them by a 1938 government agreement.

Jiri writes: The biggest scandal is that the courts decided to close and file away the case of Sergio Rojas with no further action.  They claim that they cannot determine which of the three suspects is responsible for his murder.

 

 

 

 

The Garífuna Five

Chapter 8 / Land disputes and encroachments into indigenous territories in Central America / The Garífuna of Honduras

In the early morning of 18th July, five Garífuna men were abducted from their homes in Triunfo de la Cruz, Honduras. They have been missing ever since. They were abducted by men wearing bullet proof vests with the initials of the Honduran National Police (DPI, the Investigative Police Directorate).

The five are Alberth Sneider Centeno Thomas, a 27 year old community activist who has advocated for the Honduran government to compensate the Garífuna people for stolen land, Milton Joel Martínez Álvarez, Suami Aparicio Mejía Garcia, Junior Rafael Juárez Mejía and Gerardo Mizael Rochez Cálix. All are members of the Fraternal Organisation of Black Hondurans (OFRANEH).

Sneider Centeno is President of the Triunfo de la Cruz community and has been a forceful defender of the wetlands of Punta Izopo where the expansion of African palm plantations is threatening to destroy the wetlands of the Plátano and Gama Rivers. In 2019, Sneider and a group of youth from Triunfo de la Cruz intervened to stop the burning of hundreds of acres of mangroves which were being destroyed to plant African palm. As a result of this action they became targets of and received threats from the drug traffickers who control large areas of northern Honduras and who are associated with the palm plantations.

On 1st August, OFRANEH issued a statement demanding their immediate return alive and in good health, condemning a social media campaign which had sprung into being to denigrate the men and to accuse them of drug trafficking, and demanding the Honduran state’s compliance with an Inter-American Human Rights Court ruling to properly identify and demarcate Garífuna community owned land.

Amnesty International has issued an Urgent Action alert on behalf of the five (AMR 37/2780/2020, 23 July) as has the Alliance for Global Justice (20 July 2020).

In April 2006 the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights granted precautionary measures to the community of Triunfo de la Cruz, asking the government of Honduras to adopt the necessary measures to protect the right of the community to ownership of ancestral lands. In October 2015, the Inter-American Court on Human Rights ruled in favour of the Garífuna community of Triunfo de la Cruz, finding the Honduran state guilty of violating the right of the community to collective property.

Since the start of the COVID-19 total curfew in Honduras in March 2020, Amnesty International has received several reports of serious attacks against human rights defenders, including members of OFRANEH. On 20th April, the police stifled a protest in Oak Ridge, Roatán Island, forcing a boat not to dock at a local port for public health reasons. On 6th May, police officers threatened a group of young Garífuna people guarding the community of Travesía in Cortés department with dropping tear gas bombs. OFRANEH also denounced the killing of Edwin Fernández, an OFRANEH member, on 20th May in the community of Río Tinto, Atlántida department.

The circumstances of the abduction and the continued disappearance of the men reflect on the current government of Honduras as a government that is riddled and ruled by organised crime and a government that practices state terrorism to instil fear into the Honduran people.

After Recognition: Indigenous Peoples Confront Capitalism

Chapter 8 / Conclusions

From NACLA (North American Congress on Latin America) | 2 Sep 2010

Indigenous peoples across Latin America have in recent years taken a leading position in defending national sovereignty, democratic rights, and the environment. A renewed cycle of capitalist accumulation in the region centered on mining, hydrocarbon extraction, and agro-industrial monocultures has sparked the new round of indigenous resistance. Drawing on organizational and political legacies of the peasant and agrarian struggles of previous decades, indigenous groups in the 1980s and 1990s grew and gained strength from an international arena in which governments were encouraged to recognize and promote cultural and minority rights in return for continuing debt relief and development aid.

In a wave of constitutional reforms, Colombia (1991), Guatemala (1993), Mexico (1993), and Peru (1993) took the unprecedented symbolic step of recognizing the cultural rights of indigenous people. More recently indigenous political mobilizations in Ecuador (2008) and Bolivia (2009) have led to constitutions that recognize those states’ plurinational character and, in the case of Bolivia, establish limited autonomy for indigenous peoples. While these state-led reforms represent one response to indigenous peoples’ demands for recognition of cultural identities and rights, they have done little to address either their long-standing demands for justice or their rejection of the extractivist economies, environmental devastation, and rampant social inequality that characterize neoliberal capitalism.

This issue of the NACLA Report explores the contributions and creative possibilities of indigenous movements at a moment when indigenous politics has moved beyond requests for state recognition and inclusion. In this period “after recognition,” indigenous activists, organizations and communities are challenging both the claims that liberal national states exert over indigenous resources and territories, and the misplaced social and economic priorities of neoliberal capitalism.

The creative force of indigenous political mobilization as a catalyst for broader popular political struggles was brought to world attention on January 1, 1994, when the Zapatista Army of National Liberation took over several cities in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. Despite the Mexican government’s military and media offensive against the Zapatistas, which continues to this day, the 1994 uprising—timed to coincide with the first day of the North American Free Trade Agreement—helped launch a national debate about democratic participation, autonomy, economic justice, and political inclusion. In the years since 1994, Zapatista organizations have drawn on indigenous philosophies of authority and community to articulate ideals of direct democracy and political participation that go well beyond liberal models of both representational democracy and cultural recognition.

The Zapatista challenge emerged in response to a neoliberal economic model that reduced social spending, deregulated key industries, dismantled unions, undermined workers’ rights, and deployed increasingly authoritarian measures against social movements, ranging from the criminalization of public protests to full-scale counterinsurgency doctrine. These measures, together with neoliberalism’s ongoing commitment to environmentally destructive industries like oil, mining, logging, as well as large infrastructure projects and single-crop commercial agriculture, pose the most severe threat in history to indigenous survival.

Even as Latin American popular movements face severe challenges from both the global economic crisis and the policies of their neoliberal states, indigenous organizations throughout Latin America are responding to both state repression and the uncontrolled looting of their countries’ natural resources, with new and creative perspectives on development and the crisis of the liberal nation-state. In doing so, they confront the region’s elected governments, including the new progressive nationalist governments, which have had difficulty thinking past the economic development model promoted by the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization: fostering capitalist expansion through exploiting natural resources.

In the face of this, indigenous peoples ask why it is always necessary to privilege profits over life, to defend the rights of corporations and not the rights of Mother Earth, and to treat nature as a resource for the taking. In the terrain of politics as well, indigenous mobilizations have challenged the dominance of vertical decision-making on both the right and left, and the neoliberal state’s tired mantras of national security and economic interest.

A significant case is the 2008 Colombian minga, which propelled the country’s indigenous movement to the center of the political stage (see “Colombia’s Minga Under Pressure”). With this massive national mobilization, indigenous peoples demonstrated their capabilities to convene a broad range of social and political forces, and to articulate a platform of action that directly challenges the Colombian neoliberal state’s commitments to the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, militarization, mining, and industrial agriculture.

Despite significant advances, indigenous movements continue to face serious challenges. Neoliberal agendas allow no room for the negotiation of territorial or political rights, and the entrenched racism of Latin America’s criollo or mestizo elites makes it difficult fo r indigenous perspectives and voices to be heard. Examples of this abound. In Mexico, indigenous communities have confronted the failures of the state judicial system, as well as increasing violence from state police, paramilitaries, and drug traffickers by forming community police who work to enforce their constitutional rights to autonomy and peace (see “Indigenous Justice Faces the State”).

In Brazil, indigenous territories and ways of life are directly threatened by the Lula government’s unwavering support for massive hydroelectric projects, such as the Inambari dams, which will flood more than 113,000 acres of rainforest on the Peruvian-Brazilian border, or the Belo Monte dams, which will divert more than 80% of the Xingu River (see “Brazil’s Native Peoples and the Belo Monte Dam”). In Peru, the political elite’s and mining sector’s disdain for Mother Earth directly threatens the survival of indigenous peoples, yet communities from the Andes and Amazon have joined forces to resist state efforts to expand extractive industries and to deny indigenous rights (see “El buen vivir”).

Indigenous political forces face similar challenges in those countries where progressive governments—brought to power, to varying degrees, by indigenous movements—continue to promote mining and other extractive industries, to deny rights to prior consultation, to ignore indigenous territorial autonomies, and to directly threaten both the environment and indigenous life. In Ecuador, indigenous movements have confronted the Rafael Correa government’s developmental strategy, which privileges mining and oil, and in September 2009 they mobilized to protest legislation that threatened to remove control of water resources from local communities and open the way for privatization of water. Correa responded by labeling indigenous leaders “terrorists.”1 In Bolivia, indigenous movements have also joined to confront the country’s first indigenous president, Evo Morales, over the distribution of profits from gas and mining opera¬tions and the determination of autonomous territories, and even to demand the outright abolition of extractive industries (see “Bolivia’s New Water Wars”).

Indigenous organizations in different countries have articulated similar responses to extractive economies. In 2009, at the IV Continental Summit of Indigenous Peoples and Nationalities of Abya-Yala, held in Puno, Peru, 5,000 delegates from across the Americas issued a declaration in which they offered “an alternative of life instead of a civilization of death.” In its call for a “global mobilization in defense of Mother Earth and the World’s People,” the summit acknowledged that this struggle—and the global crisis it addresses—demands a broad alliance with non-indigenous social and political actors.2 The summit’s anti-capitalist, anti-systemic platform resonates with declarations put forward by the Zapatistas, the World Social Forum, and other Latin American indigenous and popular organizations.

As indigenous movements act to hold their elected governments to account, they are not asking merely for recognition or for increased electoral participation. Their goal is not to participate in more of the same but to build something better. They question the primacy of an economic model that values private profit over life and the Mother Earth. They also remind us that popular and oppositional politics must look beyond elections and state-centered models of representative democracy that have historically marginalized and silenced not only indigenous peoples, but also a wide spectrum of disenfranchised and poor populations. They ask us, above all, to think creatively about how our commitments to political change must start not with a quest for power, but rather with respect for life, and for the ways of life and mutual well-being that indigenous organizations call el buen vivir.

1. Servicios en Comunicación Intercultural Servindi (servindi.org), “Ecuador: En escalada represiva Correa acusa a líderes indígenas de terroristas,” June 30, 2010.
2. See Marc Becker, “Moving Forward: The Fourth Continental Summit of Indigenous Peoples,” June 12, 2009, nacla.org/node/5891.

The Naso of Panama and their land demarcation struggles

Chapter 8 / Land disputes and encroachments into indigenous territories in Central America / The Naso of Panamá

The indigenous Naso people occupy a region of north-west Panama in the Bocas del Toro province, with a population of approximately 3,500. They live in 11 communities along the Teribe River and survive primarily as subsistence farmers. Their territory lies within two protected areas rich in biodiversity: the Palo Seco National Forest and La Amistad International Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site. They are one of the few remaining indigenous peoples in the Americas to have a monarchy recognised by the state.

Like many indigenous peoples, the problems faced by the Naso are rooted in their ongoing struggle for legal recognition of their traditional lands. The Naso people of the Bocas del Toro province in western Panama never enjoyed the benefit of Omar Torrijos’ 1970s designation of indigenous lands as comarcas within which they would enjoy a relatively high degree of autonomy and in which land could be held communally rather than individually. As a result, they have had to continue their struggle to retain their territory since the 1960s. According to Osvaldo Jordan of the Panamanian NGO, Alliance for Conservation and Development (ACD):

The Naso were unable to create sufficient public pressure for the creation of their comarca when the government still had a favourable opinion towards these autonomous territories. Now, the public consensus has turned against comarcas and the Naso are left trapped in this situation.[1]

Without official recognition of their comarca by the Panamanian government, the Naso stand in a weak position to defend their right to autonomy and self-determination. Without appropriate legal recognition and control over their territory, they feel unable to confront recent processes of acculturation and globalisation. Refusing legal title to the Naso territory constitutes a violation of the Naso’s rights according to the country’s constitution, as well as violating the American Convention of Human Rights. [2]

The Naso face two particular developments brought by the predominant Panamanian society. Both of these are especially crucial to the survival of their environment and their culture. The first of these is an ongoing battle with a cattle ranching company; and the second concerns the construction of the Bonyic dam and access roads to it.

Land conflicts between the Naso and the livestock company Ganadera Bocas are ongoing and have often turned violent. The disputed land is claimed by the Naso on grounds of ancestral ownership, whilst Ganadera Bocas possess a property title stating legal ownership since 1962.[3] Felix Sánchez, President of the Naso Foundation, explains the origins of the land ownership conflict:

“the Standard Fruit Company at that time [early 1960s] were the bosses, but at the same time they were not the owners; they were the nation’s tenants and not the legitimate owners. But afterwards in the seventies, the company went up for sale as a business, changing its name to one which had possession of the land amidst a pile of rules and arrangements which they made. That’s when it all started happening.”[4]

The Naso see this supposed ownership of their land by Ganadera Bocas as false and as having been conjured up by lawyers years ago rather than by any legitimate purchase. The conflict this has caused is still being played out on the ground today.

On 30 March 2009, police and employees of Ganadera Bocas entered the Naso villages of San San and San San Druy with heavy machinery, destroying 30 homes and the Naso Cultural Centre, the construction of which was only completed the previous day. Protests continued throughout 2009 and 2010, with a Naso camp based in Panama City, demanding that the government grant them the right to live on their land.[5]

In September 2009, the local mayor of Changuinola attended a meeting of the residents of the Naso village of San San Druy with King Valentín Santana and other Naso leaders in attendance.[6] This was an amicable meeting with considerable sympathy and empathy between the mayor and the residents. But two months later on 19 November 2009, the police moved in again and allowed the Ganadera Bocas company to enter with their machinery to destroy the village for a second time that year.[7] The photograph collage that follows this text illustrates a little of the Naso’s experience at the hands of Ganadera Bocas.

Indigenous comarcas of Panama

Indigenous comarcas of Panama

This struggle has not been helped by a division within the Naso people between King Valentín Santana and King Tito Santana. Interviews with Felix Sánchez and with King Valentín and the recording of the meeting with the local mayor made it crystal clear that the people of San San Druy community saw only King Valentín as their valid representative. Moreover, the villagers of San San Druy overwhelmingly saw Tito Santana as corrupt, having accepted money from Ganadera Bocas and having deserted the village. Doña Lupita from San San Druy, for instance, said: “King Tito says that he is the true king, but he is the government’s king. We recognise Valentín Santana – he is our king because he [Tito] has left the community. … We don’t recognise Tito as king because he is selling us out.”[8]

The second of their major battles is against the development megaproject of the $51m Bonyic hydroelectric dam, sponsored by Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM) which has a 75 per cent controlling stake in the Panamanian generating company Hidroecológica del Teribe (HET), the company which is building the hydroelectric plant.[9] The Bonyic dam is one of four planned in the Bocas del Toro province – known as the Changuinola-Teribe Dams – with a combined estimated capacity of 446 megawatts, equivalent to 30 per cent of Panama’s total production in the year 2004.[10] However, as with most development projects, the costs and benefits are rarely equitably distributed and the Naso may stand to lose more than they gain.

The Bonyic project has caused yet more rifts within the Naso people. Their former king Tito Santana collaborated with EPM, keen to embrace the advantages of modernity and development, including the offer of a school, clinic, jobs, infrastructure and university scholarships. His support for the project provoked a revolt and he was forced into exile in 2004, with his uncle Valentín Santana assuming his position, backed by opponents of the project. The government, however, continues to recognise Tito as the legitimate king. As Rory Carroll commented in the Guardian “the discord reflects an anguished debate about Naso identity and the balance between heritage and modernity”. [11]

Supporters of King Valentín Santana doubt that benefits will compensate for the environmental and social costs of the dam, and maintain that the project will destroy their cultural and natural heritage. A new highway is planned to connect the population of the large town Changuinola with the dam, which will undoubtedly bring radical changes to their lives including migration. The testimony of some of the Naso opponents to the project is given in The testimony of the Naso given in the interviews section of this website includes the words of Alicia Quintero whose land stands in the way of the proposed road.

The project received an early setback in 2005 when the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) rejected an application to finance the dam, its rejection being at least partly based on the inadequate environmental impact assessment. This represented a clear victory for the Naso opponents, but funding was raised by HET from private sources and construction began in 2007. Since construction work began, human rights abuses of the Naso have also taken place, these including the detention of fourteen Naso people and sexual assaults of Naso women. Additionally, local police officers work as armed security guards for the development during their out-of-work hours; the Panamanian environment ministry granted to the developer the right to administer land that belongs to the Naso; and clearance and construction work along the valley began illegally in February 2009 before the Panamanian government gave permission for it to do so, which they did in March 2010.

On 30 November 2009 the Naso resistance movement reported on the ongoing struggles. Extracts from their communication are given below.

Naso leaders of the San San Druy and San San communities have accepted the establishment of a round table of negotiation with the government on a possible comarca and under the coordination of the President of the Commission of Indigenous Affairs, Leopoldo Archibold. The proposal was accepted this morning in a meeting with the Indigenist Policy Group and the Vice-Minister of Government and Justice and to which the executive invited the illegitimate King Tito Santana, dismissed by the community and an habitual associate of Empresas Públicas de Medellín and Ganadera Bocas. The round table starts work on 11 December and is made up of 10 delegates of the legitimate King Valentín Santana and 10 of Tito Santana. Although these accords have been reached, the Minister of Government and Justice, José Raúl Mulino, insisted on calling the residents of San San Druy and San San ‘squatters’, and likewise his director of the Indigenist Policy Group, José Isaac Acosta, was contemptuous of the community, insinuating that they are incited by NGOs and foreigners. The Naso leaders accepted the round table although without much hope of reaching a good solution given the repeated failure of the government to comply with the most basic accords which have been reached over the previous eight months.[12]

On 10 December 2009, a day before the planned meeting, with no explanation, the government unilaterally suspended the round table planned for the following day. Comuna Sur reported that

… theoretically, the purpose of the meeting was to begin discussions about the creation of a new Naso comarca. However, following the pattern of recent months, everything has been suspended without any convincing reason and without a new date. So the Naso communities of San San Druy and San San continue to re-build their houses on the land in conflict under the view of private security agents. According to the director of the Indigenist Policy Unit in Panama, there is no conflict with the indigenous people. In this way, they try to make them invisible so that they cease to exist. But the communities in resistance constantly remind themselves that their rights are being denied.[13]

Opponents of the Bonyic project include more than just the Naso people. In 2010 the international heavyweight organisation IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) and the World Heritage Centre reported their concern about the impacts of all four proposed dams:

The World Heritage Centre and IUCN conclude that it will likely be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to adequately mitigate the habitat loss and fragmentation effects of the proposed dams on the property’s freshwater ecosystem, and that the possible secondary and cumulative effects of eliminating up to 16 migratory aquatic species within portions of the property may significantly affect predatory bird and mammal populations. Until the State Party of Panama investigates alternatives to the four proposed dams through a detailed transboundary Strategic Environmental Assessment process, the World Heritage Centre and IUCN recommend that all dam construction be halted to safeguard the property’s values and integrity.[14]

The International Rivers Network has also demonstrated major holes in the preparation and arguments in favour of the Bonyic dam and in the company’s underhand tactics to gain Naso approval for the project.[15] The Global Greengrants Fund has also lent its weight in support of those who oppose the project.[16] The Conservation Strategy Fund (CSF) website has a HydroCalculator tool which can be used to estimate basic economic feasibility analyses of hydro-electric projects as well as summarising their social and environmental costs. For instance, their calculator produces a statistics for the number of displaced persons per megawatt of electricity produced. From their analysis of the four Changuinola – Teribe Dams, they conclude that “the projects would most likely be both economically and financially feasible. Nonetheless, they would cause environmental damage in an area of global conservation interest and impose serious hardship on indigenous communities living along these rivers.”[17]

Most Third World governments serve as agents of the prevailing economic model of development, and in that role they are keen to capitalise on the income potential represented by natural resources within their national boundaries. Exploitation of natural resources such as mineral wealth, timber, plant diversity, hydroelectric energy and even wildlife has proven easy to exploit if destruction of the natural environment and removal of its inhabitants can be disregarded. And some Central American governments have indeed managed to disregard the natural ecosystems in their ‘development’ of natural resources whilst at the same time waxing lyrical about the need to protect the environment.

[1] Personal communication
[2] Environmental Defender Law Center http://www.edlc.org/cases/communities/naso-of-panama/2/ (accessed 16 July 2009)
[3] http://mensual.prensa.com/mensual/contenido/2009/05/31/hoy/panorama/1803560.asp (accessed 16 July 2009)
[4] Felix Sánchez interviewed for this book, San San Druy, Panama, 1 September 2009.
[5] http://mensual.prensa.com/mensual/contenido/2009/07/06/hoy/panorama/1844317.asp (accessed 16 July 2009)
[6] The meeting in San San Druy on 1 September 2009 was recorded for the purposes of this book, and the quotes from Naso residents and leaders which appear in this chapter are taken mainly from this recording.
[7] Karis McLaughlin and Martin Mowforth (December 2009) ‘For the second time this year the Naso have their houses destroyed to make way for a cattle ranching company’, ENCA Newsletter No. 49, Environmental Network for Central America, London.
[8] Doña Lupita in meeting with Mayor of Changuinola, Panama, in the village of San San Druy, 1 September 2009.
[9] OneMBA (6 November 2003) ‘EPM pagará US$6,6mn por Teribe’, www.bnamericas.com/news/energiaelectrica/EPM_pagara_US*6,6mn_por_Teribe (accessed 15.06.11).
[10] Cordero, S., Montenegro, R., Mafla, M., Burgués, I., and Reid, J. (2006) ‘Análisis de costo beneficio de cuatro proyectos hidroeléctricos en la cuenca Changuinola-Teribe’, The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (July).
[11] Rory Carroll, ‘Hydro plant splits jungle kingdom as tribe feels damned by new way of life’, The Guardian, 16 June 2008
[12] http://resistencianaso.wordpress.com
[13] Comuna Sur (2009) ‘Gobierno de Panama falta una vez más a sus compromisos’, email communication, 10 December 2009
[14] World Heritage Centre and International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) (2010) ‘State of conservation of World Heritage properties inscribed on the World Heritage List’, WHC-10/34.COM/7B, p.86.
[15] Payal Parekh (2010) ‘Comments on the Bonyic Hydroelectric Project (Panama)’, International Rivers website: www.internationalrivers.org/panama/comments-bonyic-hydroelectric-project-panama (accessed 14 June 2011).
[16] Global Greengrants Fund (1 August 2006) ‘Panama: Fighting Hydroelectric Dams’, www.greengrants.org/2006/08/01/panama-fighting-hydroelectric-dams/ (accessed 14 June 2011).
[17] Tathi Bezerra (24 March 2009) ‘Changuinola – Teribe Dams in Panama’, Conservation Strategy Fund website: http://conservation-strategy.org/en/project/changuinola-teribe-dams-panama (accessed 14.06.11).

The Mayangna of the Awas Tingni community, Nicaragua

Chapter 8 / Conservation and indigenous peoples

Awas Tingni is one of numerous indigenous Mayangna (or Sumo[1]) communities in the remote, densely forested region on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua. Around 1,500 people live in Awas Tingni. During the 1990s, the Nicaraguan government granted a logging concession to a Korean multinational company (Solcarsa) for the logging of 62,000 hectares of land inhabited by the community, without asking for their consent.

The Nicaraguan justice system failed to address the Awas Tingni community’s concerns. A petition was lodged with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, accusing the government of failing to demarcate their communal lands or provide judicial protection of their ancestral rights to their land and resources.

On 31 August 2001, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued a landmark verdict that the Nicaraguan government had violated the rights of the Awas Tingni community. The Court affirmed that the American Convention of Human Rights offers protection of indigenous peoples’ property rights, and denounced the State for granting concessions to their land without consulting the community first.[2]

The Court ordered that the Nicaraguan government demarcate and title the traditional lands of the Awas Tingni community, and furthermore, that they establish the necessary legal procedures for protecting the land rights of all indigenous communities in the country.

In January 2003 the Nicaraguan National Assembly passed a new law allowing for the demarcation of indigenous land. In December 2008, the Awas Tingni community finally received the property title to 73,000 hectares of its traditional territory.

This case was a historic achievement for the protection of indigenous peoples’ human rights, not just in Nicaragua but also elsewhere in the world. A United Nations news release stated, “this was the first case in which an international tribunal with legally binding authority found a Government in violation of the collective land rights of an indigenous group, setting an important precedent in international law.”[3]

Consistent with the outcome of the Awas Tingni case, on 13 September 2007 the United Nations adopted a ‘Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples’, further consolidating the rights of indigenous peoples to their traditionally occupied territories, and the resources therein.[4]

“In a nutshell, the Court held that the American Convention on Human Rights obligates states to recognise and adopt specific measures to protect indigenous peoples’ rights to land and natural resources in accordance with indigenous peoples’ own customary use and occupancy patterns.”[5]

The significance of this precedent and of the titling of their land have not shielded the Mayangna people from the continuing threats of timber companies and illegal squatters on their land. Since the ruling there has been conflict within the Mayangna community relating to the alleged, but later denied, sale of land to a timber company, Mapinicsa,[6] as well as conflict between the Mayangna and squatters and other indigenous groups of the Atlantic zones of Nicaragua.[7]

The area inhabited by the Mayangna includes part of the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve which, apart from being attractive to timber companies, has also suffered regular invasions of squatters, sometimes in organised groups and at other times individually. The beginning of 2010 saw a combined force from the Nicaraguan army and police force join with the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources to remove 80 families who had illegally colonised the Reserve. A further 200 families were to be removed at a later date. Mayangna leaders, however, considered the action to be insufficient to solve the problems caused by illegal squatters and have claimed that they have received death threats from some of the squatters.[8]

Some of the squatters are simply refugees from landlessness elsewhere in the country and are simply trying to find an area suitable for subsistence. Most such cases are victims for a second time around having suffered elsewhere at the hands of other gangsters. Mayangna leader Rolando Lewis, however, said that other settlers destroy the forest under orders from cattle ranchers who want to move into Bosawas.[9] And José Luis Garcia, the National Environmental Ombudsman, believes, alarmingly, that there are more than 30,000 colonists who have taken over 4,000 hectares of the Bosawas Reserve. He said that “In the past, the timber traffickers cut down the trees and took them to sell, but now these people possess large sections of the territory where they cut down the trees, burn them and then plant pasture to sell to the highest bidder.”[10]

This clash of interests in an area such as the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve clearly illustrates the link between conservation and indigenous peoples. It has been widely recognised that the major agents of destruction of the Bosawas ecology have been timber companies and colonisers or squatters. The western model of development has much to learn from indigenous peoples about the conservation of its natural environment.

[1] The people of Awas Tingni prefer to call themselves Mayagna, as opposed to Sumo, a commonly used designation. They regard the latter term as one imposed by outsiders.
[2] International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights http://www.escr-net.org/caselaw/caselaw_show.htm?doc_id=405047 (accessed 31 July 2009).
[3] United Nations News Centre www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=29336&Cr=indigenous+rights&Cr1 (accessed 3 August 2009).
[4] United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, March 2008, United Nations http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/DRIPS_en.pdf (accessed 4 August 2009).
[5] S. James Anaya and Claudio Grossman ‘The Case of Awas Tingni v. Nicaragua: A New Step in the International Law of Indigenous Peoples’, The Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law
[6] Nicaragua Network Hotline (25 August 2009) ‘Government cancels sales of communal lands; YATAMA members protest’, Nicaragua News Service.
Nicaragua Network Hotline (29 September 2009) ‘Awas Tingni leaders clarify land sale accusation’, Nicaragua News Service
[7] Ramón H. Potosme (27 August 2009) ‘Nación sumo mayagna bajo agresión de Yatama’, El Nuevo Diaria, Managua.
[8] Nicaragua News (1 June 2010) ‘Squatters removed from Bosawas Nature Preserve’, Nicaragua News Service. Eira Martens (21 January 2010) ‘Crisis de Bosawas’, Personal communication.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Nicaragua News Bulletin (9 February 2010) ‘Government postpones visit to Bosawas Reserve to evict colonists’, Nicaragua News Service.

ILO Convention No. 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples

Chapter 8 / Indigenous issues and development

This text box is referred to in the book as Box 8.1 (Page 151)

The International Labour Organisation’s Convention No. 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples – normally simply referred to as ILO 169 – was adopted at the International Labour Conference held in Geneva in June 1989. The Convention observed that “in many parts of the world these peoples do not enjoy the fundamental human rights to the same degree as other members of the national societies to which they belong, and recognised their aspiration to exercise control of their own institutions, their own livelihood and their economic development.”[1]

The Convention “applies to tribal peoples in independent countries whose social, cultural and economic conditions distinguish them from other sections of the national community, and whose status is regulated wholly or partially by their own customs or traditions …”[2]

“The basic concepts of the Convention are respect and participation. Respect for the culture, spirituality, social and economic organisation and their identity, all constituting essential premises regarding the enduring nature of indigenous and tribal peoples. … Convention No. 169 also presumes that indigenous and tribal peoples are able to speak for themselves and to take part in the decision-making process as it affects them and that they have a right to take part in this decision-making process, …”[3]

In essence, the Convention recognises:

  • Land and property rights for indigenous peoples
  • Equality and liberty for indigenous peoples
  • Autonomy of indigenous peoples [4]

Only twenty-two nations have ratified the Convention. The following Central American nations have ratified the Convention:

  • Costa Rica ratified 1993
  • Guatemala ratified 1996
  • Honduras ratified 1995
  • Nicaragua ratified 2010
  • Panama pledged to ratify 2011.

[1] International Labour Organisation (ILO) Introduction to ILO Convention No. 169, www.ilo.org/public/english/region/ampro/mdtsanjose/indigenous/derecho.htm (accessed 16.08.09).
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation (UNPO) (2009) ‘ILO Convention 169: 20 Years Later’, The Netherlands. www.unpo.org

2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Chapter 8 / Indigenous issues and development

This text box is referred to in the book as Box 8.2 (Page 152)

In September 2007 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Declaration had been negotiated for over twenty years between nation states and indigenous representatives.

143 nations voted in favour of the Declaration with 11 abstentions and only four nations (Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States) voting against.

Survival International director Stephen Corry said, ‘The declaration on indigenous peoples, with its recognition of collective rights, will raise international standards in the same way as the universal declaration on human rights did nearly 60 years ago. It sets a benchmark by which the treatment of tribal and indigenous peoples can be judged, and we hope it will usher in an era in which abuse of their rights is no longer tolerated.’[1]

The declaration recognises the rights of indigenous peoples to ownership of their land and to live as they wish. It also affirms that they should not be moved from their lands without their free and informed consent.

[1] Survival International is an organisation which supports tribal peoples. It was founded in 1969. www.survival-international.org

The Naso’s Cultural Centre

Chapter 8 / Land disputes and encroachments into indigenous territories in Central America / The Naso of Panamá

Taken from a communiqué from the Alliance for Conservation and Development (ACD), 16 June 2009.

Naso Culture Center, still a dream

The Naso are one of the smallest indigenous groups in Panama, with only an estimated 3,800 individuals, and are considered an endangered group. The Naso Cultural Center project is the result of five years of collaborative work within Alianza para la Conservación y el Desarrollo (ACD) and Alianza Naso Tjerdi. During this work, in 2006, a group of representatives of all Naso communities chose to create the center as an important aim to help preserve their identity. With the project we would like to support the Naso cultural revitalization process that started in recent years, paralleling their political struggle with the government for the recognition of their ancestral lands.

This first part of the Naso cultural center project involves three main elements. The first is the refurbishing of a building in one the community that will host the center. The second is the collection of documentation done about, and/or by the Naso, in order to form a small public library. Finally, the third element consists of workshops and recreational activities to: spread the information collected by the center; to facilitate the gathering of new information; and more importantly, to facilitate the transmission of the Naso Culture into the newer generation. May 10, 2009 were the official date that naso people planned to open culture center with a grand ceremony and start with workshops on traditional music and dance.

The creation of a Naso Cultural Center has as its main objective to help facilitating the transmission of Naso traditional Culture to the newer generations through the recompilation of information and different educational and recreational events.

The Naso are in particularly weaken position to confront recent processes of acculturation and globalization because, unlike other indigenous groups in Panama, they have yet to be granted their Comarca, the Panamanian term for indigenous reservation.

Naso cultural center was destroyed along with more than 30 homes by Ganadera Bocas Company. The difference was that the naso culture center was destroyed on the third day of forced evictions carried out by communities of San San San San and Druy due to this center served as a refuge for the National Police of Panama.

We travel to the site to try to defend it, but when we arrived it had destroyed by heavy machine in front of the community who watched as their dreams and work ends badly.

Valentin Santana, king of Naso People said: “our houses, our school, our church and our new cultural center, which was on the eve of its inauguration, were demolished by heavy machinery of Ganadera Bocas, escorted by the National Police of Panama.

They destroyed our towns, but they have not destroyed our hopes to live in peace. The lands where the Naso live have been ours for centuries, but the state of Panama still does not recognize our rights to them, to our own Naso Tjër-Do Comarca. This is why we are vulnerable and defenseless. We are treated like indigenous invaders, in our own lands.

Since April 15th, Naso People are protesting in Panama City, to get goverment respond to his proposal that includes compensation for all damages including the cultural center. “We will NOT walk away from this Plaza until the Government of Panama legally grants us the rights to the lands where we were born. Only then will we return in peace, knowing that no one will evict or hurt us again on our own territory. We will not accept relocation. We want the land where we were born,” was part of special speech of the Naso King to his people.

ACD invites you to support Naso communities, by writing letters of solidarity, signing the press release (http://www.almanaqueazul.org/comunicado-naso/), making donations, visiting the Naso camp in Plaza Catedral or staying with them a few days in new Naso houses rebuilt in San San and San San Drui, Bocas del Toro.

Shi Nasoga Unkon / We are all Naso.

Selected Central American indigenous organisations

Chapter 8

The following list gives only a small selection of organisations which advocate for indigenous rights in Central America

Indigenous Council of Central America (CICA)

A regional organisation that promotes and defends the rights of indigenous peoples, and generates policies and development strategies to ensure a high standard of living.

Belize

Belize Indigenous Training Institute (BITI)

Amigos de El Pilar (AdEP)

Toledo Maya Cultural Council – works with CORPI & World Council of Indigenous People

National Garifuna Council

 

Costa Rica

Centro para el Desarrollo Indígena (CEDIN)

Mesa Nacional Indígena de Costa Rica (Asociación Tkra Nacional Indígena de Costa Rica)

 

El Salvador

Asociación Comunal Lenca de Guatajiagua (ACOLGUA)

Asociación Coordinadora de Comunidades Indígenas de El Salvador (ACCIES)

Asociación de Desarrollo Comunal Indígena Nahuat (ADESCOIN)

Comisión de Derechos Humanos y Derechos de Pueblos Indígenas de El Salvador (CODEHUINESAL)

Asociación Nacional Indígena de El Salvador (ASNAIS)

 

Guatemala

Asociación Chajulense Va’l Vaq Quyol (Una Sola Voz)

Asociación Comunitaria de Desarrollo Integral Maya Mam (ACODIM)

Asociación de Desarrollo Integral Chiquirichapense (ADICH)

Consejo de Organizaciones Mayas de Guatemala (COMG)

Coordinadora Nacional Indígena Campesina (CONIC)

Organización Negra de Guatemala (ONEGUA)

 

Honduras

Confederación de Pueblos Autóctonos de Honduras (CONPAH)

Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras (COPINH)

La Fundación Hondureña por la Defensa de la Cultura Garífuna (FUHDECGAR)

Organización Nacional Indígena Lencas de Honduras (ONILH)

Unidad de Nativos de la Región Misquita (Mobanat)

Mosquitia Pawisa Agency for the Development of the Honduran Mosquitia (MOPAWI)

 

Nicaragua

Fundación Tuahka

Organización de las Comunidades Indígenas de Nicaragua (KISAN)

Yapti Tasba Masrika Asla Takanka [Organización de las Naciones de la Madre Tierra] (YATAMA)

 

Panama

Comarca Ngöbe-Buglé

Fundación Naso

Organización Social Ngöbe-Buglé para Desarrollo Humano Integral

Sources:
http://ccarconline.org/MetodologiaeInventario.pdf
http://www.redindigena.net/organinteg/organcent.html