HONDURAS: Fear and Loathing Among the Tawanka Indians

By Thelma Mejía Reprint | | Print |

Thelma Mejia

TEGUCIGALPA, Jan 14 1997 (IPS) - On Dec. 30, hired gunmen invaded a meeting of the Tawanka Indians in the town of Mosquitia and attempted to frighten them into revealing the location of members of their Council of Elders.

Since then, “we have lived under constant danger, and we see that they want to exterminate us”, said Edgardo Benitez, of the Indigenous Federation of the Tawanka People of Honduras (FITH).

He believes that big landowners and elements of the military are behind what amounts to a threat to the culture and civilisation of the Tawankas involving the expropriation of their land.

“The easiest way is to begin with the elimination of the Council of Elders, our historical memory, which in contrast to other ethnic groups, we have preserved from generation to generation, because they are our Bible and our existence”, he added.

To protect their leaders, the Tawankas transferred them from one village to another. A naturally peaceful group, the Tawankas are devoted to the protection of the forest as their natural hospital. They live in northeastern Honduras.

Together with a group of young Tawanka leaders, Benitez visited Tegucigalpa recently to denounce harassment, warning that the Indians will not easily be defeated.

They have written to the president of Honduras, Carlos Reina reminding him of his commitment to protect them, guarantee their rights and honour the International Convention on Tribal Peoples of the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Honduras signed that convention, but the Tawankas — the smallest ethnic group in Honduras with a population of only 916 — argue that in their case the promises “have gone with the wind”.

There are seven indigenous groups in Honduras involving some 500,000 people based in the central, south and northwestern parts of the country.

In their letter to Reina, the Indians warned that although they are a peaceful and nature-loving people, they will not “give into pressure, and there will be bloodshed between the people and the hired gunmen”.

The Tawankas occupy an area of 233 hectares in the centre of the Mosquitia — the area with Honduras’ largest tree cover — and are struggling to have the zone declared an indigenous preserve, as it is one of the main biological corridors in Central America.

However, because of the beauty of its forests, the valuable wood, and the pastures for agriculture, about two years ago the area began to attract the attention of landowning groups, cattle raisers and the military.

Jacinto Sanchez of the Council of Elders told IPS that loss of the property could mean the end of the Tawankas as an ethnic group.

“I am an old man and I have been living among the beauty of the rivers inside the preserve, but I have seen how they cut down our trees and destroy the medicinal plants; they want to isolate us from the world when they destroy the pitpantes (rafts) that we use to communicate with each other”, he said.

Of the 125 areas of natural preserves that exist today in Honduras, the one inhabited by the Tawankas is the only one that has its own vigilantes.

“We are a peaceful people, and the forest is our natural best friend”, said the elder.