INDIGENOUS-HONDURAS: Tired of Empty Promises

By Thelma Mejía Reprint | | Print |

Thelma Mejia

TEGUCIGALPA, Apr 18 1996 (IPS) - Determined to declare a hunger strike, some 400 members of the Lenca and Chorti ethnic groups from western Honduras marched into the capital, tired of waiting for the government to fulfill its promises.

With their knapsacks hung over their shoulders and practicing spiritual rites, the indigenous people arrived this week in Tegucigalpa, taking the government – already pressed by social demands from other sectors – by surprise.

In “the five peaceful pilgrimages that we have made, promises have abounded but actions have been scarce – and we are now tired,” Salvador Zuñiga, a Lenca leader of the Committee of Popular and Indigenous Organisations of the West, said on Thursday.

“We came here not to ask the government for a favour, but to demand that it comply with the pact of honour it signed with us. If that isn’t possible, we will begin our first hunger strike here,” he warned.

Zuñiga is posted in the street along with his companions, outside of the entryway to the seat of government, where President Carlos Roberto Reina is holding talks with union leaders, seeking to head off threats of strikes over demands for wage rises.

In the past two weeks, the demands from health and public employees, backed by the country’s union federations, have held the government in check, with the possibility of a wave of general strikes in this Central American nation.

And the indigenous pilgrimage has now opened a new battlefront for the Reina adminstration.

Lucio Izaguirre, the president’s private secretary, said Thursday that the march of the Lencas and Chortis is “unfair, because the government is fulfilling its promises.” He called on the marchers to return to their mountain homes, and wait for the promises to be complied with.

But it is that waiting that is disturbing the indigenous people. They protest that a new wave of starvation will break out, similar to one that occurred four years ago, if they are not given grains to plant and food.

Honduras, which has a total population of five million, is home to 500,000 indigenous people. The 100,000 Lencas make up the country’s largest ethnic group.

The promises that the indigenous protesters say have been left unfulfilled are the construction of roads, health and educational facilities, and housing, the furnishing of teachers and medicines, agricultural credit and a fleet of vehicles for transportation.

Zuñiga said the poor climate in late 1995 ruined nearly all of their crops, consisting of corn, beans and potatos, the basic elements of the indigenous peoples’ diet.

And the groups suffer poor health conditions, with cholera, malaria and the “Chagas” disease lurking “just below the surface,” waiting to break out and kill them, the Lenca leader said.

As an example, the indigenous protesters pointed out that the mother of one of their chiefs died of cholera, because they reached the nearest health centre too late.

The Lencas and Chortis, who live in inhospitable regions in western Honduras, are demanding land and better health and educational conditions, and improved physical infrastructure and food.

In the case of the Chortis, an ethnic group that descended directly from the Mayas, the biggest problem is the question of land ownership. Large landholders are stripping them of their land, arguing the need to promote tourism and investment.

That is occurring in spite of the fact that the Honduran government ratified Convention 169 of the International Labour Organisation, which guarantees indigenous peoples’ right to land.

The legal system has failed to deal with the illegal aspects of the situation, despite the demands of indigenous and human rights groups. The question is key to the survival of the Chorti ethnic group, which currently consists of 10,000 members.

Representatives of the Advising Council of the Autochthonous Ethnic groups of Honduras told IPS that the problem of the Chortis could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and exhausts the patience of indigenous peoples.

Two years ago, when they made their first pilgrimage for life and peace, indigenous problems caught public attention, and the groups’ efforts to defend their rights gained strength.