By Christopher Clark
LA CEIBA, Honduras, Aug 28 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Six years ago, the Honduran settlement of Vallecito was all but abandoned. Now it is a thriving community for the Garifuna minority and the heartland of their fight against what they see as a concerted effort to drive them from their ancestral lands.
About 100 people inhabit Vallecito, a cluster of mud-brick bungalows grouped around a pair of imposing temples with tall thatched roofs. It now has a school and will soon launch its own community radio station.
Most have moved there in recent years as part of a concerted effort to reclaim Garifuna lands abandoned due to the threat of violence from drug cartels and encroachment by palm oil companies – among them Francisca Arreola.
“People came from Garifuna communities all over Honduras to protect this place,” said the 59-year-old, who moved from a nearby town in 2012.
“This land belonged to our ancestors. We cannot let anyone take it from us,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The Garifuna are descended from African slaves and indigenous groups and have inhabited Vallecito on the Caribbean coast of north east Honduras since the late 18th century.
Their culture combines Caribbean fishing and farming traditions with a mixture of South American and African music, dance and spirituality, and appears on the United Nations’ protected intangible cultural heritage list.
Communal land occupies a paramount role and is passed on via the maternal line.
