Honduran Garifuna Leader Snider Centeno Kidnapped

[Judi Lynn]

President of the elected community council of Triunfo De la Cruz, Snider Centeno. | Photo: Twitter - @ofraneh

Published 18 July 2020 (5 hours 57 minutes ago)

The Garifuna community of Triunfo de la Cruz have issued an alert over the kidnapping of the President of the elected council, Snider Centeno, and two others, by armed men who entered their home early morning Saturday.

According to the Organización Fraternal Negra de Honduras or Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras, Ofraneh, Sneider Centeno was kidnapped along with Milton Martinez and Suany Alvarez, the three of whom are defenders belonging to the community’s Land Committee. Their whereabouts are unknown.

The kidnappings occurred Saturday, during early hours when heavily armed men arrived, entering their homes and taking them, as witnessed by their families.

What transpired is the latest attack against the Garifuna community and their struggle to protect their ancestral lands and the rights of Afro-Indigenous and Indigenous people amid encroachment by extractivist companies and lack of protection from the Honduran state under the government of U.S. ally Juan Orlando Hernandez.

More:
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/honduran-garifuna-leader-snider-centeno-kidnapped-20200718-0007.html



Juan Orlando Hernandez and his US friend.

[Eugene]

1. Fears growing for five indigenous Garifuna men abducted in Honduras

Source: The Guardian

Fears growing for five indigenous Garifuna men abducted in Honduras

The Triunfo de la Cruz region has been embroiled in a struggle to save their ancestral land from developers and drug traffickers

Nina Lakhani
Published on Thu 23 Jul 2020 11.30 BST

Fears are growing for the safety of five black indigenous men in Honduras who were abducted from their homes last weekend by heavily armed gunmen in police uniforms.

The victims are Garifuna fishermen from the town Triunfo de la Cruz on the north coast – a region where communities are embroiled in a longstanding struggle to save their ancestral land from drug traffickers, palm oil magnates and tourism developers aided by corrupt officials and institutions.

The Garifunas are descendants of an Afro-indigenous population from the Caribbean island of St Vincent, who were transported from their home by the British and abandoned on the Honduran coast in the late 18th century.

In Honduras, they and other indigenous communities have suffered decades of violent land grabs, which have been carried out with almost total impunity.

According to witnesses, armed men wearing balaclavas arrived in Triunfo de la Cruz around 5am on Sunday in three 4 x 4 vehicles. The perpetrators went house to house, and forced the five men into the vehicles at gunpoint, before speeding away – despite a supposed coronavirus curfew.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jul/23/garifuna-honduras-abducted-men-land-rights

[Judi Lynn]

2. Sad, awful news. All poor people don't fare well in the Americas, history has shown. Thanks. n/t