by Miriam Miranda, 29 March 2011
Source: HondurasResists
(Translated by Matt Ginsberg-Jaeckle)
Miriam Miranda, intentionally fired at with a tear-gas canister, and then singled out and illegally detained, March 28, 2011, in Triunfo de la Cruz, a Garifuna village, North-coast of HondurasMiriam Miranda writes:
Yesterday I was captured in a selective way by agents of the Ministry of security in the middle of a protest around the Garífuna community Triunfo de la Cruz. In the process of being arrested they shot several tear-gas bombs at me which hit me in the abdomen, causing burns on my stomach, afterward I was assaulted and as the police beat me they cursed with racial insults.
The operation, directed by Sub-Commissioner Víctor Sánchez Bonilla, the one who in the midst of the crowd pointed me out to his subordinates to be the only own captured amongst all the people, demonstrates the strategy by the repressive forces of focus on social movement leaders as military objectives.
It is worth mentioning that upon being captured they took me directly to the Tela jail cell without completing requirements, without medical attention for the burns and the poisoning that I suffered from the tear gas bombs. It wasn't until two and a half hours later that they read me my rights without telling me what they were accusing me of. Later on the Judge on shift informed me that they were accusing me of sedition.
In Honduras the chaos by which the country was subsumed due to the 2009 coup d'etat perpetrated by the judicial and legislative powers and the armed forces, under the instructions of the U.S. right wing and of course the Pentagon, continues.
Despite the plastic smiles of state functionaries and their eagerness to achieve international recognition, the criminalization of social protest has sharpened with the regime of Porfirio Lobo, who with his sinister ways discredits his administration in the eyes of human rights organization.
Thanks to the solidarity and international pressure, pressure from the Garífuna community and of Hondurans conscious of the current crisis, they conceded me "provisional" freedom. The operators of justice of Honduras under pressure saw themselves obliged to carry out their duty.
Nonetheless in the jails of the country are detained countless political prisoners, as is the case of the 18 teachers who in this moment are held by the prison in the capital of the republic.
The intensification of the violence against the popular resistance is part of the methods of security dictated by the Colombian boss Alvaro Uribe, advisor in repression, who a few weeks ago announced a conference in El Salvador about "democratic decurity," to which Mr. Porfirio Lobo and his dolphin Oscar Álvarez punctually agreed. The colombianization of Central America is reaffirmed by the the Mérida Initiative and the militarization that we suffer.
In the midst of the international year of "Afro-descendants," the Garífuna of Honduras are suffering an accelerated expulsion from our territories that we have inhabited for 214 años. At the same time some Afro-rights organizations have allied with the repressor regime and are trying to celebrate the territorial evictions happening as much in Africa as in Latin America through a supposed world summit of Afro-descendants that serves as an instrument and make-up for the violence of the current government and its neo-liberal policies.
Through the Assembly of the Peoples of the Land and Sea, carried out in February of this year in the community Durugubuti Beibe, the indigenous and black peoples of Honduras reaffirm the defense of our territory, the right to autonomy, the respect for the right to consultation and the immediate suspension of the construction of the hydroelectric dams in the Patuca river: a death sentence for the Tawahka people and the country.
Thank you very much once again to international solidarity and the movement of all of us, what happened yesterday demonstrates that prompt actions achieve positive results.
For a free, pluri-cultural, democratic, participatory, anti-militarist, anti-racist and anti-patriarchal Honduras,
NATIONAL CONSTITUTIONAL ASSEMBLY NOW!
La Ceiba, March 29th, 2011
Miriam Miranda
General Coordinator
National Fraternal Black Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH)
