COPINH
The Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH)
A grassroots Lenca Indigenous organization in Honduras, comprised of thousands of Indigenous communities who struggle for a world that centers people and planet. COPINH was pivotal in resuscitating Lenca culture after hundreds of years of colonialism, violent attempts to force assimilation after independence, US-backed dictatorships and neoliberal policies that threatened to annihilate it. Berta Cáceres, one of the co-founders of COPINH, said, “Wake up! Wake up humanity! There's no more time. We must shake our conscience free of the rapacious capitalism, racism, and patriarchy that will only assure our own self-destruction.”
Berta Zúniga Cáceres
General Coordinator of COPINH
“I want a country where what the people say...think, and decide would be heard. A country where we’re not afraid to go out and protest. Where we don’t fear that someone would threaten, criminalize or kill us. A country where we can decide about the project of building this country. Where Indigenous peoples aren’t denied. Where women aren’t beaten, threatened, abused. Where we can dream and build our dreams for good. That’s what we would need to say this is a free country.”
Bertha Zúniga Cáceres is the general coordinator of COPINH. Bertha was born to what she’s described as “a people of great dignity and strength.” She also was born into struggle. She was just a toddler when her mother, Berta Cáceres, co-founded COPINH.
Growing up, with her siblings, Bertha went to marches and protests – she learned young how to best avoid breathing in tear gas – read about racism, and spent time in the Indigenous communities where her Mom was organizing. The experience forever shaped her. As she put it, “To make the ancestral struggles of the communities yours, is to assume a way of seeing and being in the world.” She learned early that in Honduras speaking truth to power is a dangerous act. Weeks after Bertha assumed leadership of COPINH, she along with two comrades, was attacked with rocks and machetes and their vehicle was nearly pushed off a cliff.
Like her mother, Bertha will not be silenced. As she wrote in a column published, in Spain’s El País, “If I could tell my mother anything now, it would be ‘don’t worry: your fight lives on in me, in my sisters and brother, and in our community.’”
———————————————————————-
OFRANEH
ofraneh.org
The Fraternal Black Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH)
A leading and visionary voice representing the Garífuna community on Honduras’s north coast. OFRANEH works to preserve Garífuna culture, Indigenous autonomy and traditional knowledge. “Our liberation starts because we can plant what we eat. This is food sovereignty,” said Miriam Miranda. OFRANEH has galvanized a movement of Black Indigenous Garífuna people to defend their resource rich territories against land theft from multinational corporations, the state and the oligarchy.
Miriam Miranda
General Coordinator of OFRANEH
“We want to generate life. We want to produce. We want to have things for the future generations. We want to fight so the young people don’t leave. We must build another Honduras.”
Miriam has spent her life defending the culture, the environment, and land rights of the Garífuna people. While studying in the university, Miriam began working with women in the economically marginalized neighborhoods on the outskirts of the capital, Tegucigalpa. She listened to their stories and talked to them about their rights. “That’s where my feminist consciousness was born,” Miriam explains. In 1978, the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH) was founded. Miriam has led OFRANEH in key organizing battles to reclaim their land. “In December of 2015 the Interamerican Court of Human Rights handed down two judgments in favor of Garifuna communities, finding that the Honduran government had violated collective ownership rights, and failed to provide judicial protection and adequate consultation. ‘It’s not only a victory for the Garifuna people,’ Miriam states. ‘I think it is a significant contribution of the Garifuna people and OFRANEH to the rights of Indigenous peoples throughout the world.” Despite continuous threats to her life, surviving a kidnapping (prevented by her ancestors according to Miriam), being arbitrarily detained and painted as a criminal by the mainstream media, Miriam presses on in her work and continues to be a source of inspiration for the 100,000 Garífuna people living in Honduras.
“We cannot accept nor perpetuate this supposed development which does not take into account or respect nature and the earth’s natural resources…We should and must have the obligation to leave water, air, food and secure the safety for our sons and daughters and other living things.”
———————————————————————-
Wet'suwet'en
The Wet'suwet'en Hereditary Chiefs represent a governance system that predates colonization and the Canadian Indian Act which was created in an attempt to outlaw Indigenous peoples from their lands.
The Wet'suwet'en have continued to exercise their unbroken, unextinguished, and unceded right to govern and occupy their lands by continuing and empowering the clan-based governance system to this day. Under Wet'suwet'en law, clans have a responsibility and right to control access to their territories and protect them.
Unist'ot'en
unistoten.camp
The Unist’ot’en (C’ihlts’ehkhyu / Big Frog Clan) are the original Wet’suwet’en Yintah Wewat Zenli distinct to the lands of the Wet’suwet’en. Over time in Wet’suwet’en History, the other clans developed and were included throughout Wet’suwet’en Territories. The Unist’ot’en are known as the toughest of the Wet’suwet’en as their territories were not only abundant, but the terrain was known to be very treacherous. The Unist’ot’en recent history includes taking action to protect their lands from Lions Gate Metals at their Tacetsohlhen Bin Yintah, and building a cabin and resistance camp at Talbits Kwah at Gosnell Creek and Wedzin Kwah (Morice River which is a tributary to the Skeena and Bulkley River) from seven proposed pipelines from Tar Sands Gigaproject and LNG from the Horn River Basin Fracturing Projects in the Peace River Region.
Gidimt'en
yintahaccess.com
The Gidimt'en is one of five clans of the Wet’suwet’en Nation. The creation of the Gidimt'en Camp was announced in the Wet’suwet’en feast hall, with the support of all chiefs present.
The Gidimt’en Yintah Access Checkpoint is controlling access to Cas Yikh House territory within the larger Gidimt’en clan territory at 44.5 km on the Morice River FSR. The collective House Chiefs made the decision to support Gidimt’en Yintah Access December 14th, 2018. The five clans ratified the decision in a bahlats (feast) in Witset on December 16th, 2018.
On Friday, December 21st, a judge granted Coastal Gas Link an extension to their injunction against individuals at the Unist’ot’en Camp, applying it to all resistance camps South of Houston.
In response to CGL’s injunction, the Gidimt'en Yintah Access Checkpoint was established on the road leading to the Unist’ot’en Camp.
———————————————————————-
L'eau Est La Vie
L’eau Est La Vie Camp was founded as a floating pipeline resistance camp. Although they have no leaders, they value the voices of their indigenous, black, femme, and two spirit organizers. Through a population education campaign and over 100 plus direct actions, they fought in the bayous of Louisiana, Chata Houma Chitimacha Atakapa territory, to stop the Bayou Bridge Pipeline (BBP), an Energy Transfer Partners project and the tail end of the Dakota Access Pipeline. BBP resistance is a continuation of our fight in Standing Rock, and furthermore a continuation of the centuries old fight to protect sacred stolen territory. Today the camp continues to be a place of active resistance against corporate water polluters, as well as a source of regenerative agriculture, disaster mutual aid efforts, Indigenous cultural and knowledge sharing.
———————————————————————-
Rise Saint James
Rise Saint James is a community group that fights for community, children, and health. Taking inspiration from her late father, who was a local NAACP leader, Sharon Lavigne founded the group. It’s located in the Saint James Parish community, a predominantly black community in the middle of what is now known as Death Alley (formerly Cancer Alley). It was founded with the goal of stopping two new chemical plants, Wanhua and Formosa, from coming in and further poisoning their community. A subsidiary of the Tawinese based Formosa Petrochemical Corp.--one of the largest chemical companies in the world--wants to build a $9.4 billion petrochemical complex in Saint James to make products like car casings, plastic bottles, grocery bags, drainage pipes and antifreeze, among other things.