IV 

118TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION H. RES. 1278 

Affirming the importance of the survival of Garı ́funa culture and identity, 

condemning the violent and illegal appropriation of Garı ́funa territory, 

urging the Department of State and multilateral development banks 

to respect the rights of the Garı ́funa people, and calling on the Government of Honduras to fully comply with the resolutions of multilateral 

human rights bodies which mandate the return of Garı ́funa land and 

territory, and for other purposes. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

JUNE 5, 2024 

Ms. BUSH (for herself, Mr. BOWMAN, Mr. GARCI ́A of Illinois, Ms. OMAR, and 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY) submitted the following resolution; which was referred 

to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the Committee 

on Financial Services, for a period to be subsequently determined by the 

Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within 

the jurisdiction of the committee concerned 

RESOLUTION 

Affirming the importance of the survival of Garı ́funa culture 

and identity, condemning the violent and illegal appropriation of Garı ́funa territory, urging the Department 

of State and multilateral development banks to respect 

the rights of the Garı ́funa people, and calling on the 

Government of Honduras to fully comply with the resolutions of multilateral human rights bodies which mandate 

the return of Garı ́funa land and territory, and for other 

purposes. 


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•HRES 1278 IH 

Whereas the United States and the Republic of Honduras 

share an important relationship, which includes deep and 

long standing economic, social, and cultural ties; 

Whereas the Afro-Indigenous Garı ́funa people, descendants of 

the Arawak Indigenous people of St. Vincent Island and 

of African castaways destined to be sold into slavery in 

the Americas, are 1 of 9 Indigenous peoples of Honduras; 

Whereas the Afro-Indigenous Garı ́funa territory that has 

stretched along the Caribbean coast of Honduras since 

before the nation was declared independent from Spain 

on September 15, 1821, is the ancestral home of the majority of the world’s Garı ́funa, and as such is essential to 

the cultural survival and well-being of the Garı ́funa people; 

Whereas the Government of Honduras ratified the InterAmerican Convention on Human Rights on September 5, 

1977, and the Constitution of Honduras establishes that 

the human rights treaties to which Honduras is a party 

are considered to hold the same legal effect as the Constitution, and therefore the judgments of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights are binding on the Government of Honduras; 

Whereas the presence of diverse Garı ́funa immigrant communities in the United States has been recorded by oral history and scholarly research since the early 20th century 

and has long contributed to the cultural diversity that 

we, as a Nation, so deeply cherish; 

Whereas, on September 4, 2020, the coordinator of the Black 

Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH) publicly denounced a third wave of violent dispossession 

against the Garı ́funa people and signaled that special deVerDate Sep 11 2014 03:16 Jun 06, 2024 Jkt 049200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR1278.IH HR1278

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•HRES 1278 IH 

velopment zones, the massive production of African palm 

cultivation, and tourism enclaves are drivers of the destruction of Garı ́funa life in Honduras; 

Whereas Garı ́funa communities have been heavily impacted 

by the effects of climate change, manifesting in droughts, 

coastal erosion, and floods during hurricane season that 

have caused irreversible damage to communities, disruption of food availability, and forced migration; 

Whereas, since 2018, there have been more than 150 

Garı ́funa people killed, 37 criminalized, and 5 forcibly 

disappeared for defending their ancestral lands and territories from corrupt economic and political interests, 

which form a part of institutional and systemic racism 

that manifests in police brutality, illegal detentions, harassment by local authorities, and forced displacement; 

Whereas the experience of forced and systematic displacement has emptied communities and put Garı ́funa identity 

and survival as a differentiated ethnic unit in Honduras 

at risk; 

Whereas the Garı ́funa communities along the northern coast 

of Honduras are located in territories disputed by organized crime that, driven by consumer demand in the 

United States, has converted much of these territories 

into drug laboratories and cocaine plantations, and is responsible for multiple threats, disappearances, and murders of Garı ́funa defenders; 

Whereas the Government of Honduras and its judiciary have 

engaged in a pattern of falsely accusing the Indigenous 

people of the north coast of engaging in drug trans-shipment as justification for violating their fundamental 

rights, including the right to life and liberty, and the 


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•HRES 1278 IH 

Honduran military forces have engaged in a pattern of 

deadly use of force against Garı ́funa and other Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean coast with similar justifications; 

Whereas the former President of Honduras, Juan Orlando 

Hernandez, was extradited to the United States on April 

21, 2022, and convicted on March 8, 2024, of Federal 

charges relating to his use of public office, law enforcement, and the military to facilitate major drug-trafficking 

operations along the north coast from 2004 to 2022; 

Whereas testimony given in 2019 during the trial of the 

former Honduran President’s brother, Tony Hernandez, 

also directly implicated then-Security Minister Julian 

Pacheco in drug trafficking carried out along the north 

coast; 

Whereas the United States provided Honduras with millions 

of dollars in security aid throughout the Hernandez Presidency and continues to train Honduran military units on 

the northern coast of Honduras, including at bases such 

as the 15th Battalion and 4th Naval Base that have been 

implicated in serious human rights abuses and corruption 

associated with organized criminal activity; 

Whereas, on June 21, 2012, the Inter-American Development 

Bank (IDB) signed a $60,000,000 loan agreement with 

Hernandez’s Security Minister Julian Pacheco that was 

used to finance the creation of the new Direccio ́n Policial 

de Investigaciones (DPI) of the Honduran National Police, among other Honduran security forces activities; 

Whereas, in September 2013, the Hernandez-aligned legislature passed the Organic Law of the Employment and 

Economic Development Zones (ZEDE), which authorized 


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•HRES 1278 IH 

foreign companies to create quasi-sovereign private governance zones within Honduras and establish their own 

laws, courts, and police force, among other powers; 

Whereas this law declared coastal departments consisting of 

large swaths of Garı ́funa and other Indigenous territory 

as ‘‘low-population zones’’ subject to the imposition of a 

ZEDE without community consultation and consent; 

Whereas, since 2012, Garı ́funa communities have actively resisted the development of the ZEDE ‘‘Prospera’’ and the 

associated areas of ‘‘Port Royal’’ and ‘‘St. John’s Bay’’ 

on the Honduran island of Roatan, which were established without community consent and which threaten the 

local population with the disbanding of ancestral, collective land titles and the displacement of the Garı ́funa people; 

Whereas, on March 18, 2021, the Port of Satuye ́, located in 

the Garı ́funa communities of Sambo Creek and Corozal, 

was incorporated into ZEDE ‘‘Prospera’’; 

Whereas, on April 21, 2022, following months of national 

protest, the newly elected Honduran Congress voted to 

unanimously repeal the ZEDE law but has yet to ratify 

the repeal of a ZEDE-related constitutional provision; 

Whereas ZEDEs remain an existential threat to the Garı ́funa 

people, as the ‘‘Prospera’’ ZEDE on the island of Roatan 

continues to expand and as the Delaware-based company 

Prospera, Inc., pursues an abusive $11,000,000,000 lawsuit against the state of Honduras challenging the repeal 

of the ZEDE law under the Dominican Republic-Central 

America-United States Free Trade Agreement; 

Whereas tourist complex projects such as Indura Beach Resort, Shores Plantations, Marbella, Playa Escondida, and 


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•HRES 1278 IH 

Rosa Negra operate under a modality that resembles the 

ZEDE and displaces the Garı ́funa people; 

Whereas the United States controls 15.49 percent of the 

Board of Directors of the World Bank and 30 percent of 

the Board of Directors of the IDB, and uses its voice to 

exert a significant degree of influence on the decisions of 

these institutions; 

Whereas, on June 12, 2007, in response to a complaint from 

OFRANEH describing the potential and already consummated illegal disenfranchisement of Garı ́funa land 

rights facilitated by World Bank-supported projects, the 

World Bank Inspection Panel found that the safeguards 

provided for the project were not adequate to protect 

Garı ́funa rights to their ethnic lands, while observing that 

the Garı ́funa communities did not have a meaningful option to opt out of the project; 

Whereas, on December 8, 2008, the Board of Directors of 

the International Finance Corporation (IFC) approved a 

$30,000,000 loan to the Dinant Corporation, whose supply chain includes palm oil from plantations in areas 

claimed by Garı ́funa communities, including Punta 

Piedra, despite publicly available information implicating 

the company in violent land disputes, illegal appropriation of Garı ́funa land, and reports of drug trafficking on 

land controlled by the Dinant Corporation; 

Whereas, in May 2011, the IFC’s Board of Directors approved an equity and subordinated debt investment in 

Banco Ficohsa, which acted as a financial intermediary 

of the IFC to provide further financing to the Dinant 

Corporation following international outcry over the involvement of that company’s security forces in violence 

stemming from land rights disputes, and whose supply 


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•HRES 1278 IH 

chain includes palm oil from plantations in areas claimed 

by Garı ́funa communities, including Punta Piedra and 

Triunfo de la Cruz; 

Whereas the United States Overseas Private Investment Corporation, whose holdings have been transferred to the 

United States International Development Finance Corporation, approved on March 17, 2014, the financing of 

the Jaremar palm oil corporation, whose supply chain includes palm oil from plantations in areas claimed by 

Garı ́funa communities, including Triunfo de la Cruz; 

Whereas, in October 2016, in response to a complaint from 

OFRANEH, the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman of the 

IFC initiated a compliance review of a tourism complex 

developed with land and resources from the territory of 

the Garı ́funa communities of Barra Vieja, Tornabe, San 

Juan Tela, and Triunfo de la Cruz, a project that attracted, and continued to seek, investment from corporations in the United States; 

Whereas, on February 1, 2006, the Inter-American Court of 

Human Rights ruled that the rights to personal liberty, 

to a fair trial and to judicial protections, to freedom of 

thought and expression, and to personal integrity of the 

then-president of the Land Defense Committee of the 

Garı ́funa community of Triunfo de la Cruz and vice 

president of OFRANEH had been violated by his arbitrary imprisonment for a period of 6 years and 4 months; 

Whereas, on October 8, 2015, the Inter-American Court of 

Human Rights ruled that the Government of Honduras 

had violated the rights of the communities of Triunfo de 

la Cruz and Punta Piedra, and had failed to investigate 

acts of violence against the communities, ordering the 

restitution of land rights to the communities and the efVerDate Sep 11 2014 03:16 Jun 06, 2024 Jkt 049200 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR1278.IH HR1278

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•HRES 1278 IH 

fective investigation of the violent deaths of 4 community 

members of Triunfo de la Cruz and 1 community member of Punta Piedra; 

Whereas, on November 5, 2019, in a statement to a local 

Honduran publication, OFRANEH condemned the death 

of 16 Garı ́funa people, including 6 women, highlighting 

the murder of Mirna Suazo Martinez, president of the 

board of the Garı ́funa community of Masca, who was 

leading the defense of Masca’s rivers and territory in opposition to the construction of a hydroelectric plant, and 

who had made public statements describing several 

threats against her a few days before her murder; 

Whereas, on July 18, 2020, 4 Garı ́funa men from Triunfo de 

la Cruz, including the president of the Community Development Committee who had led the community’s recent 

efforts to stop the illegal appropriation of Garı ́funa land 

and demanded that the Honduran Government implement the 2015 Inter-American Court of Human Rights 

ruling, were abducted at gunpoint by men wearing uniforms bearing the logo of the DPI National Police unit 

and have not been located since; 

Whereas, on November 11, 2020, the families of the disappeared and the Garı ́funa communities, outraged by the 

lack of investigation into the whereabouts of the victims 

of the July 18, 2020, forced disappearances, created the 

Comite ́ Garı ́funa de Investigacio ́n y Bu ́squeda de los 

Desaparecidos de Triunfo de la Cruz (SUNLA), an independent commission to investigate and bring about the 

prosecution of the crime; 

Whereas, on March 3, 2021, sisters Marianela and Jennifer 

Mejı ́a Solo ́rzano were the first to be arrested as a result 

of criminal proceedings brought by the Public ProsecuVerDate Sep 11 2014 03:16 Jun 06, 2024 Jkt 049200 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR1278.IH HR1278

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•HRES 1278 IH 

tor’s Office against over 30 Garı ́funa rights defenders for 

alleged land theft, despite the land in question belonging 

to the Garı ́funa communities of Cristales and Rı ́o Negro; 

Whereas, in a communique ́, OFRANEH stated that on August 9, 2022, the organization visited the Public Prosecutor’s Office and demanded progress in the investigation 

of the July 18, 2020, forced disappearances from Triunfo 

de la Cruz, but instead of reporting on the investigation 

and prosecution of those responsible for the forced disappearances, the Attorney General’s office, in another 

episode of persecution, harassment, and criminalization, 

instructed the Prosecutor’s Office Against Common 

Crimes and the Technical Agency for Criminal Investigation (ATIC) to initiate criminal proceedings against 

OFRANEH’s General Coordinator Miriam Miranda, 

OFRANEH member Luther Castillo, and OFRANEH 

lawyer Edy Tabora; 

Whereas, on September 19, 2023, an armed group of men 

entered the home of Miriam Miranda in Vallecito, Colon, 

in an ongoing pattern of intimidation that was utilized 

against Berta Ca ́ceres right before her murder; 

Whereas, on February 2, 2024, the Government of Honduras, 

acting through the Honduran Cabinet, decreed the creation of the High-Level Intersectoral Commission for the 

Compliance of the Commitments and Recommendations 

issued by the International Human Rights Protection 

Systems (Commission), with the objective of ensuring the 

rights of Garı ́funa communities to their collective property, judicial protection and guarantees, right to life, and 

all other human rights protections; and 

Whereas, on March 9, 2024, a group of defenders of the 

Triunfo de la Cruz community who carried out a peaceful 


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•HRES 1278 IH 

march to demand compliance with the Inter-American 

Court of Human Rights judgment in favor of their community faced intimidation by third parties who illegally 

occupy Garı ́funa territories: Now, therefore, be it 

1 Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 

2 (1) condemns the violence against Garı ́funa 

3 communities, specifically against Garı ́funa land 

4 rights defenders; 

5 (2) calls for the Comite ́ Garı ́funa de 

6 Investigacio ́n y Bu ́squeda de los Desaparecidos de 

7 Triunfo de la Cruz’s (SUNLA) full participation in 

8 the investigation into the whereabouts of Sneider 

9 Centeno, Milton Joel Martinez, Suami Aparicio, and 

10 Gerardo Trochez, and the prosecution of those re11 sponsible for their disappearance; 

12 (3) calls for the creation of an effective and 

13 independent office for a Special Prosecutor for En14 forced Disappearances in Honduras; 

15 (4) condemns the illegal separation of Garı ́funa 

16 communities from their legitimate land rights; 

17 (5) calls for the swift and full implementation 

18 of the October 8, 2015, ruling of the Inter-American 

19 Court of Human Rights that obliges the Government 

20 of Honduras to restore land rights to the commu21 nities of Triunfo de la Cruz and Punta Piedra, and 


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•HRES 1278 IH 

1 to investigate the murder of 5 members of both com2 munities; 

3 (6) strongly disapproves of the decisions of mul4 tilateral development banks that finance projects 

5 that contribute to the extinction of the legitimate 

6 land rights of Garı ́funa communities and finance se7 curity forces involved in serious human rights viola8 tions; 

9 (7) is concerned that United States bilateral as10 sistance to Honduras may jeopardize or otherwise 

11 contribute to the violation of the fundamental rights 

12 of Garı ́funa communities; 

13 (8) urges the Government of Honduras to— 

14 (A) fully and immediately comply with the 

15 2015 judgment of the Inter-American Court of 

16 Human Rights restoring land rights to the com17 munities of Triunfo de la Cruz and Punta 

18 Piedra and investigating the murders of 5 

19 members of both communities, including by 

20 fully implementing the International Human 

21 Rights Protection Systems (Commission); 

22 (B) grant SUNLA formal status in the in23 vestigation of the forced disappearance of 

24 Sneider Centeno and 3 other Garı ́funa men 

25 from Triunfo de la Cruz; and 


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•HRES 1278 IH 

1 (C) establish a Special Prosecutor for En2 forced Disappearances within the Prosecutor’s 

3 Office; 

4 (9) requests the institutions of the World Bank 

5 Group and the Inter-American Development Bank 

6 to— 

7 (A) immediately suspend funding for any 

8 project that may contribute to violence against 

9 Garı ́funa communities or violations of their 

10 human rights and consult with the affected 

11 communities on possible corrective measures; 

12 (B) identify measures that the institutions 

13 could implement to promote compliance with 

14 the 2015 judgments of the Inter-American 

15 Court of Human Rights, acting on the meas16 ures only after full consultation with and con17 sent of the legitimate authorities of the 

18 Garı ́funa communities; 

19 (C) undertake a comprehensive and inde20 pendent review of the projects that any such in21 stitution has supported over the past 25 years 

22 that have an impact on the land rights of Indig23 enous communities or have otherwise contrib24 uted to human rights violations in Honduras, 

25 and publish a report with their findings; 


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•HRES 1278 IH 

1 (D) carefully review their loan portfolios, 

2 and the structure for on-the-ground implemen3 tation of those projects, in order to identify 

4 funding that may benefit government agencies 

5 implicated in human rights violations, violence, 

6 and dispossession directed against Indigenous 

7 communities in Honduras; and 

8 (E) ensure compliance with the provisions 

9 of the International Labour Organization Con10 vention 169 regarding prior consultation before 

11 the approval of projects that affect the commu12 nities, and the completion of the respective envi13 ronmental impact studies for each project; and 

14 (10) urges the Secretary of State, the Secretary 

15 of the Treasury, and the Administrator of the 

16 United States Agency for International Develop17 ment, in coordination with the heads of other rel18 evant Federal departments and agencies, to— 

19 (A) engage at the highest level with the 

20 Government of Honduras, and maintain close 

21 coordination with international allies and multi22 lateral organizations with influence in Hon23 duras, to promote compliance with the resolu24 tions of the Inter-American Court of Human 

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•HRES 1278 IH 

1 store the rights of the Garı ́funa communities of 

2 Triunfo de la Cruz and Punta Piedra; 

3 (B) alert United States-based companies 

4 and other investors in Honduras to the risks 

5 and potential liabilities associated with invest6 ing in lands whose rights may have been illegit7 imately severed from Indigenous communities; 

8 and 

9 (C) use its vote and voice within multilat10 eral development banks to oppose any loans or 

11 technical assistance projects that may threaten 

12 the rights of Garı ́funa communities, and to ad13 vocate for reparations for communities affected 

14 by multilateral development bank financing that 

15 have contributed to human rights violations, in 

16 accordance with international standards for rep17 arations. 

Æ 


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