IV 
117TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. RES. 1521 
Affirming the importance of the survival of Garı´funa culture and identity, 
condemning the violent and illegal appropriation of Garı´funa territory 
and calling on the Government of Honduras, the Department of State 
and multilateral development banks to fully comply with the resolutions 
of multilateral human rights bodies which mandate the return of 
Garı´funa land rights, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
DECEMBER 14, 2022 
Ms. BUSH (for herself, Ms. OMAR, Ms. SCHAKOWSKY, Mr. GARCI´A of Illinois, 
and Mr. BOWMAN) 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 appro-
priation of Garı´funa territory and calling on the Govern-
ment of Honduras, the Department of State and multi-
lateral development banks to fully comply with the reso-
lutions of multilateral human rights bodies which man-
date the return of Garı´funa land rights, and for other 
purposes. 
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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 Indians of St. Vincent Island and of African 
castaways destined to be sold into slavery in the Amer-
icas, are one of nine Indigenous peoples of Honduras; 
Whereas the 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 presence of vibrant Garı´funa immigrant commu-
nities in the United States has been recorded by oral his-
tory 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 the Government of Honduras ratified the Inter- 
American 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 Con-
stitution, and therefore the judgments of the Inter-Amer-
ican Court of Human Rights are binding on the Govern-
ment of Honduras; 
Whereas, on May 18, 2001, the United Nations Educational, 
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) issued a 
proclamation declaring the Garı´funa language and cul-
ture a ‘‘Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage 
of Humanity,’’ the first proclamation of its kind in fur-
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therance of the United Nations Convention Concerning 
the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Herit-
age and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and 
on October 17, 2003, the General Conference of 
UNESCO adopted the Convention for the Safeguarding 
of the Intangible Cultural Heritage; 
Whereas, on March 7, 2003, the Inter-American Commission 
on Human Rights determined in its Merit Report that 
the rights to personal liberty, to a fair trial and to judi-
cial 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 the Black Fra-
ternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH) had been 
violated by his arbitrary imprisonment for a period of six 
years and four months, a conclusion confirmed by the 
judgment of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights 
on February 1, 2006; 
Whereas, on June 12, 2007, in response to a complaint from 
OFRANEH describing the potential and already con-
summated 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 op-
tion to opt out of the project; 
Whereas, on December 8, 2008, the Board of Directors of 
the International Finance Corporation (IFC) approved a 
$30 million loan to the Dinant Corporation, whose supply 
chain includes palm oil from plantations in areas claimed 
by Garı´funa communities, including Punta Piedra, de-
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spite publicly available information implicating the com-
pany in violent land disputes, illegal appropriation of 
Garı´funa land, and reports of drug trafficking on land 
controlled by the Dinant Corporation; 
Whereas, on June 28, 2009, President Barack Obama char-
acterized Roberto Micheletti’s assumption of the presi-
dency of Honduras as illegal, the Department of State 
subsequently determined that the events constituted a 
coup d’e´tat, and the Organization of American States 
(OAS) suspended Honduras’ right to participate in the 
multinational treaty body on July 5, 2009, the first time 
Article 21 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter was 
invoked, and did not reinstate Honduras’s status in the 
OAS until June 1, 2011; 
Whereas Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) staff con-
ducted a mission from October 18 to 22, 2010, to ad-
vance planning for a $60 million loan to the Honduran 
Ministry of Security and oversee the implementation of 
ongoing security-related loans, signed a $60 million loan 
agreement on June 21, 2012, with Security Minister Ju-
lian Pacheco, and signed a second loan agreement on 
March 25, 2020; 
Whereas the loans financed, among other Honduran security 
forces activities, the creation of the new Direccio´n 
Policial de Investigaciones (DPI) of the Honduran Na-
tional Police; 
Whereas in January 2011, the then-president of the Legisla-
tive Assembly of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, 
visited Puerto Castilla to announce that the coastal areas 
of Colon would be designated as special development 
zones (ZEDE), describing these areas, which largely con-
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sist of Garı´funa communities and territory, as unpopu-
lated; 
Whereas in May 2011, the IFC’s Board of Directors ap-
proved 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 in-
volvement of that company’s security forces in violence 
stemming from land rights disputes, and whose supply 
chain includes palm oil from plantations in areas claimed 
by Garı´funa communities, including Punta Piedra and 
Triunfo de la Cruz; 
Whereas, on October 18, 2012, the Constitutional Court of 
Honduras annulled a February 12, 2011, constitutional 
amendment adopted by the Honduran legislature that 
would allow the nation to cede governance of areas of the 
national territory to foreign governments or private cor-
porations as ZEDEs; 
Whereas, on December 13, 2012, the International Commis-
sion of Jurists condemned the dismissal of four of the 
five judges of the Constitutional Court of Honduras by 
the nation’s legislature, under the leadership of then- 
President of Congress Juan Orlando Hernandez, explain-
ing that the legislature had no authority to carry out this 
action, which seriously affected judicial independence; 
Whereas the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights 
(IACHR) on November 7, 2012, issued Merits Report 
76/12 regarding the Garı´funa community of Triunfo de 
la Cruz, and on May 21, 2013, issued Merits Report 30/ 
13 regarding the Garı´funa community of Punta Piedra, 
reports in which the IACHR found that the rights of 
both communities and their members had been violated, 
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including the rights to property and judicial protection, 
and that the government had failed to investigate and 
prosecute the violence against the communities and their 
members; 
Whereas the U.S. 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 in-
cludes palm oil from plantations in areas claimed by 
Garı´funa communities, including Triunfo de la Cruz; 
Whereas, on October 8, 2015, the Inter-American Court of 
Human Rights ruled on the complaints filed by the com-
munities of Triunfo de la Cruz and Punta Piedra that, 
despite the titles granted by the Government of Hon-
duras to the Garı´funa communities of Triunfo de la Cruz 
and Punta Piedra, the Government of Honduras had vio-
lated the rights of these communities, including the right 
to consultation, the right to property, the obligation of 
non-discrimination and the right to a fair trial and judi-
cial protection, and had failed to investigate acts of vio-
lence against the community, including four violent 
deaths in the case of Triunfo de la Cruz and one death 
in the case of Punta Piedra, ordering the restitution of 
land rights to Triunfo de la Cruz and Punta Piedra and 
the effective investigation of the murder of community 
members of Triunfo de la Cruz and Punta Piedra; 
Whereas Garı´funa territory along the northern coast of Hon-
duras is located within one of the principal transit cor-
ridors for illegal narcotics traveling through Honduras to 
meet consumer demand in the United States, as de-
scribed by the Department of State’s Bureau of Inter-
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national Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs in its 
2015 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 
which stated, ‘‘Eighty to ninety percent of cocaine that 
transits through Honduras arrives via maritime ship-
ment. In 2014, the U.S. government estimated that sixty 
percent of cocaine smuggling flights that departed from 
South America first landed in Honduras – a decline from 
75 percent of such flights in 2013. The Caribbean coastal 
region of Honduras remained the primary landing zone 
for drug-carrying flights and illicit maritime traffic. The 
region is vulnerable to narcotics trafficking due to its re-
moteness, limited infrastructure, lack of government 
presence, and weak law enforcement institutions.’’; 
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-ship-
ment as justification for violating their fundamental 
rights, including the right to life and liberty, and the 
Honduran military forces have engaged in a pattern of 
deadly use of force against Garı´funa and other Indige-
nous peoples of the Caribbean Coast with similar jus-
tifications; 
Whereas, on March 30, 2016, the brother of then-President 
of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernandez and on May 16, 
2016, the son of his predecessor Porfirio Lobo Sosa, were 
convicted by Federal courts in the Southern District of 
New York of drug trafficking-related charges stemming 
from actions they carried out on the North Coast of Hon-
duras, and in the course of these and other trials, testi-
mony was given implicating then-Security Minister Julian 
Pacheco and then-President Hernandez in direct involve-
ment in drug trafficking; 
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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 at-
tracted, and continued to seek, investment from corpora-
tions in the United States; 
Whereas, on November 5, 2019, in a statement to a local 
Honduran publication, OFRANEH condemned the death 
of 16 Garı´funa, including six 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, four Garı´funa men from Triunfo 
de la Cruz, including the President of the Community 
Development Committee who had led the community’s re-
cent efforts to stop the illegal appropriation of Garı´funa 
land and demand that the Honduran Government imple-
ment the 2015 Inter-American Court ruling, were ab-
ducted at gunpoint by men wearing uniforms bearing the 
logo of the DPI National Police unit and have not been 
located since, an action that the Working Group on En-
forced Disappearances of the Office of the United Na-
tions High Commissioner for Human Rights qualified on 
July 20, 2020, as an enforced disappearance; 
Whereas, on November 11, 2020, the families of the dis-
appeared and the Garı´funa communities, outraged by the 
lack of investigation into the whereabouts of the victims 
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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 inde-
pendent commission to investigate and bring about the 
prosecution of the crime; 
Whereas the United States military conducts training of 
Honduran military units on the northern coast of Hon-
duras, 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 or-
ganized criminal activity; 
Whereas the United States controls 15.72 percent of the 
Board of Directors of the World Bank and 30 percent of 
the Board of Directors of the Inter-American Develop-
ment Bank (IDB), and uses its voice to exert a signifi-
cant degree of influence on the decisions of these institu-
tions; 
Whereas, on March 3, 2021, sisters Marianela and Jennifer 
Mejı´a Solo´rzano were arrested along with 30 other 
Garı´funa rights defenders who are facing criminal pro-
ceedings arising from two sets of charges filed by the 
Public Prosecutor’s Office for allegedly committing the 
crimes of damages, threats, theft and usurpation in their 
lands owned by the Garı´funa communities of Cristales 
and Rı´o Negro; 
Whereas, on July 27, 2021, the Office of the United Nations 
High Commissioner for Human Rights in Honduras and 
the IACHR called on the Government of Honduras ‘‘to 
adopt measures to prevent the criminalization of 
Garı´funa human rights defenders, particularly those who 
defend land, territory, and natural resources’’ and to 
‘‘guarantee a hostility-free environment for those defend-
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ing human rights and to increase measures to respect 
and protect the rights of the Garı´funa people over their 
lands, territories, and natural resources,’’ citing the need 
to protect the communities from potential violations al-
leged in petitions pending rulings from the Inter-Amer-
ican Court of Human Rights; 
Whereas, on November 28, 2021, Xiomara Castro was elected 
President of Honduras in a historic election and sworn 
in as the first woman President of Honduras on January 
27, 2022, and as part of her platform she proposed re-
spect for the land rights, language and culture of Indige-
nous peoples, including the promotion and restoration of 
land titles of Indigenous communities and the promotion 
of public policies to stop invasions of Indigenous lands; 
and 
Whereas in a recent communique´, OFRANEH stated that on 
August 9, 2022, the organization was visited by the Pub-
lic Prosecutor’s Office and demanded progress in the in-
vestigation 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 criminal-
ization, instructed the Prosecutor’s Office Against Com-
mon Crimes and the Technical Agency for Criminal In-
vestigation (ATIC) to initiate criminal proceedings 
against OFRANEH’s General Coordinator Miriam Mi-
randa, 
OFRANEH 
member 
Luther 
Castillo, 
and 
OFRANEH lawyer Edy Tabora: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
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(1) condemns the violence against Garı´funa 
communities that is directed especially against land 
rights defenders and Indigenous authorities; 
(2) 
calls 
for 
the 
Comite´
Garı´funa 
de 
Investigacio´n y Bu´squeda de los Desaparecidos de 
Triunfo de la Cruz’s (SUNLA) full participation in 
the investigation into the whereabouts of Sneider 
Centeno, Milton Joel Martinez, Suami Aparicio, and 
Gerardo Trochez, and the prosecution of those re-
sponsible for their disappearance; 
(3) calls for the creation of an effective and 
independent office for a Special Prosecutor for En-
forced Disappearances in Honduras; 
(4) condemns the illegal separation of Garı´funa 
communities from their legitimate land rights; 
(5) calls for the swift and full implementation 
of the October 8, 2015, ruling of the Inter-American 
Court of Human Rights that obliges the Government 
of Honduras to restore land rights to the commu-
nities of Triunfo de la Cruz and Punta Piedra, and 
to investigate the murder of five members of both 
communities; 
(6) strongly disapproves of the decisions of mul-
tilateral development banks that finance projects 
that contribute to the extinction of the legitimate 
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land rights of Garı´funa communities and finance se-
curity forces involved in serious human rights viola-
tions; 
(7) is concerned that United States bilateral as-
sistance to Honduras may jeopardize or otherwise 
contribute to the violation of the fundamental rights 
of Garı´funa communities; 
(8) urges the Government of Honduras to— 
(A) fully and immediately comply with the 
2015 judgment of the Inter-American Court of 
Human Rights restoring land rights to the com-
munities of Triunfo de la Cruz and Punta 
Piedra and investigating the murders of five 
members of both communities; 
(B) grant SUNLA formal status in the in-
vestigation of the forced disappearance of 
Sneider Centeno and three other Garı´funa men 
from Triunfo de la Cruz; and 
(C) establish a Special Prosecutor for En-
forced Disappearances within the Prosecutor’s 
Office; 
(9) requests the institutions of the World Bank 
Group to— 
(A) immediately suspend funding for any 
project that may contribute to violence against 
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Garı´funa communities or violations of their 
human rights and consult with the affected 
communities on possible corrective measures; 
(B) identify measures that the institutions 
could implement to promote compliance with 
the 2015 judgments of the Inter-American 
Court of Human Rights ordering Honduras to 
restore land rights to the communities of 
Triunfo de la Cruz and Punta Piedra and to in-
vestigate violence against those communities, 
acting on the measures only after full consulta-
tion with and consent of the legitimate authori-
ties of the Garı´funa communities; 
(C) undertake a comprehensive and inde-
pendent review of the projects that any such in-
stitution has supported over the past 25 years 
that have an impact on the land rights of Indig-
enous communities in Honduras, and publish a 
report with their findings; 
(D) carefully review their loan portfolios, 
and the structure for on-the-ground implemen-
tation of those projects, in order to identify 
funding that may benefit agencies implicated in 
human rights violations and violence directed 
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against Indigenous communities in Honduras; 
and 
(E) demand that the executors of the 
projects financed from any loan made by any 
such institution comply with the process of free, 
prior, and informed consultation with the com-
munities, as established in International Labour 
Organization (ILO) Convention 169; 
(10) calls on the Inter-American Development 
Bank to— 
(A) undertake a thorough, independent, 
and public review of the projects it has sup-
ported over the past 15 years that directly or 
indirectly benefit security agencies in Honduras 
and other projects that may potentially be im-
plicated in human rights violations; 
(B) carefully review its loan portfolio, and 
the structure for on-the-ground implementation 
of those projects, in order to identify funding 
that may benefit government agencies or other 
actors that contribute to or benefit from the 
dispossession of Indigenous communities in 
Honduras; 
(C) increase the review of projects prior to 
financing to identify projects that could result 
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in the violation of human rights agreements to 
which Honduras is a signatory and refrain from 
financing the projects; and 
(D) ensure compliance with the provisions 
of ILO Convention 169 regarding prior con-
sultation before the approval of projects that af-
fect the communities, and the completion of the 
respective environmental impact studies for 
each project; and 
(11) urges the Secretary of State, the Secretary 
of the Treasury, and the Administrator of the 
United States Agency for International Develop-
ment, in coordination with the heads of other rel-
evant Federal departments and agencies, to— 
(A) engage at the highest level with the 
Government of Honduras, and maintain close 
coordination with international allies and multi-
lateral organizations with influence in Hon-
duras, to promote compliance with the resolu-
tions of the Inter-American Court of Human 
Rights, in particular the 2015 judgments to re-
store the rights of the Garı´funa communities of 
Triunfo de la Cruz and Punta Piedra; 
(B) alert United States-based companies 
and other investors in Honduras to the risks 
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and potential liabilities associated with invest-
ing in lands whose rights may have been illegit-
imately severed from Indigenous communities; 
and 
(C) use its vote and voice within multilat-
eral development banks to oppose any loans or 
technical assistance projects that may threaten 
the rights of Garı´funa communities, and to ad-
vocate for reparations for communities affected 
by multilateral development bank financing that 
have contributed to human rights violations, in 
accordance with international standards for rep-
arations. 
Æ 
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