Background context
Since before the U.S. and Canada-backed 2009 military coup that ousted the elected government of Honduras, and increasing during the next 12+ years of a military-backed, narco-trafficking regime, Afro-Indigenous Garifuna communities have denounced and resisted the impacts of Canadian tourist investors in Trujillo Bay, Honduras. Impacts include land and territory dispossession, disregard for Garifuna ancestral land and communal rights, violence, criminalization, and defamation, all fueled by racism and unjust structural privileges enjoyed by foreign investors.
As these land conflicts in Trujillo intensify and Canadian investors use their power to impose their investments in Trujillo, Garifuna communities - led by the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH) - denounce the effects of these investment projects on their culture, peoples, and lands, and propose alternatives.
The tour
This tour is an opportunity for OFRANEH to speak directly to Canadians on these issues. The OFRANEH speakers will be accompanied by Karen Spring, who will also speak based on more than 15 years of living and working in Honduras.
Throughout the almost 40 years of its existence, OFRANEH is a federation representing over 46 Garifuna communities across the north coast of Honduras. The organization places a strong focus on protecting the cultural integrity, survival, and the ancestral land rights of the Garifuna people. OFRANEH participates in national and global solidarity movements and spaces and is one of the leading Indigenous organizations in Honduras.
- Who: Representatives of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH) and Karen Spring (HSN)
- Cities: The tour will begin in Toronto and surrounding cities (Guelph, Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Elmvale/Barrie, ??); east to Peterborough, Kingston and surrounding areas; then to the Ottawa region; then to the Montreal area. (Pending interest, we are willing to explore travel to eastern or western Canada.)
- Sponsors: Honduras Solidarity Network (HSN), Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) Social Justice Fund, Rights Action
Confirming the tour, pending interest
If you are interested in hosting a public presentation, helping to fundraise or otherwise support the tour, contact Karen Spring ([email protected]) as soon as possible. Depending on interest and acquiring the necessary visas for the OFRANEH representatives, the tour will be confirmed no later than January 15, 2026.
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Rights Action is please to support this tour. Since 1998, Rights Action has funded and supported the work and struggles of OFRANEH. From 2008-2013, Karen Spring worked with Rights Action, before joining the Honduras Solidarity Network. We continue to work closely with Karen and the HSN.
Recent posts
- Canadian tourists blaming Garifuna people (Honduras) working and struggling to not lose lands and communities to relentless onslaught of tourism industry. By Karen Spring, Honduras Solidarity Network, Oct.16, 2025, https://mailchi.mp/rightsaction/canadian-tourists-blaming-garifuna-people-in-honduras
- U.S. and Canadian tourism investors at center of land conflicts and criminalizations of Indigenous Garifuna people in Honduras. By Karen Spring, Honduras Solidarity Network, Aug. 26, 2025, https://mailchi.mp/rightsaction/us-canadian-tourism-investors-at-center-of-land-conflicts-and-criminalizations-in-honduras
- Canadian and U.S. tourism in Honduras, cases of child pornography and sex crimes, past and present: “A network of child sexual exploitation, human trafficking and other crimes”. By Grahame Russell, March 27, 2025, https://mailchi.mp/rightsaction/child-pornography-sex-tourism-in-honduras
Tourism and ethnocide
With the risk of over-simplification, the greatest current threat to the Garifuna people – their way of life, lands, culture, and existence as a unique, Indigenous people - is the global tourism industry writ large (gated communities, cruise ship docking areas, five-star exclusive resorts, timeshare condos, etc.) trying to operate all along the north Caribbean coast of Honduras, wresting control of Garifuna lands step by step, sketchy or outright corrupted property sale by property sale.
Work of OFRANEH & Garifuna people
https://mailchi.mp/rightsaction/ofraneh-garifuna-people-against-ethnocidal-violence-land-theft
In Rights Action’s OFRANEH-Garifuna land & rights defense archive, find significant posts going back some 20 years.
OFRANEH
@ofraneh / [email protected] / www.ofraneh.org / http://www.ofraneh.wordpress.com
