Honduras: Coyolar the Other Side of the Global Tracks

October 2nd, 2002

-- By Grahame Russell (*)

In western Honduras, a Lenca descendant community --Las Delicias de
Coyolar-- clings to a steep mountainside, to life, despite
impoverishment, racism, drought and famine. The causes of their
marginalization and suffering are economic, racial and military; global
and national.

Two hours along a twisting, mountainous road from La Esperanza (Dept.
Intibuca), we park in the village of El Rancho and meet Pedro Lorenzo
who rose at 4am, to hike 4 hours to meet us. I am accompanying leaders
of the Civic Counsel of Indigenous and Popular Organizations, Honduras
(COPINH). At 9am, we hike along a narrow, rocky path, the only way in
and out of Coyolar. We are to walk down a 3500 foot high mountain, and
then up 2000 feet on the other side; extraordinary views of valleys,
mountain ridges and dry land.

Along the way, we meet Izabel Manueles carrying a 100-pound bag of corn
on his shoulders. Izabel was paid 15 lempiras (US$1) by an elderly
campesino for this round-trip job. Izabel doesn't have enough money
to
buy his own $10, 100-pound bag of corn. Soon, Izabel like all
able-bodied men-- will leave the community to seek work, wherever he can
find it, to earn enough money to buy 100-pound bags of food to feed his
wife and children.

The bad years come almost all the time now

Pedro Lorenzo is a member of the Community Indigenous Council of Coyolar
that has invited COPINH leaders to meet with people from 10 isolated
villages. Along the path, Pedro keeps a running commentary: In a good
year, the rains come from May until October, and famine is kept at bay,
as we are able to grow enough corn and beans to survive the dry months.
In a bad year, like this year [los anos malos ahora son casi
siempre
the bad years come almost all the time now], the rains come in May, then
stop from June to August, and start again for a bit in September.
Subsistence crops of corn and beans die; rivers and other water sources
dry up. Famine is again inside the door. From time to time, Pedro
points off in the distance to caves that housed their Lenca ancestors,
generations before, a time when there was enough water.

We arrive at the bottom and bathe in the Chocuara River. Water is the
most urgent need of the impoverished millions of the Americas. In a
good year, the poor still lack water for irrigation. In a good year,
the poor subsist for 6 months and survive for 6 more. And yet every
year, good or bad, there is plenty of water for the wealthy sectors and
the export-oriented plantations. Access to water is a question of
power, politics and economic development policy.

The Chocuara River will soon be dry for 6 months or more. Then,
villagers will have to walk not just 4 hours a day, up and down, to
gather water, but 6 hours a day, to a river that runs year round. No
one tests the water in this river, but for now it keeps them alive, even
as their crops die and their stomachs are filled with parasites.

The Gathering

>From the river, we hike up the other side. At 1pm, we arrive, exhausted
but happy. Content villagers receive COPINH; no one has ever visited
their community. This afternoon and tonight, there will be a meeting
about indigenous rights and community development. Men, women and
children have hiked from nearby villages. Musicians arrive, carrying
guitar, bass guitar and accordion. As we rest and mingle, children
stare and smile shyly, wearing worn shoes and thin clothes hanging on by
threads. From our knapsacks, we pull sugar, salt, bread, rice and
coffee to feed visitors and villagers.

The sun is high when the meeting starts. In the small school house,
doubling as a community center for everything, an agenda is read out
(most people gathered here are illiterate), that everyone approves. A
couple of years ago, the villagers brought in the cement, blocks and
roofing for this school on their backs.

At great length, people talk of the problems and challenges of the
community: lack of water, decent housing, health services, education,
jobs, jobs with dignified salaries, means of communication and
transportation, recreation, etc.

The sun sets and darkness outlines the San Marcos de la Sierra Valley.
Candles are lit and more people speak; for most, this is the first time
they have spoken publicly of their sorrows, struggles and aspirations.
It is the first time they have been listened to.

Taxing Life

Three years ago the government began charging a property and home
ownership tax, an astounding effort to steal tiny amounts of money from
impoverished people who have lived and survived on steep slopes with no
support from any government or international development fund or bank,
for generations. Maria Estefonia Vasquez shows me her taxation document
stating she must pay 11 lempiras; her husband Bernardo Garcia has to pay
113 lempiras. Even when villagers are dying of disease and starvation,
some lucky to have a job paying US$1/ day, they have to pay 124 lempiras
(US$9) in tax!

So it is with every villager in Coyolar and the valley, some having to
pay up to $90 dollars per family. It could take a man 3 months to earn
$90, an annual sum of money handed over to a Mayor's office that
marginalizes these communities and threatens jail to they who don't
pay.
The discussion turns to how communities need to unite efforts and not
pay the taxes. This will entail political struggle and possible threats
and repression. But how can they make our lives harder and more
difficult that they are now? , concluded one.

A woman's words: Everyday, my family hikes down two hours to fill
plastic containers with water from a river and hike back up two hours,
just to get through this day to the next. Tomorrow, we will do this
again , and sometimes the river dries up for months on end, and then
; she does not finish her sentence.

COPINH and the Struggle for Development

As the discussion continues about taxes, about joining COPINH in its
struggle for indigenous rights and community controlled development, the
underlying issue that keeps emerging is What kind of development do
we
want and who is to control our development? It is obvious that
Coyolar, and such communities across the Americas, suffer from an almost
complete lack of development. The first question is why? The second
question is what kind of development?

The impoverishment and marginalization that are normal and predictable
in Coyolar, and such communities, are products of an unjust economic and
political order. This is, at once, a local and global issue as the rich
countries and individuals get richer and the poor get poorer.

To join COPINH, the whole community must be in agreement. There is no
COPINH if there is no unity, one village to the next, one municipality
to the next, one department to the next, across the country. COPINH
barely has funds for itself, a volunteer-driven grassroots organization.
It certainly does not have funds to support community projects (health,
education, production, etc). You join COPINH as a community, if you are
ready to organize and struggle for your rights and the rights of all
poor indigenous and campesino people. Other than our unity and the
justness of our struggles for our rights, we have no power, says a
COPINH leader.

Compostura

The meeting is over and the day ends on a musical note. Outside,
shadowed figures linger in the moonlight; music carries across the
valley. Twice a year, the community does a compostura
celebration, at
planting and harvest time, to bless the community and pray for a good
harvest. This year, Coyolar will do a 3rd compostura in view of this
special visit.

The compostura is as old as the Lenca people, a mixture of Indigenous
and Christian rites, with corn taking the central position in the
ceremony. When drought kills the corn, the basis of life and survival,
this has deep material and spiritual meaning.

For the power-holders of the global economic and political order, the
people of Coyolar, and surrounding pueblos, don't count; they are
worth
nothing in the global market. The populations of these communities can
die of impoverishment with little no notice in the offices of the global
power-holders and international news services.

Under the stars

Lying on a cement walkway around the school-house, I look across the
valley, wrapped in a blanket. Sometime near 1:00 am, I am woken by
children playing in the on-going community celebration. I saw a canopy
of a million stars high above a small pueblo of the best kind of
people the earth has ever known, clinging hard to life and community,
against great odds. For generations it has been this way. Perhaps now,
this time, things will change.

At 5:00 am, the sun enters the great valley. Our hosts having
continued the compostura all night, watching over the fire and guests --
bless and offer us sweet coffee. After handshakes and words of thanks,
we walk down the rocky path, towards the river that will soon dry up.

Change, Now!

Coyolar, most of Honduras, and most of the Americas, desperately need
serious political, legal and economic change; people are killed, like
members of COPINH (as has been the case), for hiking into remote
communities and telling people they can fight for a better life. A few
weeks ago, COPINH held an educational gathering and protest in
Tegucigalpa (capital of Honduras) with over 1000 landless campesinos,
demanding their rights to land, water, jobs, education, etc. This time
their protest was not broken up by State police forces using tear gas,
rubber bullets and wooden bats, as has happened many times in the past.
Rather, Honduran President Maduro publicly stated he would meet anywhere
with COPINH to debate the merits of the global development-economic
model, well entrenched in Honduras.

This meeting should be held in Coyolar. The President should hike into
the community with his food, water and bedding. There are many people
who should hike into Coyolar. Across the globe, and particularly in the
rich countries, political and economic leaders, intellectuals and
journalists lament and denounce poverty, and work to keep in place a
global economic-development model that impoverishes over half the
globe's population. These leaders, thinkers and opinion-makers should
hike into Coyolar, and all the Coyolars across the planet. They should
open their ears and hearts, they should enter into real dialogue with
the people of the Coyolars of the world, and then they should bring
about the economic, legal and political changes necessary so that all
people can live in healthy communities, with family and friends, with
access to water, houses, jobs, land, education, health, a park for
the
kids to play in.



(*) Grahame Russell works with Rights Action, which supports
community-development and human rights projects in Mexico, Central
America and Peru. info@rightsaction.org. T: 416-654-2074.
www.rightsaction.org.

RIGHTS ACTION, with offices in Guatemala City, Washington DC and
Toronto, is a multi-faceted development and human rights organization
that raises funds for community rights-based development work in
Southern Mexico, Central America (mainly Guatemala & Honduras) and Peru,
and educates and activates about global development and human
rights
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