Land Rights in La Montaña Verde
"But with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth." --Isaiah 11:4a
The Lenca Indians of Montaña Verde, a large area of mountainous land straddling several districts in the southeastern part of the country, have a moral and legal right to their ancestral lands. Much of the land is still untouched cloud forests, home to pumas and fresh water springs. Part of Montaña Verde was declared a permanently protected wilderness area by Congress in 1987. The Lenca community would have rights as the indigenous population to occupy the protected area. In March of 2001, the Lencas, led by their representative organization COPINH, successfully pressured the government to grant them title to 1792 hectares of land (outside the protected area) in Montaña Verde.
However, the Lenca community continues to report problems with neighboring wealthy landowners over disputed land. The landowners say they purchased the land, but the community insists that the land is theirs and that the people who sold it were not the rightful owners to begin with.
The landowners, say the Lenca, have used local law enforcement officials to harass them-police have invaded the community violently in the night, threatening even children and then arresting community leaders, who were tortured and held without trial. Thanks to the efforts of a lawyer recently hired by COPINH, two of the prisoners, who had been held nearly three years without trial, have been released. However, two men arrested only five months ago remain in prison, based on charges that appear to be false based on an initial investigation carried out by the Association for a More Just Society (AJS)'s Honduran partner organization, ASJ.
COPINH asked ASJ to help the Lenca in securing their land rights and the freedom of their prisoners.
The community protesting for their land
Felipe Bejarano and Luis Benitez, Lencas imprisoned in the land dispute
Scarring behind the prisoner's ear from cigarrette burns
AJS Action
Journalists who work for the Association for a More Just Society (AJS)'s Honduran partner organization, ASJ, investigated the issue of the prisoners and publicized the case to raise public awareness about their plight and to apply public pressure for their release. Read the edition of Revistazo.com devoted to the prisoner's plight, Lencas in Honduras face torture, intimidation and prison. But we recognize that the land dispute is the root problem in Montaña Verde and our lawyer is working to define the boundaries of the protected area and to complete the title search necessary to identify the rightful owners of the disputed land.
Latest News: Parceling the Land
INA, the government institution in charge of managing rural land, has completed the long process of accounting for each parcel of land in Montaña Verde and identifying the legal title owners. ASJ played a key role in that process by working side-by-side with INA officials to make sure the necessary surveying was done accurately. Now that information will be posted to give each owner a chance to come forward and be paid by the government for the title. Then, the government as the sole owner of the land will arrange for the Lenca community to secure a communal title to land. ASJ has been pushing each step of this process, and has been instrumental is obtaining the legal and geographic information needed to get to this point. That we have made this much progress is very exciting—land security for the people of Montaña Verde is in sight.
However, there are two points for concern at the moment. One is that the people of Montaña Verde reported that a group of military men visited the community recently. They did not do anything, but the community feels very intimidated since military and police personnel have been involved in violent abuses in the community in the past, with connections to the land struggle. The other point of concern is that INA has announced plans to close its department devoted to indigenous issues, which is the department ASJ has worked closely with throughout this case. We hope that will not interfere with the successful completion of the Montaña Verde case or with future work on behalf of indigenous communities.
The Association for a More Just Society (AJS) oversees and funds initiatives carried out by Honduran partner organization la Asociación para una Sociedad más Justa (ASJ). AJS is a US-registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit, so all donations to AJS are tax-deductible for US taxpayers.
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