would try to open our minds by teaching us right and wrong through spirituality,’ said Bertita. ‘It was hard for her when we were little, but she definitely enjoyed us and motherhood much more as we got older.’
‘At home we were little devils,’ said Olivia, laughing as she recalled leading a sibling protest armed with homemade placards opposing some parental diktat. Physically, Olivia is the most like her mum. She too is stubborn, charming, rebellious and a persuasive public speaker. Their relationship, however, wasn’t a smooth one, perhaps because they were too similar, perhaps rooted in unresolved grievances. Their relationship was a work in progress when Berta was murdered.9
Miriam Miranda: Closer Than Sisters
Those who took part in the pilgrim marches of 1994 and 1995 say they were characterized by energy, solidarity, and genuine hopes for a more just and inclusive Honduras. It was during those heady times that an unbreakable bond was forged between Berta and the Garifuna leader Miriam Miranda. As two clever, strong, courageous women, they grew closer than sisters, becoming co-conspirators in every sense of the word. If Berta was in trouble, Miriam was the first person she called, and vice versa. Both were threatened, put on hit lists and hated by the political, economic and military elites whom they fought fiercely with words. Similarly, their organizations bonded like non-identical twins.
I interviewed Miriam in Vallecito,10 a 1,200-hectare (3,000-acre) parcel of ancestral land in the municipality of Limón on the north-east coast, that was reclaimed by OFRANEH in 2012 after illegally being given away by the government. The Garifunas have a patchwork of ancestral titles dating back to colonial times across this zone, but these days a combination of rising sea levels and relentless land grabs have made Vallecito an isolated oasis.
In these parts, palm oil magnates obtained scores of land titles thanks to a market-based modernization plan which allowed new claims for unused, untitled land from the National Agrarian Institute (INA). Ignoring the ancestral land claims by the Garifunas, the INA handed out new titles to new ‘settlers’ who promptly sold them to the palm oil magnates. In this area alone, the Garifuna communities went from owning 20,000 hectares to 400 within a decade.
Out of options, the Garifunas obtained Vallecito in the same way as the unscrupulous palm barons, forced to make a claim for land that belonged to their ancestors. That didn’t stop Miguel Facussé, the most powerful palm oil tycoon in Central America, from planting palms there anyway. But, in a rare example of justice, Facussé was forced to return the 100 hectares after a Supreme Court ruling in 1999. Not long after that ruling, a local strongman turned drug trafficker took over Vallecito by force and built himself a mansion, complete with landing strips and a small dock to unload cocaine.
Aurelia Arzú, nicknamed La Patrona for having coached a male football team, was among 150 Garifunas who took back Vallecito in 2012. Back then, the still nights were frequently interrupted by the sound of motorized lanchas (canoe-like small boats) and small planes apparently descending towards Facussé’s sprawling Farallones ranch. These days, they hear only lanchas, which makes sense, as US drug intelligence indicates that most cocaine now arrives by sea.
In Vallecito the Garifuna dream is simple: build a safe community and revive traditional gastronomy. Plant yams, yuca and acres of coconut palms, open a coconut oil processing plant, and one day buy lanchas to go out fishing in the Caribbean waters beyond the plantation. But Berta and Miriam understood that struggles never really end where there’s money to be made. The area is blessed with minerals, oil, unspoilt beaches and fertile land, which doubtless explains why Vallecito was earmarked as a potential site for a ‘model city’ – a custom-made community with its own police force, laws, government and tax system designed to attract foreign investors by offering absolute control with no risks. The model city plan is so radical a neo-liberal experiment that even Berta and Miriam were shocked.
Miriam was seven years older than Berta and raised in banana plantations where she witnessed the harsh conditions especially for women, who she also saw suffered most in the shanty towns around the capital Tegucigalpa when she visited with Visitación Padilla in the 1980s. ‘These experiences woke me up, and I started speaking out about the Yankee invasion and militarization.’ No wonder she and Berta bonded.
Berta loved coming to Vallecito, enchanted by the Garifuna rituals with their smoke, drums, herb-infused liquor and dancing. By all accounts she wasn’t a great dancer, but that didn’t stop her joining in.
‘We were sisters, friends, colleagues. We were together in every important moment,’ Miriam said, describing a scary incident when she was beaten and detained by police and Berta was the first to call.11 Then, a few years later in Vallecito, Miriam had to flee into the hills after she and other Garifuna activists tried to stop the narcos from building a landing strip on the reclaimed land. Berta was the first to arrive.
Miriam recalls Berta being deeply hurt by accusations that she was a bad mother: ‘As women, it’s much harder for us to take on leadership and political roles, we’re not allowed to show any weakness in such a patriarchal system.
‘She was criticized for neglecting her children, for choosing la lucha, the struggle, over motherhood. Berta loved her children, but she loved this country, too. She refused to accept that there must be poor people so there can be rich people, not when Honduras has so much potential and enough resources for all of us to live well.’
Quebec City, April 2001
Every head of state from the Americas, except Fidel Castro, was in Quebec City for negotiations on the Free Trade Area of the Americas, a proposed duty-free zone stretching from Canada to Chile, excluding Cuba. Although it was lauded as revolutionary by big business, many believed the neo-liberal FTAA (ALCA in Spanish) would only intensify poverty and inequality across the region and threaten the survival of rural and indigenous communities. It was a crisp spring day and Berta was there wrapped up, pumped and ready to resist on behalf of the Lencas.
Tens of thousands of spirited protesters armed with drums, flutes, confetti and canny banners had descended on the picturesque French colonial city in eastern Canada, determined to force the continent’s leaders to pay attention. Amid the colourful crowd were indigenous leaders, environmental groups, trade unions, students, fringe political parties and anti-poverty campaigners, all ready for open debate and direct action. A giant catapult was being winched up to launch teddy bears towards the summit site, in contrast to the secretive negotiations taking place inside.
Berta was with the Mexican environmentalist Gustavo Castro. They had travelled to Quebec up the east coast as part of a speaking tour organized by Rights Action,1 a notfor-profit group investigating the impact of North American trade, economic and security policies in Central America. ‘Berta’s family history and early experiences fostered a clear local-to-global perspective,’ said Rights Action’s Grahame Russell. ‘She understood that free trade agreements were just the latest repackaged tool of repression, a new twist on the same exploitative economic model imposed on Central America for hundreds of years.’ Berta told audiences in Toronto and Montreal: ‘Free trade deals are legal tools to impose a model that advocates taking control over the planet’s natural resources for profit.’ She went on: ‘I don’t accept a system that must destroy some in order to thrive. Cutting down forests our ancestors protected for centuries cannot be called development … we need to fight this oppressive political
