Maya-Chortí Communicate for Land

Reina Pérez of Carrizalito is taught how to operate a video camera by Julio César Díaz of the Communication Unit of CONNIMCH.

The campaign was characterised by fear and disorder as the villages who dared to join were victimised. The Chorti leader Candido Amador Recinos was beaten to death and scalped as an example to others.

With some strategic vision the National Indigenous Maya Chorti Council of Honduras (CONNIMCH) began to focus on advocacy methodology and the national politics of agrarian reform. And in support of this work they set up a Communication Unit.

José Rufino Pérez, a pioneer campaigner who was a pioneer of the struggle in the early days of the campaign explained the role of the communication unit: “using video to share ideas and news between villages made the whole process more dynamic and quickly strengthened our common will to succeed…we soon saw how powerful a tool it was for us to tell our story to others, people who didn’t know how we were suffering, to gain their support for our campaign, or, in the worst case, to neutralise their opposition”.

Mr Pérez had been shot and imprisoned for a year under false charges. Julio César Díaz who had also been imprisoned added that: “video in the hands of an oppressed group changes the balance of power. Politicians had spent years making promises to us which they never fulfilled. When we turned up at meetings with a video camera, all of a sudden, they became accountable, they couldn’t continue lying with complete impunity any more”. He indicated that video cameras in many ways changed the nature of their political relationships and negotiating power.

Reina Correa, a Lenca indian working with the Chortis adds that “in moments of intense danger, when violence is threatened or imminent, when people might be beaten or killed, the presence of a video camera makes aggressors nervous, it makes them think about what they are doing…criminals don’t want to be caught on film”. She explained that this doesn’t always work, and, of course, cameras can’t be everywhere. Four Chorti leaders were shot dead in Copan Ruinas in March 2000. But she adds: “during the reclaiming of land Chorti families were likely to be injured in evictions and the cameras scared off hired thugs on more than one occasion, we’ve got that on film”.

Salvador Segovia, who works for the Washington Office for Latinamerican Affairs, WOLA, also notes that the communication unit has strengthened the organisation internally through an intensely difficult period: “a young organisation with such strong external pressures in such a violent environment might easily have come apart during a campaign but the communication unit has kept the leadership and villages in regular contact…it is an integrating force, a unifying force which keeps up transparency and communication…it has kept the people and the organisation moving, in the same direction and at the same speed”.

Nearly all of the 30 villages originally associated to the organisation have been given their land now the fear of violence has reduced another 28 villages have affiliated. With land the Chorti people are improving their diet, building better homes and schools, with land they are improving their incomes, which is helping with education and health costs. Infant mortality is down from 50% to something in the region of the national average.

WACC is supporting a project with the Communication Unit of CONNIMCH.