The Civic Council of
Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) is an
Indigenous Lenca organization made up of 200 Lenca communities in the western Honduran
states of Intibuca, Lempira, La Paz, and Santa Barbara. COPINH was born in 1993 when
the Indigenous and popular movements in the Honduran state
of Intibuca came together to stop logging and advance popular
struggles. Today, COPINH encompasses 4 states in western Honduras and
struggles for the rights of the Lenca people, including environmental,
cultural, economic, social, health, education, and Indigenous rights. COPINH
defends the Lenca territory and our natural resources as part of our Lenca cosmovision
of respect for Mother Earth.
For over 20 years, the Lenca people organized
in COPINH have defended our communities and
natural resources from logging, dams, mining projects, and other
megaproyects that would destroy our way of life and environment. We have stopped at
least 50 logging projects that would have deforested our
land and forests and 10 hydroelectric dams that threatened Lenca
communities, including the huge Tigre Dam project on the border of Honduras and
El Salvador. Together with other Indigenous organizations we successfully pressured that
the Honduran government to ratify ILO Convention 169 on the Rights of
Indigenous People, which includes the right to free, prior, and informed
consultation of Indigenous communities about projects that affect us. COPINH
has also successfully fought for the creation and funding of health centers and
schools in Lenca communities.
COPINH has also worked
to obtain communal land titles for Indigenous communities as a way of defending
our territory and natural resources from incursion and destruction. We have won over 100 communal
land titles, which are governed by community land councils, as well as the
creation of 2 Indigenous municipalities and the declaration of protected zones
to prevent logging.
Through General Assemblies
COPINH has also taken a strong position on women´s rights and works to address machismo and
promote respect for leadership of women in our communities and organizations. COPINH
acts in solidarity with many other struggles and is active in national and
international struggles and networks.
In 2009, a military coup
removed Honduras´ president and ushered in an era of repression,
militarization, violence, and repression of social movements. Those who seized
power following the coup have set about imposing an extreme right-wing
neoliberal agenda, especially the privatization and selling off of Honduras´
natural resourches to corporations for profit. A new Military Police has been
created in addition to the police and military which already patrol the
country, and these security forces in addition to private hitmen are used to
terrorize and murder those who defend our natural resources and communities
from being plundered and destroyed. COPINH struggles for life, for defense of
Mother Earth, for Indigenous autonomy, and for a world where the rights as
Indigenous people and all people are respected.
