Decades-Old Garifuna Agreement Faces Major Update

The government has offered timelines, renewed dialogue and a commitment to update its decades-old agreement with the National Garifuna Council, but Garifuna leaders say implementation will determine whether anything truly changes. The two sides met in Belmopan on Monday, nearly two weeks after Prime Minister John Briceño’s controversial remarks triggered a national debate. Their discussions covered ancestral lands, Indigenous rights, education, cultural preservation and regional cooperation. NGC President Alex Nolberto welcomed the commitments but says the community now expects concrete action.

 

Alex Nolberto, President, National Garifuna Council

“In our experience with the gaps in the implementation and the compliance of that specific MOU, we found it necessary to strengthen the MOU. And so last year, August, about the fourth of August, we submitted an amended MOU to the Minister of Indigenous Affairs and that has been making it rounds. And so we’ve asked for things like getting that MOU signed off on because it covers our rights under UN declarations and so on, under our constitution. It speaks specifically to our territorial spaces and our right to our territorial spaces. It addresses things like support, financial support to the NGC to continue to do the work of language retrieval, protecting our culture. It also speaks to things like our education, so that we can support our Garifuna-led schools, the Gulisi, for example, and Garifuna-led organizations. And so that was the genesis of the conversation.”

 

Nolberto says the Prime Minister has pledged to sign the revised MOU by November nineteenth, following Cabinet review, with twice-yearly technical meetings to track progress.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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