15 against witnesses, expert witnesses, or alleged victims, or their representatives or legal advisers, nor exert pressure on them or on their families on account of statements, opinions, or legal defenses presented to the Court.” 44. Finally, the statement offered by the witness Flores will be assessed within the evidence of this case and according to the rules of sound judgment. VI. FACTS 45. In this chapter the Court will refer, in what is relevant, to certain facts related to events that occurred prior to the State’s acceptance of the Court’s contentious jurisdiction, which will only be taken into consideration to help clarify the factual framework of this case. In this sense, the facts are presented as per the following order: a) Garífuna People in Honduras and the Garífuna Community of Triunfo de la Cruz; b) The process of acknowledgment and titling of the territory of the Community of Triunfo de la Cruz and its members, and c) Problems presented with reference to the territory of the Community of Triunfo de la Cruz and its members. A. The Garífuna People in Honduras and the Garífuna Community of Triunfo de la Cruz 46. Honduras has a multiethnic and pluricultural composition, and it is made up mainly by mestizo, indigenous, and afro-descendent people. There are diverse estimates on the total number of people that make up the Garífuna population in Honduras. According to the census carried out by the National Statistics Institute in 2001, 49,000 people self-identified as Garífunas, while other sources estimate an approximate population of 98,000 people, 34 even though there are also other estimates of the number of Garífunas.35 47. The origin of the Garífuna People dates back to the XVIII century, from the joining of Africans that came in Spanish ships that shipwrecked on Saint Vincent Island in 1635 and the American Indians that lived in the area since before colonization, specifically the Indian populations of Arawak and Kalinagu. The union of these groups resulted in the Karaphunas, who when Great Britain took control of Saint Vincent Island in 1797 were deported to Roatán Island and from there they immigrated to dry land in the territory currently known as Honduras, settling along the Northern Honduran coast and toward the Caribbean coast of Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Belize.36 Currently, the Garífuna people are made up by approximately 40 communities extended throughout the Atlantic coast or the Caribbean Cfr. Ethnical poverty in Honduras, Utta von Gleich and Ernesto Gálvez. Unit of Indigenous People and Community Development. Inter-American Development Bank, Department of Sustainable Development, September 1999, p. 1-2, referenced to in the Merits Report (merits file, folio 18); World Bank Inspection Panel, Research Report – Honduras Program for the Administration of Lands, Report N° 39933-HN of June 12, 2007 (evidence file, folio 154), referring to the number of 98,000 people in a study of the Central American and Caribbean Research Council (CACRC) of 1993. 34 Cfr. World Bank Inspection Panel, Research Report - Honduras Program for the Administration of Lands, Report N° 39933-HN of June 12, 2007 (evidence file, folio 154), in reference to a Project Assessment Document of the project financed by the Bank, Honduras: Project for the Modernization of the Judiciary Power (AIF Credit No. 4098-HO approved by the Board of Directors on July 7, 2005) which estimates that the Garífuna population ascends to between 100,000 and 190,000 people. 35 Cfr. World Bank Inspection Panel, Research Report on the Honduras Program for the Administration of Lands, Report N° 39933-HN of June 12, 2007 (evidence file, folios 154 through 157), and Ethnical poverty in Honduras, Utta von Gleich and Ernesto Gálvez. Unit of Indigenous People and Community Development. Inter-American Development Bank, Department of Sustainable Development, September 1999, p. 35, referenced in the Merits Report (merits file, folio 18). 36