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News > Latin America

Berta Caceres' Mother Demands Honduras Cancel Contested Dam

  • Berta Caceres with her mother, Austra Flores, together at their home in La Esperanza, Intibuca, in western Honduras.

    Berta Caceres with her mother, Austra Flores, together at their home in La Esperanza, Intibuca, in western Honduras. | Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize

Published 7 September 2016
Opinion

Six months after Berta Caceres' murder, human rights and environmental organizations in Honduras have launched a new campaign to support land defenders.

Six months after her daughter’s murder, the mother of renowned Honduran Indigenous leader Berta Caceres urged authorities to cancel the contentious hydroelectric dam that the slain activist long struggled against, holding the private energy company behind the project ultimately responsible for the coldblooded assassination that has shined an international spotlight on the country’s human rights crisis.

OPINION:
Berta Caceres: Who She Is and What She Lived For

“Her murder was not a crime committed in isolation,” said Caceres’ mother Astra Flores during an event in Tegucigalpa Tuesday. “It made clear that land and territory rights are more threatened than ever, that public security forces are, in practice, forces under private control.”

Flores presented a petition to pressure Congress to consider cancelling the concession granted to the Honduran energy corporation Desarrollos Energeticos SA, better known as DESA, to build the high-contested Agua Zarca dam on the Gualcarque River, considered sacred in the Indigenous spirituality of the Lenca people in western Honduras. Caceres, along with her COPINH organization, fought for years to halt Agua Zarca, and suffered a slew of death threats and other harassment as a result of her activism before her murder in her home on March 3.

“By protecting the Gualcarque River, my daughter not only defended a vital right with communities, but also the longing and hope to build … a very different Honduras than today, where the law isn’t indiscriminately violated with threats, persecution, and murders,” continued Flores, singling out DESA for being involved in Caceres murder.

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The call to Congress and demand to bring the masterminds, not just trigger-pullers, behind Caceres’ death to justice came alongside the launch of a new land defense campaign in Honduras backed by 29 Indigenous, feminist, campesino, and human rights organizations. Under the banner “Defenders of Mother Earth,” the campaign aims to raise awareness about the social and environmental destruction caused by energy and mining projects, suffered disproportionately by marginalized groups, and promote the internationally-recognized right of Indigenous peoples to free, prior and informed consent for all development on their land.

Leaders of the new campaign pointed out that the dozens of concessions for hydroelectric dams, mines, and other projects do not benefit the affected communities, but deliver more wealth to powerful corporations at the expense of local people.

“Land is fundamental in the life of thousands of Honduran families,” said Miriam Miranda, leader of the organization Ofraneh, which represents the Afro-Indigenous Garifuna people. “It is proven that these projects do not generate social development, causing an increase in migration.”

Other leaders of environmental and human rights organizations at the event highlighted the positive relationship between secure land rights and measures of community well-being, such as food security.

The activists also underlined the grave problem of criminalization of social movements in Honduras, a human rights crisis that has spiraled out of control in the wake of the U.S.-backed 2009 coup and is perhaps most starkly exemplified in Caceres’ murder after years of harassment.

According to the human rights organization Global Witness, Honduras is one of the most deadly countries in the world for land and environmental defenders.

OPINION:
Land Grabbing Is Killing Honduras' Indigenous Peoples

In Caceres’ case, five suspects have been accused of her murder, including two men with links to DESA and two high-ranking military officials, one active and the other retired. However, her COPINH organization remains committed to “finding who assassinated her, who gave the order to assassinate her, and denouncing the criminal power structure that allowed for her assassination,” according to a recent statement.

Caceres was shot dead in her home on March 3, despite being under police protection as a result of repeated threats against her life. The attackers also attempted to assassinate Mexican environmental activist Gustavo Castro, who was staying with Caceres at the time. Castro returned to Mexico after being held in Honduras for questioning as the sole witness in the case for nearly a month, during which time his supporters claimed he suffered psychological torture under a situation of arbitrary detention.

  • Caceres death has brought international attention to Honduras and sparked renewed debate over the U.S. role in the 2009 coup and the ongoing human rights crisis that has erupted in its wake.

And six months after her murder, Caceres’ family members and colleagues continue to share the increasingly-iconic rallying cry for Honduran movements: “Berta didn’t die, she multiplied!

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