At least one U.S. trial court has already agreed that the bank can’t be touched, and thus the latest lawsuit filed against it, attempting to obtain some measure of justice for displaced Honduran farmers, faces a steep challenge. Regardless of the ultimate outcome of legal proceedings, however, millions of people around the world have paid horrific prices for the relentless pursuit of profit.
The Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations (COPINH), the Lenca indigenous group Cáceres cofounded in 1993, continues to work for justice for indigenous peoples and territories, for protection of the earth, and for democracy in Honduras. Like its cofounder, COPINH’s vision goes far beyond defense, instead espousing and creating new relationships among people and with Mother Earth and transformative political and economic systems.
Bertha [1] Cáceres, my mother, my mommy, was struggle in action, with oppression piled atop her, carrying on her back all the pains that this system imposes on the poor, the poor indigenous, the poor indigenous women.
Bertha, capable of indignation at every injustice in the world, rebelled against them and fought against them. Because of that, she saw everything as cross-cutting [achieved intersectional thought], she understood that capitalism, patriarchy and racism have to be fought all together.
Leaked court documents obtained by the Guardian and reported on Tuesday appear to corroborate a whistleblower’s claim that U.S.-trained special forces within the Honduran military were responsible for the death of prominent Indigenous land defender Berta Cáceres last year.
The whistleblower, a former soldier, alleged that the Honduran army was murdering activists on a secret “kill list,” as Common Dreams reported.
“Eight men have been arrested in connection with the murder, including one serving and two retired military officers,” the Guardian writes. “Officials have denied state involvement in the activist’s murder, and downplayed the arrest of the serving officer Maj Mariano Díaz, who was hurriedly discharged from the army.”
The brutal murders of two land rights activists in Honduras last night are the latest tragedies in a seemingly unstoppable wave of deadly attacks turning Honduras into a no-go zone for human rights defenders, said Amnesty International.
José Angel Flores, 64, President of the Movimiento Unificado Campesino, was shot dead by a group of unidentified men in the department of Colón, northern Honduras, in the afternoon of 18 October.
Another community leader, Silmer Dionisio George, was also shot in the incident and died at a local hospital hours later.Read More »
The Honduras Solidarity Network in North America denounces the October 18 assassination of Jose Angel Flores, President of the Movement of Unified Campesinos in the Aguan (MUCA) and Silmer Dionosio George, another MUCA leader. The campesino activists were killed by gunmen as they left a meeting of MUCA members. While we are still waiting for more information about the murders, we wish to emphasize that both men were recognized to be at risk by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission and were recipients of that organization’s precautionary measures making the Honduran government responsible for their safety. Read More »
Another Indigenous environmental activist has been killed in Honduras, teleSUR reports.
The activist, identified as Lesbia Yaneth Urquía Urquía, was abducted and found dead near a municipal dump with severe head trauma on Wednesday.
Urquía was a member of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), the Indigenous rights group founded by slain activist Berta Cáceres. Urquía “fought against the building of hydroelectric power plants on Indigenous land,” according to teleSUR.
Her name was Lesbia Yaneth Urquía and she was a member of The Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (Copinh). When the memory of the murder of Bertha Cáceres is still fresh in our minds – a crime which remains unpunished – Urquía was found dead on Wednesday afternoon, July 6, in a place known as Mata Mulas close to the Marcala municipal dump in La Paz.
Some press reports claim that the victim sustained a head injury which could have been caused by a sharp object, although others suggest that she was shot to death. Her body was sent directly to the head office of the Ministry of Public Health’s Forensic department, to undergo an autopsy.
It appears the United States government is not the only one in the world with a ‘kill list.’
According to new reporting by the Guardian published Tuesday, U.S.-trained special forces units within the Honduras military are operating an assassination program—complete with a hitlist comprised of names and photos—that targets social justice and environmental activists with “elimination.”
The U.S.-backed Honduran coup ushered in a wave of neoliberal policies that have systematically violated the economic, cultural, and social rights of the nation’s Indigenous people, women, and farmers, while leaving activists and rights defenders—such as the late Berta Cáceres—vulnerable to criminalization and violence.
Such were the findings of a new report, prepared by a coalition of 54 Honduran social movements and rights organizations and presented as an alternative to the official government report submitted to the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which began its 58th session in Geneva on Monday.
Less than three months before Lenca leader Berta Cáceres was brutally assassinated, the social arm of Desarollos Energeticos SA (DESA)–the Honduran company leading the Agua Zarca dam project Cáceres was campaigning against–signed a contract with USAID implementing partner Fintrac, a Washington DC based development contracting firm.Read More »
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