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February 4, 2026


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Report: Financing & planning of March 2016 assassination of Berta Caceres in Honduras
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Rights Action supports the conclusions and recommendations of an investigation by the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) into the decision-making, financing and carrying out of the March 2, 2026 assassination of Berta Caceres. The GIEI was established based on an agreement between the government of then President Xiomara Castro and the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights.

Rights Action supports calls for the capture of Daniel Atala, fugitive from justice and member of the powerful Atala family allegedly at the center of the plan to assassinate Berta.

Capture order issued for Daniel Atala member of powerful Atala family, now fugitive from justice.
Image: August 21, 2024 Criterio.hn article

Berta was a close friend of ours in Rights Action that funded and worked closely with her and her organization COPINH from 1998-2016.

Below
* Statement by Otros Mundos Chiapas. Gustavo Castro, who works with Otros Mundos, was shot and left for dead by the assassination team during the killing of Berta. Miraculously Gustavo survived and is a key eye-witness.
* Executive Summary of the GIEI report published January 12, 2026.

At the time of Berta’s assassination, Honduras was ruled by a military-backed regime headed by President Juan Orlando Hernandez who operated a drug smuggling cartel from the President’s office in partnership with military, police and organized crime groups. During the entire time President Hernandez was in power, the U.S. and Canada maintained full economic, political and military relations with his regime, referring to the President and military-backed government as staunch “democratic allies”.

Due to massive interference by the U.S. in Honduras’ November 2025 elections, the National Party candidate – party of Juan Orlando Hernandez – was brought to power. At the same time, the U.S. pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez who had been serving a life sentence in the U.S. for his drug-trafficking crimes.

This makes for an extraordinarily difficult political climate in which COPINH and family members of Berta continue to push for the capture and trial of Daniel Atala, whose family is deeply connected to the National Party.

“The murder of Berta Cáceres represents a paradigmatic case in the fight against impunity in Honduras and Latin America”

From: OtrosMundosAC [email protected] (mailto:[email protected])
Sent: January 12, 2026
Subject: The GIEI-Honduras, The truth about the murder of Berta Cáceres

Otros Mundos Chiapas expresses its full support and endorsement of the Report on the murder of human rights defender Berta Cáceres and other related crimes, and the proposal for a comprehensive reparation plan presented today in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, by the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI), formed under an agreement between the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the Government of Honduras.

The findings of the investigation carried out in 2025 by the GIEI reveal that the execution of Berta Cáceres, in which our colleague Gustavo Castro Soto (from Otros Mundos Chiapas) was wounded while witnessing the crime, “was entrusted to a professional group of hitmen hired specifically to end her life and her social struggle, which at the time was focused on denouncing the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project.”

The GIEI states that “The murder of Berta Cáceres represents a paradigmatic case in the fight against impunity in Honduras and Latin America.”

The report reveals the financial network of international funds granted by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) and the Netherlands Development Bank (FMO), under the control of Daniel Atala Midence, DESA's financial manager, in connection with Roberto David Castillo Mejía, the company's executive president, who is currently in prison.

According to the GIEI,
“The murder of Berta Cáceres was a corporate, financial, and political crime, executed through a complex criminal architecture that brought together economic interests, international financing, security structures, institutional corruption, and serious omissions by the state.”

For the GIEI,
“The damage resulting from the murder of Ms. Berta Cáceres and the conflict associated with the Agua Zarca project is extensive and varied. It affects the Cáceres family, the surviving witness Gustavo Castro, COPINH as an organization, the Lenca indigenous community of Río Blanco, and the Río Gualcarque as a spiritual and cultural space.”

The GIEI concludes that “the damage caused in this case, and the corresponding human rights violations, compromise the international responsibility of the State of Honduras.”

We endorse the recommendations of the GIEI on comprehensive reparation, with measures for cessation and restitution; rehabilitation, satisfaction, and compensation. With guarantees of non-repetition.

We also recommend the definitive cancellation of the Agua Zarca Project, the titling and remediation of the ancestral Lenca territory of Río Blanco, the dissolution and liquidation of DESA, the review and access to intelligence files, institutional review and internal control, and the reform and strengthening of the National Protection Mechanism, among many other measures.

We commend the work of the GIEI and join in the demand for Justice for Berta!

Otros Mundos A.C.
[email protected] (mailto:[email protected])
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The murder of Berta Cáceres and the context that made it possible

January 12, 2026, by the GIEI (Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts)

Executive Summary
Full report: [link removed]

On the night of March 2, 2016, Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores was murdered in her home in La Esperanza, Intibucá. Gustavo Castro Soto, a surviving witness, was seriously injured in the same attack.

The armed raid that ended Berta Cáceres' life was not a random event or an act of common violence. It was the culmination of a prolonged process of persecution, surveillance, criminalization, and violence against the indigenous leader who, for years, spearheaded the defense of Lenca territory against the imposition of the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project.

Berta Cáceres was a nationally and internationally renowned figure. As coordinator of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), she led the resistance of indigenous communities against projects granted without prior, free, and informed consultation, in violation of the Honduran state's constitutional and international obligations.

Her leadership was decisive in halting the progress of the Agua Zarca dam, promoted by the company Desarrollos Energéticos S.A. (DESA), and in raising awareness, both within and outside the country, of the social, environmental, and cultural impacts of these projects.

Strategic Obstacle

From the early stages of the Agua Zarca project, Berta Cáceres was identified by company executives as a strategic obstacle to the consolidation of the hydroelectric venture. This placed her in a foreseeable and widely documented situation of risk. Despite having precautionary measures granted by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the State did not take effective measures to protect her life or to defuse the risk factors associated with the territorial conflict.

The murder took place in a climate marked by violence, militarization, corruption, concentration of economic power, and institutions increasingly captured by private interests.

Following the 2009 coup d'état, Honduras promoted the accelerated expansion of extractive and energy projects, supported by privatization processes and flexible regulatory frameworks. This initiative was sustained by national government and business decisions, and with the financial backing of international development banks, whose loans provided economic viability and institutional legitimacy to projects imposed on indigenous territories without prior consultation.

The relationship between the state, companies, and international financiers was built on weak institutions that were prone to corruption and focused on prioritizing investment over protecting human rights.

The Agua Zarca hydroelectric project, located in the Lenca indigenous territory of Río Blanco, is a prime example of this model. Its authorization was based on irregular licenses, flawed administrative contracts, and individual titling processes that disregarded collective rights. The project was implemented through the militarization of the territory, the co-optation of the community, the use of violence, and the systematic criminalization of those who defended the Gualcarque River as a sacred, cultural, and subsistence space.

Its implementation was made possible thanks to international financing provided by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) and the Netherlands Development Bank (FMO) in 2014, despite the existence of a known territorial conflict, sustained community opposition, and obvious risks for those defending the territory.

For several years, Honduras has been one of the most dangerous countries in the world for defenders of land, territory, and the environment. Violence against defenders is structural and selective, systematically targeting those who challenge economic interests linked to agribusiness, mining, energy projects, and other forms of extraction of common goods.

Persistent impunity has acted as an enabler of this violence, sending a clear message of tolerance and leniency towards attacks against defenders. It has reinforced an environment in which threats, criminalization, and murders rarely result in criminal consequences for those responsible.

In the case of Berta Cáceres, her status as an indigenous Lenca woman, community leader, and public figure who challenged deeply patriarchal and racist power structures exposed her to different and aggravated forms of stigmatization and violence.

The violence against Berta Cáceres should be understood not only as retaliation for her opposition to a specific project, but as part of a broader pattern of structural violence that disproportionately punishes indigenous and Afro-Honduran women who defend land, territory, and the environment in Honduras.

Impunity has historically been the main feature of the state's response to violence and human rights violations in Honduras. The violations that culminated in the murder of Berta Cáceres continue to this day, as evidenced by the persistent lack of demarcation and titling of the ancestral Lenca territory of Río Blanco, the continued validity of the Agua Zarca project concession, and the failure to purge the intelligence files used for the surveillance and criminalization of defenders.

However, in the case of Berta Cáceres, convictions were obtained against several perpetrators, as well as against some DESA employees and a company executive, confirming that the crime was neither an isolated nor spontaneous act.

Nevertheless, these advances did not address the higher levels of responsibility and reveal that a core of impunity persists, particularly with regard to the possible involvement of other DESA executives and shareholders, as well as the full extent of state complicity and tolerance.

From the early hours following the murder, Berta Cáceres' family, COPINH, and their legal representatives consistently demanded the formation of an independent group of experts who could thoroughly investigate all responsibilities, in contrast to an ordinary criminal investigation marked by omissions and bias.

After years of resistance and a tireless search for truth and justice, these demands finally led to a formal request for international technical assistance from the Honduran state, constituting a significant—albeit belated—step in the fight against structural impunity.

Background
* THE CASH BEFORE THE KILLING: Newly Released Documents Reveal International Funding Trail Preceding the Murder of Berta Cáceres ([link removed]) , by Jared Olson, June 23, 2022, The Intercept
* Report Puts International Banks, Honduras Elites at Center of Berta Cáceres Murder ([link removed]) , by Parker Asmann, 12 Jan 2026, Insight Crime
* Who Killed Berta Cáceres? Dams, Death Squads, and an Indigenous Defender’s Battle for the Planet ([link removed]) , by Nina Lakhani
* Berta Caceres: Who She Is & What She Lived For ([link removed]) , by Grahame Russell
* Capture order issued for alleged mastermind & financier of assassination of Berta Caceres - Legacy of U.S. & Canadian-backed Narco-Dictatorship in Honduras ([link removed]) , by Grahame Russell
* Berta: The memory that flows like a river ([link removed]) , by Gabriela Castellanos

COPINH

To support efforts for justice in this case, and for all that Berta was working for in Honduras and on this planet:www.copinh.org /[link removed] ([link removed]) /copinhonduras.blogspot.com ([link removed]) /[link removed] ([link removed]) / @COPINHHONDURAS

Follow work of other solidarity/NGO groups
* Honduras Solidarity Network:www.hondurassolidarity.org
* Friendship Office of the Americas:www.friendshipamericas.org

Change media sources

Rights Action urges folks to diversify their news sources as an antidote to the oftentimes harmful, misleading reporting coming from much of the government and corporate media in the U.S., E.U. and Canada. We recommendThe Gray Zone ([link removed]) ,Democracy Now ([link removed]) ,DropSite News ([link removed]) ,The Real News Network ([link removed]) ,CounterPunch news ([link removed]) ,The Intercept ([link removed]) ,Canadian Foreign Policy Institute ([link removed]) ,The Breach ([link removed]) ,rabble.ca ([link removed]) ,Orinoco Tribune ([link removed]) ,Al Jazeera News ([link removed]) (coverage of Palestine)

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To support land and environmental defenders, and human rights, justice and democracy struggles in Honduras and Guatemala, make check to "Rights Action" and mail to:
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13 BRAVE GIANTS ([link removed])
How We Won the Landmark Hudbay Minerals Lawsuits in Canada and the Mynor Padilla Criminal Trial in Guatemala, and at What Cost! ([link removed])
By Grahame Russell, Rights Action, 2025

TESTIMONIO Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala ([link removed])
Edited by Catherine Nolin & Grahame Russell , Between The Lines, 2021

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