June 29, 2021
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- Below, a Common Dreams article
Rights Action, via the Honduras Solidarity Network, is helping fund the Feminist Encampment ¡Berta Lives!, as work continues to expose the deeply complicit responsibility of the US and Canada in Honduras’ human rights nightmare situation since the 2009 military coup ousted Honduras’ last democratically elected government.
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As Key Suspect Tried, Encampment Demands Justice for Berta Cáceres
By Chris Morrill, June 28, 2021
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/06/28/key-suspect-tried-encampment-demands-justice-berta-caceres
After five long years, social movements in Honduras are finally getting closer to bringing some justice to the assassination of beloved social movement leader Berta Cáceres. Today, David Castillo sits on trial as a key perpetrator of her murder.
Five years ago, Indigenous feminist Berta Cáceres from Grassroots International partner COPINH was murdered for defending Lenca territory against the Agua Zarca mega-dam project. As we've since learned, company officials and Honduran state actors had a hand in her assassination.
"We're here with all of the force, with all of the rebelliousness, and happiness
that Berta left us in hearts, in our struggles, and in our organizations."
—Katherin Cruz, Red Nacional de Defensoras
She, like many Indigenous organizers, was a water protector. Her murder was, as COPINH calls it, a territorial femicide.
Berta's being "a woman leader of the territories" was "a determining factor in the way in which her entire persecution and murder were carried out," said Bertha Zúniga Cáceres, Berta's daughter and general coordinator of COPINH.
But all of the architects—both physical and intellectual—of her assassination still aren't being prosecuted. Furthermore, there are serious concerns of the court's impartiality given the state's recent history of corruption.
In response, social movements are occupying land outside the Supreme Court of Justice. COPINH (the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras) and OFRANEH (the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras) are joining feminist and human rights organizations in the "Campamento Feminista ¡Viva Berta!" to demand real justice and transparency.
Every day, hundreds have joined from all different parts of the country to remember Berta's legacy. They share meals made from foods carried from Indigenous territories. They share equal parts in laughter and resolve as the smell of traditional herbal burnings fills the air around them. And they aren't giving up.
The prosecution of Castillo is a significant step forward. As the president of the DESA (Desarrollos Energéticos Sociedad Anónima) corporation, he oversaw and stood to profit from Agua Zarca's development.
But the corruption goes much deeper than even Castillo. The entire structure of Honduras' coup government has made the country one of the most dangerous places in the world to be an environmental activist. DESA's Board of Directors, with its deep ties to the state, is not being prosecuted.
So social movements have encamped.
"This is an encampment of resistance, an encampment of dignity, of struggle and of the demand for justice," said Miriam Miranda from OFRANEH. "It demonstrates the need not only to fight for justice but also to fight against this corrupt model, against impunity from the application of justice."
As ever, the Afro-descendent Garifuna and Indigenous peoples of Honduras have seen their fates as linked. The presence of Miriam, in COPINH's words, "along with dozens of colleagues from the Garífuna community, has filled this legitimate fight for justice for Berta Cáceres and for the peoples with light and strength."
According to Katherin Cruz of the Red Nacional de Defensoras, the encampment will remain for the duration of Castillo's trial. In a radio interview she emphasized how important raising visibility of the deep corruption and complicity of the state, the dimensions of patriarchal violence, is to this case.
Honduran movements need our solidarity in demanding justice for Berta. The Honduras Solidarity Network is running an online campaign to support the Campamento Feminista's demands.
Those encamping know the trial will be long, but they're in it for the long haul. They've been waiting for 5 years already, said Cruz, and they will carry on—until justice is won.
"Sixty-three months ago Berta was unjustly taken from us," wrote COPINH. "They wanted to bury her, but they didn't know she was a seed—a seed of change that flourishes in the rebellious hearts of the peoples, because memory is a way to keep going, to keep fighting. Berta has made herself into millions."
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Archives – COPINH & Berta Caceres
Over 20 years of Rights Action archives related to work in support of COPINH: https://rightsaction.org/archcopinh
A Rot in Honduras That Goes All the Way to the Top, By Hilary Goodfriend, May 27, 2020
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/05/berta-caceres-murder-honduras-nina-lakhani
BOOK: Who killed Berta Cáceres? Behind the brutal murder of an environment crusader, By Nina Lakhani, 2 June, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/02/who-killed-berta-caceres-behind-the-brutal-of-an-environment-crusader
Inside The Plot To Murder Honduran Activist Berta Cáceres, By Danielle Mackey, Chiara Eisner, December 21, 2019, The Intercept, https://theintercept.com/2019/12/21/berta-caceres-murder-plot-honduras/
Films & videos: Berta Caceres
The Life and Death of Berta Cáceres (2020)
In 2016, environmental activist Berta Cáceres was shot dead in her home in Honduras. This film by Trocaire features interviews with Bérta's daughter, sister and mother.
https://vimeo.com/390771524
Berta Cáceres: In Her Own Words / En sus proprias palabras
Based on a 2012 interview we did with the Honduran environmental activist and co-founder of the Council of Indigenous People’s Organizations of Honduras (COPINH).
https://skylight.is/2016/03/berta-caceres-in-her-own-words
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjM81tYBew4
Berta Cáceres, Goldman Environmental Prize (April 19, 2015)
In a country with growing socioeconomic inequality and human rights violations, Berta Cáceres rallied the indigenous Lenca people of Honduras and waged a grassroots campaign that successfully pressured the world’s largest dam builder to pull out of the Agua Zarca Dam. She is the South & Central America winner of the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize, the world's largest award for grassroots environmental activists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh9Sn9oJR94&feature=youtu.be
Berta Caceres acceptance speech, 2015 Goldman Prize ceremony (2015)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR1kwx8b0ms&feature=youtu.be%C2%A0
Berta's Daughters Speak (2019)
Berta Cáceres was killed for defending the river on which Indigenous communities depend. Her daughters continue that struggle, despite the risks – as witnessed in this Amnesty International interview.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMdXkXR7U6k&feature=youtu.be
Austra Berta Flores, mother of Berta Caceres, speaks
Calling on international community to demand the full truth, so that those who paid and ordered the murder of her daughter be prosecuted.
https://oxfam.app.box.com/s/ygf6fvlpl9fg08znt7irav78jjp44lz1
Assassination of Berta Caceres: repression, impunity, corruption & profitable businesses in Honduras (April 4, 2017)
Wide Angle interview with Grahame Russell about assassination of Berta Caceres; the U.S. and Canadian backed 2009 military coup; U.S. and Canadian business interests with the post-military coup regimes; why so many Hondurans flee to the U.S., year after year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVMsJyMIlRw&t=83s&list=PLztbi9KA9roUoj_SKm_cehOB_LWo9uTFW&index=25
Dos años después de su asesinato, Berta Cáceres no se murió, se multiplicó (Febrero 2018)
https://www.franceameriquelatine.org/6370-2/
Honduras: Blood and the Water (September 2016)
AlJazeera Faultlines 25 minute report on assassination of Indigenous, anti-imperialist, feminist, environmental activist Berta Caceres.
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/faultlines/2016/09/honduras-blood-water-160920064355648.html
Berta Vive (2016)
On March 2016, the assasination of Berta Cáceres shook the world. Gustavo Castro, Mexican environmental activist witnessed the crime and survived the horror of that night but was then trapped in Honduras. The defense against the construction of a dam at the Gualcarque River is the preface to this story. We follow Miriam Miranda, leader of the Garífuna people as well as a friend and comrade of Berta. Both women share the struggle for decolonization in a country that is being sold to transnational capital and where death is delivered in so many different ways.
https://vimeo.com/229310580
4 Years Seeking Justice (January 17, 2020)
Democracy Now interview with a daughter of assassinated Indigenous leader Berta Cáceres
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/1/17/berta_caceres_laura_caceres_interview
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Tax-Deductible Donations (Canada & U.S.)
To support land, human rights and environmental defender groups in Honduras and Guatemala, and COVID and hurricane relief work, make check to "Rights Action" and mail to:
- U.S.: Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
- Canada: (Box 552) 351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8
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