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By Talli Nauman
The anniversary March 2 of Honduran
indigenous environmental and human rights activist Bertha Caceres’ violent
death at the hands of assassins focused attention on the sad-but-true fact that
the henchmen of the transnational kleptocracy are at the top of their game.
When Caceres took a lethal bullet in her
home in 2016, she was coordinating the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous
Organizations of Honduras (Copinh), of which she was a founder. Her leadership
in the fight to prevent the Agua Zarca Dam made her one of 123 Hondurans
murdered since 2010 for standing up against corrupt usurpation of ancestral
habitat both sacred and necessary for the survival of indigenous communities.
While eight fall-guys have been fingered to
take the blame for offing her, no culprit has been brought to the fore. The
international outcry over the injustice has resulted in a study naming Honduras
the world’s deadliest country in which to be a water protector or a land defender.
The findings of the two-year study
by Global Witness throw into relief the militarily backed lethal collusion
between government and corporate stooges not only in forcing megaprojects on
Honduras, but also in trampling indigenous resistance to extractive industries throughout
the hemisphere.
Its recommendations for bringing U.S.
policy pressure to bear beginning with Honduras are noteworthy, while likely to
fall on deaf ears in the Administration of newly installed President Donald
Trump, who is busy beating back domestic indigenous opposition to his pet U.S.
petroleum pipeline projects, Dakota Access and Keystone XL.
“Our
investigations reveal how Honduras’ political and business elites are using
corrupt and criminal means to cash in on the country’s natural wealth, and are
enlisting the support of state forces to murder and terrorize the communities
who dare to stand in their way,” said Global Witness campaign leader Billy Kyte
in releasing the study on Jan. 31.
The study notes impunity and lack of accountability. Chief
among relevant examples is the case of Gladis Aurora López, vice-president of
Honduras’ Congress, president of ruling National Party and wife of Arnold
Gustavo Castro. She denies any involvement in deals with her husband, who
controls the planned Los Encinos hydropower project in which the dismembered
bodies of three indigenous opponents were found with evidence of torture.
“We were evicted by a squadron of around 15 police,
accompanied by a group of civilians. They destroyed our crops, they burnt our
food. They left us completely on the street - a community robbed of
everything,” said Roberto Gomez, an indigenous activist who has vocally opposed
Los Encinos.
As if that weren’t enough, says Kyte, “We have
documented countless chilling attacks and threats, including the savage beating
by soldiers of pregnant women, children held at gunpoint by police, arson
attacks on villagers’ homes, and hired assassins who still wander free among
their victims’ communities.”
The United States, meanwhile, continues to pump money
into Honduran military and industry, despite concerns raised in the U.S.
Congress about the Central American country’s dubious human rights record.
The U.S. embassy has been promoting ramped-up foreign
participation in Honduras’ extractive industries, for instance, with U.S.
mining giant Electrum planning a $1-billion investment.
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Main Recommendations from Global Witness Report:
Honduran, foreign state,
and business actors currently contribute to attacks against land and
environmental activists. Concerted action is needed by all actors and the
following recommendations must be prioritized:
·
The Honduran government must prioritize the protection
of land and environmental defenders, properly resource the new protection
system and implement emergency measures.
·
The Honduran government, police and judiciary must
bring the perpetrators of crimes against these activists to justice, and end
the corruption behind abusive business projects.
·
The Honduran government must work with civil society
to strengthen and implement laws that guarantee the consent of indigenous
communities before projects are given the green light.
·
The United States must review its aid and investment
policy to Honduras in order to ensure activists are better protected, crimes
against them are prosecuted and communities are consulted before business
projects go ahead.
·
Foreign
investors and international financial institutions should stop any planned
investments in the industries causing the violence – mining, dams, logging,
tourism and large-scale agricultural projects.
____________________________________________________________
Last year, tens of millions of U.S. aid dollars were
directed to the Honduran police and military, both of which are heavily
implicated in violence against land and environmental activists, Global Witness
says.
“As Honduras’ biggest aid donor, the U.S. should help
bring an end to the bloody crackdown on Honduras’ rural population,” Kyte said.
“Instead it is bankrolling Honduran state forces,
which are behind some of the worst attacks. The incoming U.S. administration
must urgently address this paradox, which is fueling, not reducing, insecurity
across the country.”
That, however, is not about to happen unless activists
continue to build on the movement for environmental justice inspired by Caceres
and others like one of the latest victims, Mexico’s late indigenous leader
Isidro Baldenegro, who like Caceres was an internationally recognized Goldman
Environmental Prize recipient for grassroots organizing.
On March 2,
the Global Day of International Direct Action helped keep the memory alive and light the
the way for continued activism. The event was initiated by Copinh and amplified
by the media outlet Abya Ayala as part of the Intra-Continental Solidarity
with all Water Defender Nations of Mother Earth.
Caceres’ memory must be invoked along with that of
dozens of other martyrs for the defense of the sanctity of all living beings,
as the cross-boundary struggle builds to reinstate indigenous primacy in the
protection of land tenure rights, biological diversity, habitat, food and water
security, and the balance of nature.
