EARLY IN THE MORNING on March 3, in La Esperanza, Honduras, unidentified men broke into the home of the environmental activist Berta Cáceres and murdered her. Cáceres was the cofounder of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Movements of Honduras (COPINH) and the 2015 winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize, and her murder has prompted an international outcry as well as investigations supported by the United Nations and the FBI. The Mexican environmental activist Gustavo Castro, who was staying in Cáceres’s home in hopes of deterring violence against her, witnessed the murder and was subsequently detained by Honduran authorities. Amnesty International has warned that Castro, who was shot twice in the attack, is in “grave danger.”
Cáceres’s activism spanned several issues, including indigenous rights, feminism, LGBT rights, and environmentalism, but recently, “more than anything,” her sister Agustina Flores told me, “it was Agua Zarca,” a proposed hydroelectric dam project, which was to be built on the territory of the indigenous Lenca people. Flores, a retired teacher, says that Cáceres had received repeated death threats related to her work. The threats were so serious in recent months that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights repeatedly called on the Honduran government to provide her with protection. Her sister said that protection was never provided. “We have feared for her life for a long time,” Flores said in a telephone interview, adding that in November, Cáceres told her she was being “seriously harassed” by three local politicians who she believed were acting at the behest of Desarrollos Energéticos, SA (DESA), the private energy company behind the Agua Zarca dam.
DESA is partially controlled by the controversial Honduran Atala family, whose members are involved in a variety of business ventures and suspected by many of having backed the 2009 coup. Best known among them is billionaire Camilo Atala, president of Banco Ficohsa, a regional bank that in 2014 acquired most of Citibank’s assets in the region, making it the largest bank in Honduras.
The Intercept requested comment from DESA, Agua Zarca, and the Atala family. DESA provided the following statement:
The board of directors of the company that is carrying out the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project has not given any declaration nor does it plan to do so until the authorities in charge of the investigation determine the causes and perpetrators of this regrettable incident that ended the life of the indigenous leader Berta Cáceres. This, as is logical, is in order to not provoke any more speculation than what already exists and which is spreading among public opinion around what happened.
Agua Zarca also received financing from the Central American Bank for Economic Integration. The original contractor hired to build the dam, supported in part by the World Bank, was one of the largest hydropower engineering companies in the world, Sinohydro Group. For more than a year, in 2012 and 2013, community members formed a human barricade to block construction of the dam, while COPINH led a national and international advocacy campaign to highlight the environmental and cultural destruction the dam would cause. DESA’s private security guards and the Honduran military responded with a campaign of violence and intimidation.
“The army has an assassination list of 18 wanted human rights fighters with my name at the top,” Cáceres told Al Jazeera in December 2013. “I take lots of care but in the end, in this country where there is total impunity I am vulnerable,” she continued. “When they want to kill me, they will do it.”
Eventually, both Sinohydro and the World Bank pulled out of the dam project and it is currently on hold.
Cáceres’s family strongly believes that someone involved with Agua Zarca ordered her execution. Her children have circulated a press release in which they name DESA, the various Agua Zarca funders, and the Honduran government for its failure to protect their mother. On March 3, Agua Zarca felt compelled to issue a statement denying that it was involved in the murder. “Agua Zarca roundly affirms that there is no direct nor indirect connection between the project and the regrettable event that ended the life of the indigenous leader.”
Last year, the group Global Witness named Honduras as the world’s deadliest country for environmental activists. “There is a straight line between environmentalist activism and assassination in Honduras,” said Dr. David Wrathall, a San Jose State University geographer who studies Honduras. Over the last decade, Central America has become awash in drug money, Wrathall says, which frequently ends up entangled in large-scale agriculture and development projects such as dams.
“Big public infrastructure works are the most corrupt sector in the global economy, even more than oil or the arms trade,” said Peter Bosshard, an expert in dams and corruption at International Rivers. Although Honduras does have laws on the books that require environmental impact analyses (EIA) to be performed before a dam project can go forward, practically speaking, these reports never recommend against a project. “You will never see an EIA that says, well, the impacts of this project are so severe that we recommend not going forward,” said Bosshard. “Even though that’s the point of the EIA.”
Marco Tulio Carrillo, a spokesperson for the Honduran Ministry of the Environment, which awards dam permits, said that he had “no knowledge with respect to the subject” and that “it should be under investigation.”
“Whereas powerful landowners, businesses, and politicians have resorted to violence against activists in the past, now these actors have more illicit enterprises and transactions to hide, coupled with unrestrained capital and a reserve army of hit men,” Wrathall said. “So it’s anti-environmentalism (literally) on drugs.”
Photo: Str/AFP/Getty Images
Honduras Is Open for Business
Cocaine has moved through Honduras for many years, but the quantities of the drug entering the country soared in 2007 when the U.S. succeeded in squeezing shut the old route from South America through the Caribbean and Mexico. Now, according to a recent State Department report, about 90 percent of the cocaine destined for the U.S. passes through Central America and Mexico, and the Northern Triangle (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador) has some of the highest homicide rates in the world.
Conditions worsened after the 2009 coup removed President Manuel Zelaya from office. As Berta Cáceres eloquently states in this video interview from 2014, the coup, which was supported by the United States, created an atmosphere of violence and terror. Before the coup, the Zelaya administration had successfully blocked many hydroelectric projects, but the new government immediately began approving the projects en masse. In June 2010, 40 contracts were approved for a series of dams. When President Juan Orlando Hernández came into office, his rallying cry was “Honduras Is Open for Business.”
Berta Cáceres and COPINH saw development differently. Progress for them meant an ability to raise their families on their sacred ancestral lands, and a society in which power was distributed more equally. When those dreams were threatened, COPINH protested. “Berta loved to say, ‘They fear us because we’re fearless,’” wrote Beverly Bell, a U.S. activist who knew Cáceres for decades, in a eulogy she sent via email to The Intercept. “The fearlessness paid off over the years. COPINH has successfully reclaimed ancestral lands, winning unheard-of communal land titles. They have stalled or stopped dams, logging operations, and mining exploration — not to mention free-trade agreements. They have prevented many precious and sacred places from being plundered and destroyed.”
Cáceres’s family has demanded an investigation not only into who committed the murder, but also into those who ordered it. The office of the Honduran attorney general has refused to comment, declaring its investigation secret. “We don’t want Honduran investigators,” said Cáceres’s sister, Agustina Flores. She said that the FBI had been to their family home to interview her brother. “They said they’d received orders from their government to do everything possible to solve the crime.”
Some U.S. officials have echoed the family’s demands. Two days after the murder, in a letter read aloud at Cáceres’s funeral, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont demanded an “independent and comprehensive” investigation, adding that “the Rio Blanco and the territory that Berta devoted her life to defend should be protected. The Agua Zarca dam project should be abandoned.”
According to Annie Bird, an activist currently staying with Berta’s family in La Esperanza, the course of the Honduran government’s investigation so far is worrisome: Gustavo Castro and COPINH leadership are “being intensely questioned,” without lawyers, and the line of questioning suggests the government plans to argue that COPINH is behind the murder. There is “no indication that they have been investigating DESA or DESA guards.”
Before being detained by Honduran authorities, Gustavo Castro, the Mexican activist who witnessed the murder, denounced the investigation in an open letter, saying that the scene of the crime had been altered by authorities. Castro was initially given permission to leave the country, but when he arrived at the airport in Tegucigalpa, officials took him back into custody, saying they needed to return him to the crime scene for more questioning. On March 7, Castro was told that his detention would last at least 30 days. According to Amnesty International, “He fears that the authorities are trying to keep him in Honduras so that the assassination attempt against him can succeed the second time.”
Cáceres’s family and friends are determined to bear witness to the extraordinary example of her life and work, and the community to which she belonged. “I saw Berta die in my arms,” Castro wrote in his open letter, “but I also saw her heart planted in every struggle that COPINH has undertaken.”
Where does this sentiment arise on the right where personal responsibility is imposed on everyone but billionaires while the US is granted latitude to manipulate the politics of others with impunity?
US post-WWII interventions in Central America alone:
Iran, 1953
Guatemala, 1954-1990
Brazil, 1964
Dominican Republic, 1965
Chile, 1973
El Salvador, 1980-1990
Nicaragua, 1979-1990
Panama, 1989
But no, the US is not responsible for any of this because to hold the US responsible for anything means the US is being held to account for everything in this propaganda frame.
Actually, @marcos while the USAID program had little to do with helping fund this other than trainig DESA troops, the real actors involved are:
-“Netherland’s Development Fund FMO-Dutch Bank, providing US$15 million
-Finnish Fund for Industrial Cooperation Ltd., FINNFUND, of Finland, US$5 million
-Central American Bank for Economic Integration, US$24 million
-German companies Siemens and Voith Hydro”
Source: http://www.rightsaction.org/action-content/threats-repression-honduras-copinh-struggles-against-privatization-rivers-privatized
Classic responses to this article blaming the US for all that is wrong in Honduras. If the article had been about the dwindling herds of Bighorn sheep in the Himalayas, the responses would have been exactly the same.
“……Hilary, another crime to your collection…..”
“…….The blood of Berta Cáceres is on Hillary Clinton’s hands…..”
“…….The U.S. has greatly contributed to the socio-economic and political destabilisation of Honduras and the shattering of its society for over a century…..”
“……What the FBI will do is whitewash the investigation and either claim to come up empty, pin the assassination on some innocent, or even pin it on an environmental group…..”
“……Anyone want to bet against the thought, probably a fact, that Berta’s assassin’s were trained in the School of the Americas right here in good old Fascistland, formerly called the US?…..”
“…….Instead Clinton pressed for ‘new elections’ under the tight control of the military junta, which turned out as she doubtless expected. Since then? Assassinations of environmental rights activists, assaults on the independent press, return to the old ‘banana republic’ model of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s?….”
“…….Perhaps if Hillary Clinton had not embraced the murderous coup regime in Honduras, and had instead demanded that Daniel Zelaya be returned to power, this would not have happened……”
If you like Hillary so much why don’t you vote for her Craig?
*There are no “dwindling herds of Bighorn sheep in the Himalayas.”
I can’t stand Hillary, but she had nothing to do with the murder of Berta Caceras – in any way, shape or form. I hope they find the murderers though.
Of course, the US can expect to interfere militarily, politically and economically around the world to pursue its interest and like the cat that knocks the vase off of the mantle, pretends that its actions do not bear consequences.
Before Her Assassination, Berta Cáceres Singled Out Hillary Clinton for Backing Honduran Coup.
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/3/11/before_her_assassination_berta_caceres_singled
That anti-democratic coup d’etat reimposed the brutality with which US client states in Central America had long been associated. But no, since the US intervened, all is well, nothing to see here, move along.
You forgot to include the fact that supporting a military coup in Honduras has increased the flow of Honduran people out of the region and across U.S. borders. Trump could hit her hard for that come the general election, if the current trend holds out.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/25/world/americas/administration-weighs-plan-to-move-processing-of-youths-seeking-entry-to-honduras-.html
“If approved, the plan would direct the government to screen thousands of children and youths in Honduras to see if they can enter the United States as refugees or on emergency humanitarian grounds. It would be the first American refugee effort in a nation reachable by land to the United States, the White House said, putting the violence in Honduras on the level of humanitarian emergencies in Haiti and Vietnam, where such programs have been conducted in the past amid war and major crises.”
Yes, stupid regime change games tend to have all kinds of negative side effects, and their idiotic promoters then come up with lines like Condi Rice, “What we’re seeing is the birth pangs of a new Middle East” (2006).
Of course, you’ll say there was nothing she could have done after the fact of the coup – but could you then explain why Clinton didn’t pressure the coup leaders to step down under the threat of comprehensive economic sanctions of the sort applied to Cuba, or the sanctions applied to Venezuela by Obama for human rights violations? What did she say recently?
“You know, if the values are that you oppress people, you disappear people, you imprison people, or even kill people for expressing their opinions, for expressing freedom of speech, that is not the kind of revolution of values that I ever want to see anywhere.”
Just another neolib-neocon hypocrite.
“……Of course, you’ll say there was nothing she could have done after the fact of the coup – but could you then explain why Clinton didn’t pressure the coup leaders to step down under the threat of comprehensive economic sanctions of the sort applied to Cuba, or the sanctions applied to Venezuela by Obama for human rights violations?…..”
And you supported the sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela? Well then, I am certain that you also supported the sanctions in Iraq, Iran and your home country Russia (which are still in place today).
The US probably didn’t place sanctions on Honduras because they were happy to see President Zelaya ousted from power (for whatever reason). Do you believe for a minute that the US would slap sanctions on Russia for ousting Putin? Not in a blue moon. The US would immediately recognize the new government in less than a nanosecond.
Thanks.
Oh, come on – if you want to find the murderers, just look within the leadership of the Honduran military coup, which Clinton supported.
. . . “The US probably didn’t place sanctions on Honduras because they were happy to see President Zelaya ousted from power. . .”
So you agree that when the foreign policy establishment in Washington applies ‘human rights sanctions’ to some countries and not to others, it’s has nothing to do with human rights, and everything to do with installing someone who will follow their dictates on trade and investment? Do you see any problems with that kind of behavior?
Kind of like the British Empire putting their puppet in charge of the “American colonies” in the 18th century and working to overthrow the American pro-democracy independence movement, isn’t it?
You must really hate America.
Photosymbiosis
“……So you agree that when the foreign policy establishment in Washington applies ‘human rights sanctions’ to some countries and not to others, it’s has nothing to do with human rights, and everything to do with installing someone who will follow their dictates on trade and investment?…..”
Why is this so shocking to you? First of all, the US didn’t install anyone in Honduras (that I am aware of). There was a vote. Second of all, the US has geopolitical interests that clearly supersede human rights or else we wouldn’t do business with Saudi Arabia (or anyone in the Middle East outside of Israel), right? In fact, most countries in the world are not democratic and are human rights abusers in one form or another – like Russia and China.
“……Do you see any problems with that kind of behavior?…..”
Absolutely and I don’t support every US policy. On the other hand, I don’t condemn every US policy either. The concept of realpolitik applies in my opinion. Each policy has a different set of circumstances.
“…..Realpolitik is politics or diplomacy based primarily on considerations of given circumstances and factors, rather than explicit ideological notions or moral or ethical premises. In this respect, it shares aspects of its philosophical approach with those of realism and pragmatism…..”
Thanks.
Russia is much more democratic than the United States.
Hilary, another crime to your collection. The “innocent” people who are supporting you in your path to the White House have no idea who you really are. The so called “American people”, (America is not a country, it is a continent) have no clue what their politicians or leaders really do in other countries.
Berta was a real hero in this shabby human world of greed and destruction. I am deeply shocked and saddened by her death. I hope her sacrifice will not terrify people into silence but activate them to continue her work.
‘They fear us because we’re fearless.’ If people such as Cáceres can take the ultimate risks to organize and win under much more challenging circumstances than we face to make their corner of the world better, then we have no excuses. Berta Cáceres, ¡PRESENTE!
The blood of Berta Cáceres is on Hillary Clinton’s hands.
Vaya con Dios y muchas gracias por y trabajo importante.
The U.S. has greatly contributed to the socio-economic and political destabilisation of Honduras and the shattering of its society for over a century.
Shame on Americans who demand the deportation of desperate immigrants fleeing their home countries from which so many American oligarchs have profited.
RIP Berta Cáceres
I’m actually opposed to immigration into the U.S. for environmental reasons (the last thing our beleaguered planet needs is more American hyperconsumers, for one thing), but I totally agree with you on this point. Any country like the U.S. and many in western Europe that caused problems in other countries that in turn causes people in the latter to come to the former has no business denying them in.
Not only are Hondurans fleeing the violence that US foreign policy has imposed on them in Honduras, they’ve got a legitimate claim on recovering resources stolen from them due to US policy in Honduras over the past century.
Ms. Mackey
This is a very well done article about a courageous environmentalist who was murdered for her activism. Hydroelectric dams provide low cost, carbon free energy. The construction, management and maintenance of the dam provide a lot of high paying jobs for the local population so there can be significant benefits to a project of this scale. They also cause a huge impact on the environment and ecosystems. The impact of the dammed river needs to be studied diligently to assess whether the project is worth the costs to the environment. An EIS can take several years to write. In the US, an EIS includes surveys to identify native cultural sites as a part of the environmental Impact Statement.
According to Wikipedia:
“……The developers had breached international law as the local people had not been consulted on the project, and the Lenca people were concerned that the dam would compromise their access to water, food and medicine, and therefore threaten their traditional way of life.[12][21]…..”
There are a couple of points about the above statement (if accurate):
1. To leave the local and/or native people out of the loop on the project is a sure way to create opposition to the project. It shows an incredible arrogance on the part of the developers, and additionally, breaches international law (according to Wikipedia). Native people have lived in the area for thousands of years. Native burial grounds and other important native/historical cultural sites need to be identified and avoided by the developers. A project of this scale requires a partnership between the local/native population and the developer if the project is to succeed.
2. The native people have every right to be concerned about the impact of the project on their way of life. They are not building an Olympic sized swimming pool, but a series of reservoirs which flood potentially thousands of acres of land. The increase in human population (during and after) construction will impact local towns (roads etc.) and stress the school systems. All of this needs to be studied as a part of the EIS. Solutions to potential problems need to be addressed prior to development. This type of development greatly impacts the local people and their way of life.
3. The entire river system including native fish, animal and plant populations will be impacted. Are there endangered species that will be affected by the change? These all need to be identified and mitigated to prevent potential loss of native species and/or introduction of non-native species into the ecosystem.
4. Killing someone is the surest way to bring the attention to the project necessary to stop the project.
I am a firm believer in development, but there is a right and wrong way to develop a project – especially in sensitive areas. This was obviously the wrong way. I hope they find the murderer(s) and put them away for life.
Oh come on, the coup-led government and its backers want to dam the river so they can sell the electricity and water at a profit and get even richer, it won’t benefit any of the people who live along the river whatsoever. That’s not ‘development’, it’s just robbery.
And do your claim that “Hydroelectric dams provide low cost, carbon free energy?”
They also tend to silt up over time, and in the tropics provide breeding grounds for mosquitoes, and there are much better carbon free energy solutions than big dams – but the centralized control means many more profits than say, distributing solar panels to the locals.
Another thing – this coup government now provides a drug-smuggling base for cocaine shipments from South America, see the huge increase in drug flights into the country today vs. 2007 – hence, you get more violent thugs-for-hire:
http://www.enriquesjourney.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/drugflights.jpg
Consider how this how charade took place: a democratically elected government gets overthrown by a military coup. Hillary Clinton intervenes, not to replace the democratically elected leader, but to promote ‘new elections’ overseen by the military coup. Then,
“In September 2010, the post-coup nationalist government awarded 47 hydroelectric dam concessions in just one law, without consulting the indigenous and campesino communities which rely on the rivers for food and water. ”
How did the government respond to the protests against the dam in 2013?
“On July 15, between 200 to 300 community members gathered to march to the DESA compound and demand talks. Without any warning, one soldier began firing live ammunition. Tomas Garcia, a vocal opponent of the dam, was shot three times at close range. He died instantly. His son Alan Garcia, 17, survived a bullet to the chest.”
Source: “A proposed hydroelectric dam in Rio Blanco has pitted the locals against the police and a private security force, Nina Lakhani 24 Dec 2013″
Can you imagine if that happened in the USA, the kind of public outcry there would be, first, if the U.S. Army was deployed to shoot at environmental protesters? If their homes were invaded by police and their families were threatened? Yet here you are trying to portray these events as some kind of polite dispute, ignoring the fact that what you have here is a military coup subverting a democratically elected government, with the cooperation and support of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in some perverse replay of Cold War-era regime change games.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeHzc1h8k7o
The War On Democracy: John Pilger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3awl8yNC9s
John Pilger – Nicaraqua – A Nation’s Right to Survive
John Pilger is one of the most respected journalists in the world. Respected by intelligent people.
Who are you?
Sorry, Sparrow. The comment was meant for craigsummers’ comment about Pilger.
:)
“…….Who are you?……”
I’m a respected non journalist who has read enough of Pilger to understand he is just a typical radical left wing anti-American nut.
Thanks.
Pilger is an idiot.
One man’s “idiot”…
Is many poor human’s hero…
photosymbiosis
“…….Oh come on, the coup-led government and its backers want to dam the river so they can sell the electricity and water at a profit and get even richer, it won’t benefit any of the people who live along the river whatsoever. That’s not ‘development’, it’s just robbery……”
Of course, they want to build the dam and sell the electricity for a profit. What’s wrong with that? That is the incentive for building the dam. That is how we became modern. Hydroelectric dams produce cheap electricity. I live in the northwest part of the US and our electricity rates are the cheapest or nearly the cheapest in the US – from hydroelectric power.
“…..They also tend to silt up over time, and in the tropics provide breeding grounds for mosquitoes……”
Sedimentation rates should be studied as a part of the EIS before the dam is constructed with solutions provided for potential high sedimentation rates. The impact of mosquitoes should also be studied. There are new fields in modern society like civil and environmental engineers to help provide solutions for the problems associated with hydroelectric dams. Solar and wind generated electricity also have problems although I support the use of both where practical.
“……., and there are much better carbon free energy solutions than big dams – but the centralized control means many more profits than say, distributing solar panels to the locals….”
Right. Who is going to pay for the installation, maintenance and construction of the solar panels in a poor country like Honduras? I’m all for solar panels/energy, but you must believe they grow on trees and sold at the local grocery store with instructions.
“……“In September 2010, the post-coup nationalist government awarded 47 hydroelectric dam concessions in just one law, without consulting the indigenous and campesino communities which rely on the rivers for food and water. ”….”
Did you notice anything in my post which suggested I support that?
“……Can you imagine if that happened in the USA, the kind of public outcry there would be, first, if the U.S. Army was deployed to shoot at environmental protesters? If their homes were invaded by police and their families were threatened? Yet here you are trying to portray these events as some kind of polite dispute, ignoring the fact that what you have here is a military coup subverting a democratically elected government, with the cooperation and support of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in some perverse replay of Cold War-era regime change games…..”
Hillary Clinton had nothing to do with it. The former President was the source of his own problems breaking the law in Honduras by attempting to rewrite the Constitution. He was just another corrupt politician. You support corrupt politicians like Da Silva in Brazil because they pretend to fight for the poor while taking bribes?
Thanks.
Ecological destruction is NEVER worth any cost and is totally immoral. Only an insane modern human (insanity as identified in the movie Avatar) could even consider the destroying natural environment for any reason. The only ones who have any business building dams on this planet are beavers, period!
Hi Jeff
“…….Ecological destruction is NEVER worth any cost and is totally immoral. ….”
This may come as a shock to you Jeff, but on average, 66 minerals contribute to the construction of a typical computer i.e., what you used to type your comment. ALL of those minerals were mined (unless you know a way to grow gold). Typically, two methods are used – open pit or underground. According to the Northwest Mining Association:
“……There are 66 individual minerals that contribute to the typical computer……There are others………but it should be evident that without many minerals, there would be no computers, or televisions, for that matter…..”
Of course, you don’t drive a car either Jeff……
A personal attack instead of discussing the issue, wonderful.
First, even though you were being sarcastic, you were right: I don’t own a car (my wife does, but I walk, bike, and take public transit and seldom drive).
As to the computer, I use it to practice environmental law. Hopefully it does more good than harm. I didn’t buy a computer until I started law school, and wouldn’t have one if not for that. Oh, and I don’t have a cell phone either.
Most important, I have no kids, so I don’t contribute to the biggest environmental problem on the planet: overpopulation.
Getting back to the issues, industrial society is war against the Earth, period. Considering how environmentally harmful computers are and, additionally, that the vast majority of people use computers for entertainment (mainly video games and porn), I’d love to see them eliminated, along with the rest of industrial society.
Jeff
“……As to the computer, I use it to practice environmental law. Hopefully it does more good than harm…..”
It does. The demand for those metals keeps people employed in the mining industry. The people who construct computers, monitors and printers also thank you for using a computer for your environmental law.
“…..Getting back to the issues, industrial society is war against the Earth, period. Considering how environmentally harmful computers are and, additionally, that the vast majority of people use computers for entertainment (mainly video games and porn), I’d love to see them eliminated, along with the rest of industrial society…..”
Unfortunately, your use of computers, vehicles, televisions and everything else on earth with a metal component contributes to the environmental degradation on earth. On the positive side, the demand for your toys keeps people employed while feeding their families.
Thanks.
The FBI? Really? Yeah, ’cause they’re sooo known for protecting indigenous people, environmentalists, and the land. And Obama’s FBI to boot, the same Obama who at the very least OK’d the coup?
What the FBI will do is whitewash the investigation and either claim to come up empty, pin the assassination on some innocent, or even pin it on an environmental group, as the Honduran government is apparently already trying to do. This is a joke.
First to consider re a whitewash, does the Honduran government have the credibility to conduct the investigation of the murder of this thorn in their butt and to have their findings accepted on the world stage?
Second, does the FBI have the credibility to have their findings accepted on the world stage, at least to the extent that world institutions would not go so far as to censure Honduras?
And third, would the FBI ever be openly operating an investigation in Honduras or any other country without the explicit consent of that federal government?
The good ol’ U.S. of A, –always there in the defense of democracy!
The Honduran government COMMITTED the murder, pure & simple. The details are meaningless. The only thing meaningful in this country (U.S.) is that our government at least backed the coup that put the Honduran thugs in power, if not outright orchestrated it.
Anyone want to bet against the thought, probably a fact, that Berta’s assassin’s were trained in the School of the Americas right here in good old Fascistland, formerly called the US?
Unlikely, it’d be cheaper to hire drug cartel enforcers for the job, now that so much of the cocaine on the way to the U.S. is shipped through Honduras. And SOA-WHOIS graduates are unlikely to get their hands dirty personally.
Funny what the ol’ Internets can turn up on this question:
https://honduprensa.wordpress.com/2014/01/07/honduras-and-the-dirty-war-fuelled-by-the-wests-drive-for-clean-energy/
“Another recent case is the disappearance of Josbin Santamaría Caballero, who was allegedly shot and taken away in an army helicopter on 30 October 2013 as his wife and two young daughters cowered in their kitchen of their home. The Dinant spokesman said the company was ignorant of his case, too.”
“Caballero, 25, son of a prominent peasant activist, had been publicly denounced as a violent criminal by Colonel German Alfaro, commander of the joint police-military Xatruch operation in the region.”
“Alfaro, trained at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (formerly the School of the Americas) in Fort Benning, Georgia, denied any military involvement and said Muca, the most organized peasant group in the region, was responsible for the current violence.”
(In that case, it wasn’t about the dam, but about efforts by the coup government to expand palm oil plantations around Bajo Aguan while kicking peasants off their land.)
Hillary Clinton’s banana republic has been busy, it seems.
This is what we all face if we step up to the horrors of fascism the world over. We must step up in great enough numbers to survive their slaughter.
Real simple. I vow not to buy anything with a label “made in honduras” until the politicians and killers and sponsors (the rich beneficiaries) are charged convicted and jailed – like 20 to life.
The United States could easily have forced the leaders of the military coup to step down and re-instate the country’s democratically elected leader, Manuel Zelaya (charitably assuming that U.S. hadn’t green-lighted the coup in the first place, and that it was an entirely internal affair). That should be the standard response to a military coup in any country.
Instead Clinton pressed for ‘new elections’ under the tight control of the military junta, which turned out as she doubtless expected. Since then? Assassinations of environmental rights activists, assaults on the independent press, return to the old ‘banana republic’ model of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/03/10/hillary-clinton-needs-to-answer-for-her-actions-in-honduras-and-haiti/
This is also the approach that was championed by the Bush Administration – who doesn’t remember Condoleeza Rice coming up with this line in 2006: “What we’re seeing here, in a sense, is the growing — the birth pangs of a new Middle East.” Oh look – it’s a baby called ISIS! Disaster piled on debacle, no matter where they try it.
The whole ‘regime change’ game dates back to the Cold War, when it could be – barely – justified by claiming that it was necessary to block Soviet influence, or that the leader being overthrown was just a puppet run from Moscow, but that kind of Kissinger-era claim just doesn’t work, propaganda-wise, any longer.
Well if the u.s. did that, then the “donations” by the corporate masters would dry up and the political oars would be homeless and out snatching purchases or breaking into warehouses because they already denied the poor the life support they need for the crime of living.
The situation seems to be less clear-cut than this article suggests. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Honduran_constitutional_crisis . There was some pretty widespread opinion that Zelaya should be removed from the democratically elected legislature, and from the bar association. For the U.S. to go in and *oppose* the removal would be imperialistic, and the “support” given in the Peanut Gallery email is one of after-the-fact recognition rather than, say, money, men and rifles. I mean, it is sort of like what would happen if the Republicans get their wish and manage to prosecute Hillary out of contention because she sent retroactively classified documents. Should China come in and demand she be allowed to run in the election? Should they be afraid to recognize President Cruz or whatever? (Well, they should, but not on account of the human-rights activists!)
To understand the “constitutional crisis” in Honduras, you should read more about how, and why, these constitutions were written in latin america in a way that changing them to actually benefit their citizens seems so wrong… We in Chile have the same problem, and no solution for a constitution made under a military dictatorship that was supported (and probably given some “advice” in the matter) by the U.S. government. Also, you are really ignorant and naive if you think that the support from the U.S. government wasn’t there.
Ironically, many U.S. citizens claim that at least the past two presidents of the U.S. don’t even respected the U.S. constitution, and have done a lot of harm against it… Well, talk about the U.S. being an “example” or a “reference” to the world when it comes to constitutions…
If it was rational and acceptable to implement economic sanctions against Venezuela for human-rights abuses, as Obama did, it was surely rational and acceptable to apply economic sanctions against Honduras until the coup leaders had stepped down.
Blatant hypocrisy in the use of human rights sanctions against offending countries (what, no sanctions for Saudi executions of political dissidents? really?) is another stupid foreign policy game by the neocon-neolib establishment in Washington.
Why do they even bother with such nonsense? Why not just say, “if you don’t give us extremely favorable trade and investment terms, we’re gonna sanction your ass” – Trump-style, that would be. Why the fan-dance and fig-leaf?
> The whole ‘regime change’ game dates back to the Cold War
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”
U.S. Marine Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, 1933
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket
Perhaps if Hillary Clinton had not embraced the murderous coup regime in Honduras, and had instead demanded that Daniel Zelaya be returned to power, this would not have happened.
http://www.thenation.com/article/the-clinton-backed-honduran-regime-is-picking-off-indigenous-leaders/
All these murderous predatory so-called leaders have much in common and generally have the same friends. The most common pattern is the willingness to genocide indigenous populations and ravage the planet. Also they seem to have the same financing bedpartners. After taking a look behind the face of President Juan Orlando Hernández, i tested for the class of land thief and exterminator and maniacal rationalizer.
Guess what turned up? His twin…