Justice for Berta Cáceres, protection for the defense of human rights in Latin America

​

The EU-LAT network, of which both OMCT and FIDH are member organisations, and CIDSE together made up ofmore than 57 European and internataional organizations, echoing the requests ofCOPINH and backed by representatives of the EuropeanParliament, demand justice, remembrance and the guarantee of non-repetition forBerta Cáceres, as well as for the defense of human rights in Honduras andthroughout Latin America.

On March 2, 2016, BertaCáceres, Lenca indigenous leader and coordinator of the Consejo Cívico deOrganizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras (COPINH), was murdered at herresidence in La Esperanza, Honduras. According to the information availablethus far, even after two years, little progress has been made in theinvestigation of the case. The public judicial hearings of the eight suspectsdetained as material perpetrators have been postponed on numerous occasions.The reportissued in November 2017 by the International Advisory Group of Experts (GAIPE) revealed a lack of duediligence in the investigations, this includes the lack of processing otherpossible intellectual authors of the murder.

Berta Cáceres dedicated herlife to defending the territorial and cultural rights of indigenous peoples,women, Garífuna peoples and the peasantry. She was recognized nationally andinternationally as a defender of human rights and received the Goldman Prize in2015 for her struggle in defending territory, natural assets and Mother Earth.In the last years leading up to her murder, she was the victim of persecution, intimidation,stigmatization and criminalization both by state and non-state actors, due to herwork in the context of opposition to hydroelectric and extractive exploitationimposed on territories without free, prior and informed consent of theindigenous peoples who live there. Since 2009, Berta was a beneficiary ofprecautionary measures granted by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights(IACHR/CIDH). However, these measures did not protect her from the numerousattacks against her and, ultimately, did not protect her from beingassassinated.

The case of Berta reflects areality faced by defenders in Latin America, who act in favor of theenvironment and the territory. Another emblematic case is found in Mexico,where on January 15, 2017, Isidro Baldenegro, a well-known indigenousenvironmental activist who fought against the illegal logging of the old forestof the Sierra Madre Occidental in Tarahumara / Raramuri territory, was killedin Chihuahua. Isidro Baldenegro won the Goldman environmental prize in 2005 andwas identified as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.

Since the murder of Berta, thenumber of murders of human rights defenders with protection measures provided bythe IACHR has increased alarmingly in the region. This situation, coupled withlittle or no progress in clarifying cases of murdered activists, constitutes aserious attack on the defenders and creates widespread impunity.

Two years after the crime, theEU-LAT Network and CIDSE urge the EU and its Member States to demand that theState of Honduras adopt all necessary measures to ensure that the material andintellectual actors of Berta Cáceres' murder are duly prosecuted, in line withEuropean commitment on the protection of defending human rights.