Berta Cáceres
Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈbeɾtajsaˈβel ˈkaseɾes ˈfloɾes]; 4 March 1971 – 3 March 2016) was a Honduran (Lenca) environmental activist, indigenous leader, co-founder and coordinator of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH). She won the Goldman Environmental Prize, one of the most prestigious awards for environmental activism, in 2015 for "a grassroots campaign that successfully pressured the world's largest dam builder to pull out of the Agua Zarca Dam" at the Río Gualcarque.
Berta Cáceres | |
|---|---|
| Born | Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores 4 March 1971 |
| Died | 3 March 2016 (aged 44) La Esperanza, Honduras |
| Cause of death | Assassination by firearm |
| Occupation(s) | Environmentalist, indigenous rights activists |
| Years active | 1993–2016 |
| Known for | Her work to defend Lenca people habitat and rights, Río Gualcarque for which she won the Goldman Prize |
| Children | 4, including Bertha |
In 2016 she was assassinated in her home by armed intruders, after many years of threats against her life. A former soldier, with the US-trained special forces units of the Honduran military, asserted that Cáceres' name was on their hitlist for months prior to her assassination. As of February 2017, three of the eight arrested people have been linked to the US-trained elite military troops. Two had been trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, USA, at the former School of the Americas (SOA), now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, or WHINSEC. Having been founded in 2001, WHINSEC has since been linked to thousands of murders and human rights violations in Latin America by its graduates. In November 2017, a team of international legal experts released a report finding "willful negligence by financial institutions." For example, the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), the Netherlands Development Finance Institution (FMO) and the Finnfund pursued a strategy with shareholders, executives, managers, and employees of the Honduran company Desarrollos Energeticos SA (DESA), private security companies working for DESA, public officials and State security agencies "to control, neutralize and eliminate any opposition".
Twelve land defenders were killed in Honduras in 2014, according to research by Global Witness, making it the most dangerous country in the world, relative to its size, for activists protecting forests and rivers. Berta Cáceres' murder was followed by those of two more activists within the same month.
In July 2021, Roberto David Castillo, the former president of DESA, was found guilty of being a co-conspirator in her murder, and sentenced to 22 and a half years in prison.