A milestone for the justice of Berta Cáceres

One month after the sixth anniversary of her death, the legacy of Berta Cáceres and the investigations into her murder are still ongoing.

Precisely, one of the milestones occurred in August 2021, when the ruling of the Honduran Prosecutor's Office condemned David del Castillo as the intellectual author of the crime.

This victory came long after the murder of the winner of the Goldman Sachs prize (the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for the Environment), who opposed the construction of the Agua Zarca dam on the ancestral lands of the Lenca community, in the western part of the country.

However, the threats to these activists do not stop.

In 2020, Honduras registered 17 murders of defenders, according to Global Witness, an organization that monitors crimes of this nature.

This is the fifth most dangerous country in the world for the defense of indigenous communities,

In 2018, seven men were convicted of being part of the armed group that persecuted, intimidated, harassed and ended up taking Cáceres's life while he was fighting for the rights of the Lenca people.

The construction of the dam forced the community to displace their sacred river, the Gualquerque.

To date, in Honduras, a high-ranking business official had never been sentenced for a crime related to a defender of the environment.

David Castillo Mejía was the executive president of Desarrollos Energéticos (DESA), the construction company in charge of the macroproject against which Cáceres was fighting and the first to comply with this sentence.

Castillo was an electronic engineer by training and had a military background in the United States.

However, this legal victory for the defense of the renowned leader is considered bittersweet for the members of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH).

“We do not consider David del Castillo an intellectual author, but rather a material co-author, with the same responsibilities as the military operation that assassinated Berta,” explains Camilo Bermúdez of COPINH, the organization to which the assassinated activist belonged.

He also assures that Castillo could not act outside the direction of the company on such a sensitive issue.

The impunity of those who have political and economic power

The Atala Zablah family, owner of DESA, has a presence in the banking sector and is part of the economic elite close to former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, whose visa has been withdrawn by the United States for his alleged links to drug trafficking.

For Bermúdez, the brothers José Eduardo, Jacobo and Pedro Atala Zablah are at the peak of the operation to end the life of Berta Cáceres and he does not want to rest until they are investigated by justice.

An opinion shared by MEP Tilly Metz, director of the Delegation for Relations with Latin America and the Caribbean, who speaks of the great political and economic influence of this family in the Central American country.

Metz was blunt:

The conviction of a manager of a company in the history of Honduras and the end of the feeling of impunity is an unprecedented event

In recent months, more than 50 MEPs have put pressure on the Honduran government, such as signing a letter to request international transparency in the trial of David del Castillo.

In addition, after several visits to Honduras, Metz has investigated the relationship of a Dutch and a Finnish bank with the financing of the hydroelectric dam in Aguas Zarcas on the Gualcarque River.

“After the news of the death of Berta Cáceres spread, in 2017 some of these international funds announced that they were going to withdraw, but did they really do it?

From the Commission we are introducing proceedings to find out if European companies do not respect certain red lines, ”says the MEP through a Zoom call.

Several social organizations and the media described the murder as femicide: "They threatened her children, investigated her personal life, her former romantic partner or who her lover could be," says the COPINH member.

In 2015, when Cáceres was the main voice for the consultation of the communities for the Aguas Zarcas project, it was David del Castillo himself who met and exchanged text messages to negotiate his position and in order to control where found.

“Castillo tried to show himself as a friend at the beginning, as a gentleman and approached as a mediator.

However, Berta knew the type of person she was talking to.

She was not naive.

She later informed her superiors of everything she obtained, ”explains Bermúdez by phone.

Another example of the violence that she experienced for being a woman was that the assassins exchanged messages with each other with derogatory comments such as "bitch" or brutal threats such as "we are going to kidnap you, first we are going to rape you."

At first, the Honduran prosecutor's office defined Berta's murder as a "messy mess" because she had spent the night with a partner in her house, alluding that her partner had committed the sexist crime.

The deep imprint left by Berta Cáceres

For many, Berta Cáceres did not die, but multiplied and her story transcended the world.

Her classmates remember her as a woman with a strong character, with clear ideas and capable of living without fear despite all the dangers.

Also, she had a great sense of humor, she liked to laugh, joke around and dance.

Camilo Bermúdez treasures in his memory images of the environmental activist who was much loved in the communities: “He always woke up early, drank his coffee (he liked to drink coffee a lot), went to talk to a lot of people and came back very late.

They were long days, but she enjoyed them very much.

She had a lot of drums.”

In 2021, the European Parliament posthumously awarded him the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, an award that he shares with personalities of the stature of Nelson Mandela.

The MEP for the Green group clarifies that this recognition also wants to put on the table all the dangers faced by those who defend water, ancestral lands and life.

"In addition to Berta's, there are hundreds of cases such as the murders of Garífuna community leaders in northern Honduras or other members of COPINH murdered," Metz concludes, listing cases that she has found in parliamentary delegations in the Central American country.

For organizations like COPINH, the election in Honduras of Xiomara Castro as the first female president in its history and the return to a center-left government represents a halo of hope.

The indigenous organization met at the end of January with the Secretary of the Environment and Natural Resources, Lucky Medina, and with Castro to discuss the case of Berta Cáceres and demand better protection measures for environmental defenders and community leaders.

One of the expectations is that the State takes charge of bringing running water, lighting or schools to regions where there is none and that it is not the private initiative of companies that are in charge of it.

In addition, the organizations want the Honduran Constitution to be complied with, which requires free and informed consultation of the ancestral communities.

For Bermúdez, it is still at stake to completely stop the construction project of the hydroelectric plant, because although the works are paralyzed, the concession that the previous president granted to the Atala family is still in force.

Just as he hopes for progress during the Cáceres trial to reach the top of the chain of responsibilities and that in this way nothing like it will be repeated.

This is a case that can set a precedent for indigenous leaders, environmentalists and human rights defenders to do their work in peace.

Álvaro Bravo Gutiérrez

is a journalist specialized in international information and a contributor to different media.