“They with shots, we with drums”: this is how the women of Latin America defend the land

Her name was Berta Cáceres and she was murdered on March 2, 2016, in her home in Honduras.

The construction of a hydroelectric dam threatened the Gualcarque River, sacred to the Lenca community, and she led the resistance of her people.

She was annoying.

The crime—in which the company developing the project was involved—was a message for all environmentalists, but it failed.

The seed of resistance had already been planted and was growing freely and rebelliously within her daughter, Berta Zúñiga.

The same one she had previously planted the first of the three women who share her name, her mother, Austra Berta Flores.

They continued their fight without giving in and now their stories, along with those of many other women from the continent, gain voice in

Las guardianas

, a podcast prepared by the production company of filmmakers Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal,

La Corriente del Golfo

, together with the

Antifaz

platform

, and narrated by Brazilian actress and activist Alice Braga.

People participate in a protest during the trial of Bertha Cáceres, in July 2021 in Tegucigalpa (Honduras).Delmer Membreno (Getty Images)

"Their struggle is our struggle.

It's mainly because of the climate, but also because of human rights.

What happened in Brazil after Bolsonaro's arrival is very, very brutal,” says Alice Braga, who talks to the newspaper by video call from her home in Rio de Janeiro.

Throughout the six chapters that make up the narrative, the actress will talk about Garifuna and Lenca women in Honduras, like Berta Cáceres, but also about the indigenous Mayans in Mexico, about the defenders of the favelas in Brazil and about those who fight by the Wayúu community in Colombia.

Those are—Honduras, Mexico, Brazil and Colombia—the four most lethal countries for the guardians of the territory, that is why they were chosen for this project, and they are all, in reality, intertwined.

“They are very similar stories.

The question of money and progress is behind it.

In the name of enrichment and progress, the planet and many people are being killed.

When that happens, who is progress for?” Braga objects.

There the interests of various actors converge: companies, drug trafficking, corrupt governments.

All the stories question a concept of development that threatens native communities, but it is not only about denouncing the abuses that are committed here and there but above all about recovering hope in a common future.

“When we talk it seems very utopian, but it is not so utopian.

I think that when we tell stories, and as an actress I make a living from this, we can try to change people with art, and this podcast is still a little piece of art.

If this inspires at least two people to change, to fight with them or to expand their voices, it is already a form of hope,” says the activist, who also prepares another podcast focused on Brazilian indigenous communities, “a happy coincidence.” .

Precisely, if something characterizes these women, it is an iron faith that things can change.

And also a relationship with the land different from that of men.

“In their case, heritage is always very present.

The assets, the income,” explains one of the Mayan guardians, Nora Tzec, in the podcast: “We talk about our children, about the means of life.”

In many territories they cannot even inherit titles.

For women, the earth is, above all, the “space where life happens,” in the words of Alice Braga.

That is why they understand their own body as the first territory they must defend.

“Focusing on them was a very clear way of saying: no more,” details the actress.

Actress Alice Braga.The Gulf Stream

Their way of defending themselves is also deeply peaceful.

“The first day, in 2011, we came from different communities, we brought six or seven buses and there we made houses with nylon, because we came determined to recover our lands, and at night the shooting started,” says Karen García in the fifth episode. , belonging to the Garifuna community of Vallecito, in Honduras, where they not only face plunder and palm monocultures by companies but also drug trafficking disputes.

“They shot from a good distance, as if to intimidate us,” she continues, “but they didn't succeed”: “They with their shots, with their weapons, and we with our drums.”

Music plays an essential role in the culture of these communities and the podcast is consistent with this.

Together with the voice of Alice Braga, Petrona Martínez's songs work like a thread that runs through and unites all the chapters.

She, also with her drums, recovered bullerengue, a musical genre composed of African rhythms brought to Latin America by slaves in colonial times.

References to that period are frequent because history is in constant dialogue with the present.

But communities also look for ways to communicate with each other, to give each other strength.

The victory of a lawsuit against deforestation in the Colombian Amazon inspired Mayan women from Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula to wage their battle against a mega pig farm that threatened the water in their cenotes.

They also managed to paralyze operations, although the fight against these macro installations has not stopped.

Alice Braga is inspired by the strength, commitment and dedication of these defenders who do not give in to threats.

Why do they continue with this fight that sometimes costs them even their lives?

Wayúu Luz Ángela Uriana responds: “For life, for children, for the territory.

“An indigenous community without territory is not a community.”

Pig farms of the Keken company in Opichén (State of Yucatán), in July 2022.Hector Vivas (Getty Images)

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