Catholic aid agency CAFOD has called for justice, after the murder of a prominent environmentalist that CAFOD supported.
Following the news of the murder of Juan Lopez – anti-mining, environmentalist, community leader and Municipal Councillor of Tocoa, northern Honduras – who was shot dead by several men as he headed home in his car from church, Paz Redondo, CAFOD’s Country Representative for Central America said: “The assassination of Juan Lopez clearly shows once again the complicity between the authorities, international companies, and organised crime in Tocoa, and the inability of the government to protect environmental and human rights defenders in the emblematic case of the Guapinol river – despite the fact that precautionary measures had been ordered by the Interamerican Court of Human Rights – IACHR.“
Juan Lopez denounced the corruption within local and central governments in Honduras during a public press conference just before he was killed.
Paz Redondo continues: “Justice needs to be more than words for the state of Honduras, a state that shows once again its fragility and inability to combat corruption within its ranks, as it continues to serve the interests of extractives and organised crime. Juan publicly denounced this corruption within local and central governments and was killed days after his and his fellow activists’ latest public press conference.”
For over a decade, the communities of Guapinol, San Pedro and other areas in the vicinity of Tocoa have been denouncing the illegal granting of mining concessions in the “Carlos Escaleras National Park” in Honduras. Their advocacy efforts were fruitful in February, when the Honduran government approved Decree 18-2024 to protect the core zone of the national park, a key achievement to safeguard the environment against mining and energy projects in the area.
The murder of Juan Lopez is not the first killing in the Guapinol case. Over 160 community members in Tocoa have been killed protecting their land and natural resources since 2010 (Amnesty, 2024). In 2023, three community leaders were killed in what the community saw as retaliation, following the release of defenders who had been criminalised. Later in the year, in October 2023, 30 members of the Municipal Committee for the Defense of Common and Public Goods of Tocoa and of the Bufete Justicia para los Pueblos, were granted precautionary measures by the Human Rights Interamerican Court (IACHR).
Juan Lopez was killed despite precautionary measures which were ordered by the IACHR last October. The community of Tocoa believes his death could have been prevented if the Honduran authorities had implemented the precautionary measures granted to Juan Lopez. CAFOD, alongside ERIC has accompanied the Guapinol community in their fight to protect the land and natural resources essential for their survival, and we will continue supporting them as they defend their environmental rights.
In El Salvador, the suspects in the murder of four Dutch journalists will finally stand trial 42 years after the fact. The former Salvadorian Minister of Defense and two army officers will appear in court, NOS reports. See
On 6 July 2023 Oxfam issued a statement that it stands in solidarity with the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation (BGIWF), trade union leaders and all human rights defenders who stand up for workers’ rights and protect human rights.
Oxfam learned of the horrific news of the brutal murder of Shahidul Islam, a union leader who was beaten to death on June 25th for his labour rights activism in Gazipur, a major garment industry hub on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh. He was an organizer of the BGIWF for 25 years advocating for workers’ rights as a trade union organizer, and was attacked and killed for standing up for basic human rights. We mourn not only the loss of an individual but also the loss of a powerful voice that championed the rights and well-being of workers, including the right to a living wage. We extend our sincere condolences to the grieving family, friends, colleagues and allies mourning his loss.
Kalpona Akter, the president of BGIWF, said: “Shahidul mobilised thousands of workers to join unions, empowering them to become solid factory-level trade union leaders. Throughout his life, he assisted thousands of workers in receiving arrears and severance pay wrongfully denied by their employers. With workers’ needs always in mind, Shahidul and three other union leaders met on the evening of his death to discuss a peaceful resolution to a wage dispute and the Eid-ul-Azha festival bonus. He met his fate due to the industry’s ill practice to promote yellow unionism for years and the neglect of workers’ voices. This needs to stop. Let our workers be free to organize and join unions. Shahid’s contributions to the labour movement were remarkable and will be sorely missed.”
Ahmed Sharif, a union organizer who was wounded in the attack, told the Guardian “As soon as we came out of the gate, a group of assailants grabbed Islam and separated him from us. They started cursing and randomly beating us, particularly Islam, some of them were kicking him mercilessly.”
As an organisation dedicated to the fight to end poverty and injustice, we are deeply concerned by the murder of Shahidul Islam. This tragic incident highlights the vulnerability of union leaders and activists fighting for workers’ rights. Oxfam joins BGIWF in demanding a thorough investigation and ensure justice is served for the death of Islam. We further call on all brands and stakeholders to conduct ethical purchasing practices upholding human rights within their supply chain and paying a living wage. We call on the government of Bangladesh to step up their protection of trade unionists who are exercising their fundamental human rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining.
Oxfam stands in solidarity with BGIWF, raising a resounding call for justice in the case of Shahidul Islam and demanding the unwavering safety of workers, union members and human rights defenders. We stand united in their relentless struggle to defend workers’ rights at Prince Jacquard Sweaters Ltd factory and in workplaces across Bangladesh. Together we demand accountability and an end to the systemic violations that perpetuate injustice.
Background
Shahidul and his colleagues were attacked after leaving the meeting with the management of a factory named Price Jacquard Sweaters Ltd to help the workers collect their due bonuses and wages. The factory management refused to comply despite being directed by the Deputy Commissioner’s (DC) office of Gazipur District to pay the workers’ salaries.
This is not the first time BGIWF has been the victim of such a fatal attack. Eleven years ago, in April 2012, another worker leader, Aminul Islam was tortured and murdered. Aminul was also an organizer with BGIWF, a vital contributor to the nation’s striving movement to advance workers’ rights. The murders of human rights defenders exemplify the extreme measures employed to suppress freedom of association in Bangladesh.
The tragic death of Shahidul, along with countless incidents of other workers being silenced by violence and fear, highlight the urgent need for change. Brands are responsible for ethical business practices and need to ensure that their purchasing practices are not leading to exploitation and deprivation of human rights. Brands must guarantee the right to a living wage and just, safe and healthy working conditions for garment workers.
Despite legal provisions, union leaders and activists face many challenges and restrictions such as anti-union discrimination, harassment, and retaliation against union leaders and members. Additionally, labour activists have raised concerns about the composition and independence of worker participation committees in factories. Labour activists argue that these ‘yellow unions’ are established by factory owners to exert control on workers raising concerns of workers’ rights to collective bargaining and discriminatory power dynamics.
Oxfam Canada, Oxfam Australia and Oxfam Aotearoa’s What She Makes campaign aims to transform the fashion industry into a more just and equitable space by holding brands accountable for their purchasing practices and advocating for a living wage. A living wage is the minimum amount that a worker should earn in a 48-hour work week and adequately covers workers’ and their family’s basic needs, including food, water, housing, energy, healthcare, clothing, childcare, education, transportation and savings for unexpected events. We stand united with the women who make our clothes, advocating for their right to living wages, freedom of association and labour rights.
On 22 January 2023 Freedom Under Law (FUL) said that the news that eSwatini human rights lawyer Thulani Maseko has been gunned down in cold blood comes as no surprise. The eSwatini government said Maseko was brutally shot and killed by unknown criminals at his home in Mbabane on Saturday night. See: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/03464020-c1e6-11ea-a3f7-933e766692a6
“A ceaseless and fearless human rights lawyer, an outspoken critic of the regime in his beloved eSwatini, Thulani had all too long suffered at the hands of a heedless regime. But he lived by the motto: ‘My head is bloody, but unbowed … I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul’.
“Sadly, and to the shame of those engaged in the administration of justice in his country, all too often he was a lone beacon of light,” FUL chair judge Johann Kriegler said. He said no-one could be misled by the cynical message of condolence put out on behalf of the eSwatini government.
“His passing has not only left his family bereft of a loved one; his country has been left the poorer, its human rights conscience brutally stifled.”
FUL said in paying tribute to Maseko that it respectfully suggested it would be fitting if the Law Society of eSwatini were to mark his passing by observing January 21 every year as a day of mourning his death and rededication to the rule of law. “To his widow and family we express our grateful condolences. They have paid a bitter price on behalf of all who try to serve the principles for which their dear one lived.”
According to the eSwatini government, Maseko was shot by “unknown criminals”. “[His] demise is a loss to the nation, and his footprints as a human rights lawyer are there as proof of his contributions to the country. He will be surely missed,” it said in a statement. Spokesperson Alpheous Nxumalo said the country’s security forces had assured the government that they were already at work looking for the killers and would not rest until they have been brought to book. “Government also wants to warn against speculations and insinuations, peddled particularly on social media platforms in instances like these. Again, government distinctively disassociates… and the country’s authorities from these heinous acts.”
Maseko chaired the Multi-Stakeholders Forum, a collaboration of political parties and civil society groups working to amplify calls for democratic reforms.
In 2018, Maseko took Swaziland’s King Mswati III to court for changing the country’s name. He had argued that the resources to be channelled to the name change should rather go towards improving living standards of the poor, according to reports by City Press. In 2014, Maseko was sentenced to two years in prison, with the editor of news magazine The Nation, Bheki Makhubu, for contempt of court over articles critical of the government and judiciary. The Nation published articles co-authored by the two men which were critical of the chief justice and suggested that he may have abused his powers. See also: https://lawyersforlawyers.org/en/lawyers/thulani-maseko/
Reuters on 28 December 2020 reported that masked men armed with guns and machetes killed Felix Vasquez, a Honduran environmental rights defender, in front of his family, police said, the latest in a string of such attacks in the Central American country. [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/10/16/two-more-defenders-killed-in-honduras/]
“Police authorities immediately decided to initiate a corresponding investigation… we hope to have an answer soon,” police official Kevin Hernandez told journalists.
Vasquez, a member of the indigenous Lenca community which lives in the mountainous region near the border with El Salvador, had intended to run for Congress as a member of the opposition LIBRE party in 2021 elections.
Carla Gomez and Nestor P. Burgos Jr. wrote for the Philippine Daily Inquirer of 24 December, 2020 “Goodbye, ‘people’s doctor” about the burial of Guihulngan City health officer Mary Rose Sancelan and her husband, Edwin. White balloons were released during the couple’s burial.
“Our people’s doctor (Mary Rose) dedicated her life to end both the COVID-19 pandemic and the pandemic of injustice. [But] our beloved martyr took eight bullets on our behalf; and her husband, Edwin, took five. Sadly, their son, Red Emmanuel, bears all the pain of the violent demise of his parents. Together, we accompany him in his quest for justice,” San Carlos Bishop Gerardo Alminaza said during the funeral Mass at the Our Lady of Buensuceso Parish Church.
Mary Rose, Guihulngan’s health officer and chief of the city’s Inter-Agency Task Force Against Emerging Infectious Diseases, and her husband were on board a motorcycle on their way home to Carmeville on 15 Decemeer when they were shot by two men on board another motorcycle that drove alongside them.
The attack came about a year after Mary Rose expressed fears over her safety after she was red-tagged by a group called Kawsa Guihulnganon Batok Komunista (or “Kagubak,” loosely translated as Concerned Guihulnganons against Communists). She was the first on the list of Guihulngan residents whom the anti-communist vigilante group Kagubak accused of being supporters of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army (NPA).
The list, which was released in 2018, identified her as Ka JB Regalado, then spokesperson for the Apolinario Gatmaitan Command of the NPA.
Bishop Alminaza appealed to the faithful to wear white on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day “to express our desire for and commitment to peace, sanctity of life, human dignity and human rights, and our collective call to end the killings, the COVID-19 pandemic and the abuse of our common home.”
Alminaza said the International Criminal Court, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other agencies have more reasons to demand from the Philippine government accountability for the rampant human rights violations and the absence of the rule of law.
“We can never speak of peace when the bloodbath continues. We are not Christians at all if we use violence in the name of enforced peace. Peace is real when we stop firing our guns, when we refuse to pull the trigger on a person’s life, and when we stop becoming enablers of injustice,” the bishop said. “It is sad that militarization defines our peace and order, not the security of our citizens. We call on our city to seriously work for justice among the citizens living in Guihulngan. We call upon our mayor and city officials to take to heart their utmost duty to protect the people in this city. We challenge our local government to not become a political hostage of this oppressive killing policy,” he added. The Sancelans’ relatives declined to issue any statement, saying they wanted to keep their mourning private.
In a pastoral message, Alminaza reiterated the need to end the killings in Negros. “Our island awaits the day when the blood from the pandemic of violence stops flowing. When will our priests in the diocese end burying victims of these orchestrated acts of terrorism?” he said. The killing of the Sancelan couple is among the 106 cases of extrajudicial killings recorded on Negros Island under the Duterte administration. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/08/22/the-killing-of-randy-echanis-and-zara-alvarez-put-the-philippines-under-more-pressure/]
“As your pastor, I am taking the mantle of the cause of their martyrdom. We stress that merely speaking about this senseless violence in our midst is not enough. Our collective outrage should move us to collectively act against it,” Alminaza said.
International media (here CNN) reported on 11 November 2020 on the killing of prominent Libyan lawyer and women’s rights activist Hanan al-Barassi, who was gunned down by armed men Tuesday in the eastern city of Benghazi. Her killing in Benghazi, which falls under the control of the Libyan National Army (LNA), came just a day after she shared comments on social media criticizing the son of renegade military general and LNA leader Khalifa Haftar. “The assassination of human rights defenders and opinion-holders and the silencing of voices is a heinous crime and a disgraceful form of tyranny and a desperate attempt to destroy hope for the establishment of a civil and democratic state,” Libya’s Interior Minister, Fathi Bashagha, tweeted Tuesday.
According to the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), al-Barassi — whom the mission describes as a “vocal critic of corruption, abuse of power and human rights violations” — was shot “in broad daylight” by unidentified armed men. “Her tragic death illustrates the threats faced by Libyan women as they dare to speak out,” UNSMIL added. In videos posted publicly on her Facebook page, al-Barassi expressed criticism of figures loyal to the LNA. In a livestream shared on Monday, just a day before her killing, al-Barassi said she would not be silenced by threats. “I won’t surrender, only with bullets will I ever surrender — if I die, so be it. Only in death will I be silenced. Tomorrow I will have several surprises [to share], several surprises,” she told viewers. The LNA has not yet responded to a CNN request for comment on al-Barassi’s death.
Elham Saudi, the director of Lawyers for Justice in Libya, an organization which seeks to defend and promote human rights in the conflict-ridden country, called the attack an “appalling and painful reminder of the reality on the ground” for women in Libya. “With no accountability, violators will continue to get away with literal murder in broad daylight,” she added.Al-Barassi’s killing follows a series of attacks against those critical of forces aligned to the LNA.
“The killing of an outspoken lawyer in broad daylight in Benghazi will send chills through activists across the region,” said Hanan Salah, senior Libya researcher at Human Rights Watch. “This brutal killing smacks of a cold-blooded execution. The only way to end this cycle of violence is if authorities hold criminals to account for these terrible acts.”
In the Daily Maverick of 1 November 2020 Estelle Ellis tells the sad story of murdered land rights defender Fikile Ntshangase in South Africa
A strongly worded statement from a large number of civil society organisations in South Africa has condemned the death of KwaZulu-Natal community activist Fikile Ntshangashe who was gunned down in her home last week as lawyers were preparing for a groundbreaking appeal fighting an order that her community organisation and those who assisted them should pay for a failed attempt to stop further mining operations in the area.
“I refused to sign. I cannot sell out my people. And if need be, I will die for my people.” This was the quote that activists remembered Mama Fikile Nsthangashe by after she was gunned down in her home at Ophondweni near Mtubatuba on 22 October 2020.
As the vice-chairperson of a sub-committee of the Mfolozi Community Environmental Justice Organisation (MCEJO), she was deeply involved in the challenge against the further expansion of a large coal mine at Somkele in KwaZulu-Natal by Tendele Coal Mining (Pty) Ltd. She was described by her fellow activists as a strong, passionate and principled leader.
On Tuesday the Supreme Court of Appeal will hear one of Nsthangashe’s final stands – an appeal in the case brought by MCEJO to stop the mining operations in the area.
According to a joint statement issued by environmental rights NGO Groundworks; Earthlife Africa; Global Environmental Trust, Mining Affected Communities United in Action, the Mfolozi Community Environmental Justice Organisation, the Southern Africa Human Rights Defenders Network and Women Against Mining United in Action the South African Police were called on to act swiftly and arrest those responsible for her death.
The statement alleges that four gunmen arrived at Ntshangashe’s home on 22 October 2020 at about 18:30. Her 11-year-old grandson was with her. She was shot five times and died at the scene.
“Tendele’s coal mining operations have caused untold destruction of the environment and the homes and livelihoods of the residents of Somkhele,” the statement reads. “Over the past few months, tension has been rising in the community over the proposed expansion of Tendele’s operations, and [her organisation’s] opposition to that expansion … Recently, Tendele was pushing for an agreement to be signed between MCEJO and Tendele to the effect that MCEJO would withdraw its Court challenges of Tendele’s expansion of its coal mine at Somkhele. Mama Ntshangase refused to sign the agreement, which certain of her fellow sub-committee members signed, purportedly doing so on behalf of the organisation … She warned sub-committee members that they had no power to make decisions on behalf of MCEJO and that the agreement only benefited Tendele. She also refused to attend any of the secret meetings that other sub-committee members held with Tendele. Days before her brutal killing, Mama Ntshangase stated her intention to write an affidavit, revealing that sub-committee members had spoken to her of a payment of R350,000 in return for her signature,” she added.
According to the statement the expansion of the mine would require the relocation of 21 families (19 of them MCEJO members) from their ancestral land. Many of these families have lived on their land for generations.
“We mourn the senseless tragedy of Mama Ntshangase’s murder, and condemn her killing. We call on the South African Police Service to act swiftly to arrest and prosecute her murderers,” the statement concluded.
Martin Mosweu from the Southern Africa Resource Watch said he was deeply saddened and angered by the killing of Ntshangase.
“She was hailed as a courageous human rights defender by her community for standing against the Tendele Coal Mine expansion in violation of the right to a safe environment. The murder of Fikile Ntshangase is a cause of concern to the work of human rights defenders in South Africa and in the SADC region. Governments are failing in their international obligations to the Declaration of Human Rights by not protecting and supporting human rights defenders in the context of their work. In Southern Africa, people who live near mines continue to face threats of violence and intimidation from mining companies who blatantly disregard their socio-economic, land, and environmental rights. Human rights defenders continue to be threatened and killed for standing up against powerful mining companies that violate human rights, often with impunity and tacit support from governments. This is why many mining communities throughout the region are now taking a stand and demanding a new order, insisting on extractive projects that secure a beneficial win-win relationship, free and prior informed consent in involuntary displacements, and community engagement in all stages of the mining cycle for inter-generational sustainable livelihoods,” he added.
Papers filed at the Supreme Court of Appeal for a hearing on Tuesday, in one of the last battles that Ntshangase had been passionately fighting on behalf of her community, has painted a stark picture of the conflict in the area.
The appeal, brought by MCEJO and the Global Environmental Trust is against the refusal by the Pietermaritzburg High Court to issue an interdict to stop mining operations in the area.
The community claimed that the mine did not have the necessary environmental authorisation, lacked land use authorisation, had not removed or altered the traditional graves in the area according to law and had failed to comply with the Waste Act.
The mine, however, argued that it had all the valid mining rights and permissions to carry on with its operations. In papers filed at court, lawyers for Tendele, stressed that their operations were conducted in terms of valid Mining Rights and Environmental Management Programmes granted and approved by the Department of Mineral Resources in 2006 and that while the legislative framework had changed there were transitional measures put in place for mines like Tendele.
This, according to papers before court included the waste management at the mine.
According to papers filed at the Supreme Court of Appeal the Centre for Environmental Rights (CER), represented by advocate Max du Plessis SC; intervened in the matter because of its concerns that the judgment opened the door for mining companies to operate illegally. The CER also expressed its concern over a cost order made in the original case as this “would discourage communities from approaching the courts to defend their constitutional rights through the fear of being debilitated by having to pay the legal costs of industry and the state”.
“They build dams and kill people.” These words, spoken by a witness when the murderers of environmental defender Berta Cáceres were brought to trial in Honduras, describe Desarrollos Energéticos SA (DESA), the company whose dam project Berta opposed. DESA was created in May 2009 solely to build the Agua Zarca hydroelectric scheme, using the waters of the Gualcarque River, regarded as sacred by the Lenca communities who live on its banks. As Nina Lakhani makes clear in her book Who Killed Berta Cáceres?, DESA was one of many companies to benefit from the 2009 coup d’état in Honduras, when the left-leaning President Manuel Zelaya was deposed and replaced by a sequence of corrupt administrations. The president of DESA and its head of security were both US-trained former Honduran military officers, schooled in counterinsurgency. By 2010, despite having no track record of building dams, DESA had already obtained the permits it needed to produce and sell electricity, and by 2011, with no local consultation, it had received its environmental licence.
..Lakhani quotes a high-ranking judge she spoke to, sacked for denouncing the 2009 coup, as saying that Zelaya was deposed precisely because he stood in the way of this economic model and the roll-out of extractive industries that it required. The coup “unleashed a tsunami of environmentally destructive ‘development’ projects as the new regime set about seizing resource-rich territories.” After the post-coup elections, the then president Porfirio Lobo declared Honduras open for business, …….
Lakhani’s book gives us an insight into the personal history that brought Berta Cáceres to this point. She came from a family of political activists. As a teenager she read books on Marxism and the Cuban revolution. But Honduras is unlike its three neighbouring countries where there were strong revolutionary movements in the 1970s and 1980s. The US had already been granted free rein in Honduras in exchange for “dollars, training in torture-based interrogation methods, and silence.”… At the age of only 18, looking for political inspiration and action, Berta left Honduras and went with her future husband Salvador Zúñiga to neighbouring El Salvador. She joined the FMLN guerrilla movement and spent months fighting against the US-supported right-wing government. Zúñiga describes her as having been “strong and fearless” even when the unit they were in came under attack. But in an important sense, her strong political convictions were tempered by the fighting: she resolved that “whatever we did in Honduras, it would be without guns.”
Inspired also by the Zapatista struggle in Mexico and by Guatemala’s feminist leader Rigoberta Menchú, Berta and Salvador created COPINH in 1993 to demand indigenous rights for the Lenca people, organising their first march on the capital Tegucigalpa in 1994. From this point Berta began to learn of the experiences of Honduras’s other indigenous groups, especially the Garífuna on its northern coast, and saw how they fitted within a pattern repeated across Latin America….
In Río Blanco, where the Lenca community voted 401 to 7 against the dam, COPINH’s struggle continued. By 2013, the community seemed close to winning, at the cost of activists being killed or injured by soldiers guarding the construction. They had blocked the access road to the site for a whole year and the Chinese engineering firm had given up its contract. The World Bank allegedly pulled its funding, although Lakhani shows that its money later went back into the project via a bank owned by the Atala Faraj family. In April 2015 Berta was awarded the Goldman Prize for her “grassroots campaign that successfully pressured the world’s largest dam builder to pull out of the Agua Zarca Dam.”
…….
The horrific events on the night of Wednesday March 2 are retold by Nina Lakhani. Armed men burst through the back door of Berta’s house and shot her. They also injured Gustavo Castro, who was visiting Berta; he waited until the men had left, found her, and she died in his arms. ,,,By the first anniversary of Berta’s death the stuttering investigation had led to eight arrests, but the people who ordered the murder were still enjoying impunity. Some of the accused were connected to the military, which was not surprising since Lakhani later revealed in a report for The Guardian that she had uncovered a military hit list with Berta’s name on it. In the book she reports that the ex-soldier who told her about it is still in hiding: he had seen not only the list but also one of the secret torture centers maintained by the military.
Nina Lakhani is a brave reporter. She had to be. Since the coup in Honduras, 83 journalists have been killed; 21 were thrown in prison during the period when Lakhani was writing her book. She poses the question “would we ever know who killed Berta Cáceres?” and sets out to answer it. Despite her diligent and often risky investigation, she can only give a partial answer. Those arrested and since convicted almost certainly include the hitmen who carried out the murder, but it is far from the clear that the intellectual authors of the crime have been caught. In 2017 Lakhani interviewed or attempted to interview all eight of those imprisoned and awaiting trial, casting a sometimes-sympathetic light on their likely involvement and why they took part.
….
In September 2018, the murder case finally went to trial, and Lakhani is at court to hear it, but the hearing is suspended. On the same day she starts to receive threats, reported in London’s Press Gazette and duly receiving international attention. Not surprisingly she sees this as an attempt to intimidate her into not covering the trial. Nevertheless, when it reopens on October 25, she is there. The trial reveals a weird mix of diligent police work and careful forensic evidence, together with the investigation’s obvious gaps. Not the least of these was the absence of Gustavo Castro, the only witness, whose return to Honduras was obstructed by the attorney general’s office. Castillo, though by then charged with masterminding the murder, was not part of the trial. Most of the evidence was not made public or even revealed to the accused. The Cáceres family’s lawyers were denied a part in the trial.
“The who did what, why and how was missing,” says Lakhani, “until we got the phone evidence which was the game changer.” The phone evidence benefitted from an expert witness who explained in detail how it implicated the accused. She revealed that an earlier plan to carry out the murder in February was postponed. She showed the positions of the accused on the night in the following month when Berta was killed. She also made clear that members of the Atala family were involved.
When the verdict was delivered on November 29 2018, seven of the eight accused were found guilty, but it wasn’t until December 2019 that they were given long sentences. That’s where Nina Lakhani’s story ends. By then Honduras had endured a fraudulent election, its president’s brother had been found guilty of drug running in the US, and tens of thousands of Hondurans were heading north in migrant caravans. David Castillo hasn’t yet been brought to trial, and last year was accused by the School of Americas Watch of involvement in a wider range of crimes. … Daniel Atala Midence, accused by COPINH of being a key intellectual author of the crime as DESA’s chief financial officer, has never been indicted.
...And a full answer to the question “Who Killed Berta Cáceres?” is still awaited.
With all eyes on the pandemic it is easy to forget that “violence as usual” continues against human rights defenders. Here one case:
Human Rights Defender, Iris Argentina Álvarez, was killed on 2 April 2020, by private security agents from the company CRAE´S, employed by the La Grecia Sugar Mill. Her murder took place during a violent, illegal eviction in the Los Chanchos section of Marcovia, Choluteca in the South of Honduras. Community witnesses report that National Police officers were in the area when the aggressors opened fire against several families with many children. They affirm that the police did absolutely nothing to stop the violence that ended the life of the defender and left two other people wounded, including an underage child.
The Business and Human Rights Resource Centre attempted to contact La Grecia sugar mill but was not succesful and CRAE´S private security company did not respond.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 