Francisco Javier,
member of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras
(COPINH), talks about the role of UN mechanisms in combatting the ongoing
impunity in investigations into the murder of Berta Cáceres, and emphasises
that risks for her colleagues are only increasing.
Lea este artículo en español aquí.
In response to the
ongoing threats against human rights defenders in Honduras, ISHR, along with
169 organizations and 16 academics, recently sent a letter to the
Attorney General Office and the Ministry of
Human Rights, Justice, Interior and Decentralisation in Honduras
calling on them to comply with their international human rights commitments.
You are a human rights
defender in Honduras, advocating for environmental and land rights, can you
tell us a bit about the human rights work you do?
We speak for indigenous
populations about protecting our common goods. We want to protect the forests,
river and air, and also our territories. COPINH has built capacity among
indigenous populations to help them understand that we are here to take care of
the gifts of nature – that we must defend the little that we have, otherwise
the nature will become a desert. As human rights defenders we have this obligation
and commitment to give support to other communities and indigenous peoples in
Honduras and in other countries. For example, we have colleagues in Panama
who are suffering the same challenges that we are. We’ve come here to talk
about these things, and to fight – not just for today
and
tomorrow, but for the generations to come, so that they may also be defenders
of natural resources.
What
motivated you to become involved in human rights work?
I am
only beginning; I started in 2013. COPINH was working with us and helping us to see our shared objective:
to defend nature. In each community, you will hear the same concerns: that the
rivers and forests – which are life for us – are being destroyed when they come
to construct mines, dams, and other deadly projects. In COPINH, we share this
information with communities, helping them to understand, so that all
indigenous peoples in Honduras can unite.
What challenges or risks
do you face as a human rights defender in Honduras?
Because we speak the
truth, they want to shut us up. They threaten to kill us because we tell the
truth. It is companies and the State that threaten and attack us; they don’t
like that we defend Mother Earth. When we denounce what seems wrong or unjust,
about when our decisions are not respected, that’s when we face risks. That’s
when they could kill us. But they won’t silence us. Even though they killed Berta
and other colleagues, we – and anyone else who joins us – raise our voices so
that we continue to grow. The spirit of Berta and our other comrades
accompany us. Because we are defending life
itself.
It may bring more threats, but they won’t silence us. We will continue, and
those who remain, and the generations that come, we will teach them to do the
same as us – to speak out for our rights.
Do you work a lot with
other organisations working to protect human rights defenders – national,
regional or international?
Yes, we’re very proud
because many organisations have given us support nationally and
internationally. We are very happy that we are not alone, that there are
people of goodwill who provide such support. When we come to Geneva, we feel at
home; we’re looked after.
What is the legislative
framework like for human rights defenders in Honduras– are there laws that
are applied abusively?
Human rights defenders are
prevented from speaking. The laws on free, informed and priorconsultation
aren’t being complied with in Honduras. Criminal laws are used against
indigenous peoples unjustly to criminalise us, and the judicial system supports
the companies, like DESA. Neither our autonomy nor our rights are respected.
When we speak the truth, the police and the military are set on us, and
sometimes they beat us. We want the military and police to leave
our territories. It’s not easy for us to speak out because it makes our lives
very challenging. They criminalise members of the indigenous peoples for saying
the truth, they even wanted to imprison Berta in 2013. Yet the architects
of
Berta’s assassination are at liberty.
What are your international
advocacy goals? What do you hope to achieve here?
We hope that the actors
within the UN will meet with us and consider all our requests. We want to speak the truth, and we want it to receive the attention it
deserves. We
want our decisions as indigenous peoples to be respected. We want Convention
169 and the UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples to be respected. In Honduras, they are not complied with, and so we have to seek
international support to pressure the State of Honduras to respect the
conventions and our rights. We await the cancellation of the Agua Zarca Project
and all the other projects authorised in the Lenca territory without free,
prior
and
informed consultation. We have to travel to ask leaders and officials to open
the door to us and to support us in demanding respect of our rights.
Do you think that this
advocacy at the international level can help you in your work? Can it be
useful?
Yes, we are very happy
because it has helped us a lot. We feel that we are not alone. At the
beginning, the Government of Honduras tried to hide the truth about Berta
Caceres’s murder, saying that it was a crime of passion, which is a lie. Thanks
to international pressure, they had to admit that it was a political crime. But
the State of Honduras continues to refuse to allow an independent international
Commission to participate in the investigations. The State is keeping the
investigations secret. We continue to call
for
an independent international Commission so that the powerful persons who
ordered the murder of Berta be properly investigated. We hope that the
international community will continue to demand it too. We are persecuted in
Honduras. The Inter-American Commission of Human Rights granted us Precautionary
Measures, but the police and military persecute and threaten us; we cannot
trust them.
We
hope to continue receiving international support to denounce the threats and
killings that we experience and that it extends to all indigenous leaders and
social movements that are threatened and attacked.
We want the Agua Zarca
Project to leave our Gualcarque River, which is sacred to us. There are international
banks that have financed this project, and we ask them to pull out
definitively.
Do you have any thoughts
on ways to make the UN more accessible and safe? Have the threats and
attacks increased as a result of your work within the UN?
It is important that the
UN listen to the voices of those of us who are being attacked and killed for defending
human rights. We are grateful that the report of the Special Rapporteur on
Indigenous Peoples exposes to the world what we suffer. We
need to have a secure space because we run risks.
Recently
we have been receiving more threats and much persecution, and that’s why we
feel unsafe. There
is still impunity for Berta’s murder, and there continue to be threats against
COPINH members for defending the Gualarque River and Lenca territory. There are
people who want to kill us so that we cannot speak the truth. But we will
continue to demand our rights, our autonomy as an Indigenous people and our
right to free, prior and informed consultation. We
hope that the UN will support us.
