COPINH Calls to Respect the Will of the Honduran People

(AQUI en español)

The Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) calls for the respect of Honduran people’s will who took a position against continuity and dictatorship on November 26 and has communicated the decision to get the dictator Juan Orlando Hernandez (JOH) out of the Presidency.

COPINH is a popular organization that fundamentally believes in community and grassroots political processes that make political participation a daily struggle and not just a call every four years to change executioners. However, despite all the manipulation, vote buying, clientelism and deceit, the Honduran people have clearly stated that they don’t want to continue to live in the violent situation imposed by the JOH government which represents a continuation of the 2009 coup d’etat and is an ally of the oligarchic economic structures. The people have expressed, even in the highly controlled and manipulated electoral process, that this coup-supporting, racist, extractivist government only represents hatred and death.

The Honduran people don’t forget that this government is complicit in the assassination of our General Coordinator Berta Cáceres and have expressed this belief in thousands of public protests and in the most recent, last Sunday. The people know the complicity of JOH’s government with DESA’s owners and the powers that be - unpunished murderers that are protected by a cloak of impunity that the corrupt and colonialist state enables.  

The same hate and fear that persecuted and assassinated Berta is the same that wants to impose a dictatorship by means of violence and fraud. What has occurred in the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) and the divulgation of votes is a large crude lie that reflects the dirty, lying nature of the state. The delay in the divulgation of results, like the ambiguities in their public announcements are a clear sign of the development of fraud. The sudden reduction of the percentage differences favoring JOH, is also a demonstration of this.

The structural changes that this country needs cannot be achieved through a voting process but instead through means of liberating practices of our peoples, in the defense of our territories, our autonomies, and living alternatives to capitalism in which life, dignity and liberty come before business and profit. For this reason, our organization will remain vigilant in the fulfillment of the will of the people.

COPINH calls to defend the decision of the people to avoid dictatorship. We call on all popular and grassroots organizations to not only defend their decision but to unite and pronounce in favor of the construction of the society we want. We convoke the entire international community to be observers of the events that will unfold in the coming days, to avoid a blood bath in what may be a new coup d’etat perpetrated by the same elite political class.

With the ancestral force of Berta, Lempira Mota, Iselaca y Etempia, we raise our voices full of life, justice, liberty, dignity and peace.

Written in La Esperanza, Intibucá, November 29, 2017 

Statement by Senator Patrick Leahy on the Need for Justice in Honduras

(Senate - November 09, 2017)

(en ESPAÑOL)

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I want to speak about a subject that many Senators are aware of and should be deeply concerned about.

As we remember, in the early morning hours of March 3, 2016, Honduras lost one of its most courageous and charismatic indigenous leaders, Berta Caceres. 

Ms. Caceres was the general coordinator of the  
National Council  of  Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, COPINH.

She was gunned down by assassins in her home in the village of La Esperanza, Intibuca.

Berta Caceres spent her life defending indigenous rights, particularly to land and natural resources. In 2015, she won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize for her outstanding activism and leadership. She and COPINH had been supporting land struggles throughout western Honduras, and because of that--because she was exercising rights guaranteed by Honduran law and international law--she and the communities that she and COPINH supported were the frequent targets of death threats.

MORE>>>

Fake Honduran Twitter: the digital campaign against Berta Cáceres and COPINH

Erin Gallagher 

https://medium.com/@erin_gallagher/fake-honduran-twitter-the-digital-campaign-against-berta-c%C3%A1ceres-and-copinh-3d1ea62e61ab

A network of fake accounts tweeted a smear campaign against Berta Cáceresand COPINH three months before Berta was murdered. This was just one component of a larger campaign that was waged against COPINH for years due to their opposition to the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam project.

A new report by an independent team of attorneys linked Berta’s assassination to the highest levels of Capital Energy Development SA de CV (DESA), the company whose hydroelectric dam project Berta and COPINH were protesting.   MORE>>>

Twenty months have passed since the assassination of Berta

Twenty months have passed since the night of the vile assassination of Berta Cáceres, General Coordinator of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras. During this time the Honduran authorities have demonstrated a lack of political will to prosecute those who ordered her murder, confront the structural causes of her death, or end the persecution of those who defend their territory in Honduras.

Those who wanted to take the life of Berta Cáceres and thereby try to end to the fierce struggle of COPINH and the Lenca people have been hiding behind a cloak of impunity. Nonetheless, with just minimal access to information, an international group of advisors was able to conduct an independent investigation and unveil the network of corruption, cruelty, persecution and hatred behind her murder, and the perpetrators at the center of it, members of the DESA corporation.

In view of the above, the undersigned support COPINH’s demands to the Honduran authorities with respect to:

 1. The arrest, trial and conviction of those who ordered and planned the murder of Berta Cáceres and the persecution of COPINH.

2. Cancellation of the concession along the Gualcarque River granted to Desarrollos Energéticos S.A. (DESA), which the GAIPE report clearly shows formed part of a criminal and murderous network.

3. Assurance of a true investigation into the crime against Berta Cáceres, through the dismissal of all the people involved in the case and the creation of a new investigation team subject to oversight by international organizations.

4. The adoption of effective and immediate measures of safety and protection for the legal team, COPINH, and Berta's family, who are involved in the case in pursuit of justice.

Berta lives!

Signatures:  ALL Signatures until November 6, 2017.

DESA Killed Berta! Capture the people who gave the orders!

(EN ESPAÑOL)
On March 4^th of 2016, just a few hours after the assassination of our Coordinator Berta Cáceres, COPINH and the daughters and son of our sister denounced that her assassination stemmed from the struggle that she lead against the DESA corporation because of the Río Blanco community’s opposition to the Agua Zarca project of death.

Today, 20 months after her assassination, the investigators from GAIPE have corroborated with the upmost possible objectivity the unequivocal link between this killer corporation, its owners, directors and employers in the persecution, criminalization, and stigmatization that she suffered, as well as the planning, coordination and execution of the killing.

The corroboration of the actions leading to her assassination doesn’t come from witnesses or hypotheses. It comes from the words of the actors themselves, from their phone conversations, text messages and WhatsApp messages. They implicated themselves. The key information comes from their own words.

The information analyzed by GAIPE is the same that the Attorney General has had in its possession since at least May 2^nd, 2016, which means that for over a year and a half the authorities had the proof and have not had even a minimal inclination to go after the plotters. A mantle of impunity envelops the whole investigation, as we have denounced since the beginning. All of the irregularities, the theft of information, the lack of transparency, the illegalities, the setbacks and suspensions of hearings have now been revealed to be the Honduran Attorney General’s office trying to cover up those who plotted the crime, obviously pressured by the executive and the business groups behind the assassination.

It shows once again that the State has been taken over by a murderous mafia and that we, the Honduran people, and especially the indigenous peoples, are its victims. It shows once again that the economic elites who benefited from the 2009 coup d’état think that they can do whatever they want without having to pay the consequences.

COPINH is not opposed to development in Honduras, what we oppose is this “development” that means the death of our communities, our identity and our territories. We oppose deceitful people filling their pockets at the expense of our dead, at the expense of the death of Berta Cáceres and all of those of us who struggle against this unjust system where the majority is repressed for the benefit of a small economic elite.

The production of supposedly “renewable energy” or “clean energy” are just the cheap words of businessmen who see energy production as a business and are willing to roll over any and everything, including the law and the people, in order to maximize their profits.

The assassination of Berta Cáceres will not remain in impunity. COPINH, the Lenca people and all dignified people in Honduras and the world will fight until the final consequences for their to be justice, for the plotters to be punished and so that no more of these deaths occur. So that as peoples we can continue to defend our territories.

The corporation Desarrollos Energéticos S.A. led by David Castillo, members of the Atala Zablah family, and other directors, the builder of the Hydroelectric Project of death Agua Zarca, financed by the CABEI, FMO and FinnFund banks, supported by USAID, SERNA (MiAmbiente), Banco Ficohsa, Voyth Hydro-Siemens, the armed forces of Honduras, the National Police and private security forces, the COHEP and the AHER, was the corporation that assassinated Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores. We have said it since the beginning and it has been confirmed by the recent investigation.

Because of this, COPINH demands:

1. The capture, prosecution and punishment of all of those who ordered and plotted the assassination of Berta Cáceres and the persecution of COPINH.

2. The cancellation of the concession along the Gualcarque River to the criminal and murderous corporation Desarrollos Energéticos S.A. DESA.

3. Assurances of a real investigation into the crime against Berta Cáceres, by removing all of those involved in the case and creating a new investigation team under the oversight of international organizations.

4. The adoption of effective and immediate measures of protection and security for the legal team, COPINH and the family, all of whom are involved in the case seeking justice.

We call on Honduran society not to allow this case to remain in impunity, justice for Berta means justice for our people and for the many people assassinated at the hands of corporate and State criminals.

We call on Honduran organizations and grassroots social movements to continue forward in defense of our territories and lives. To demonstrate that Berta didn’t die, she multiplied.

We call on international solidarity to join us in these demands for justice.

Berta lives on, COPINH is strong!

What do we demand? Justice!

Punish the plotters!

#DesaAsesina

#20MesesSinJusticia

#JusticiaParaBerta

#DondeEstanLosAutoresIntelectales

With the ancestral strength of Berta, Iselaca, Lempira, Mota and Etempica we raise our voices full of life, justice, dignity, freedom and peace!

La Esperanza, Intibucá, November 3^rd, 2017