Ezequiel Sanchez From Tegucigalpa. Today marks four years since the assassination of Honduran indigenous leader and environmentalist Berta Cáceres. To commemorate the occasion and reaffirm that Cáceres continues to live in the memory and actions of her people, in the “imaginary of resistance”, Página12 interviewed her daughter and successor. Bertha Zúñiga, the current General Coordinator…
Category: HONDURAS
Manuel Zelaya Rosales: “Lawfare is a Weapon Against the People”
Ricardo Arturo Salgado Bonilla Last week, a meeting of prominent figures was held at the European Parliament in Brussels to discuss the issue of Lawfare (the use of the judicial system for political persecution). This issue has become increasingly relevant in recent years as a result of the legal persecution of progressive leaders, especially in…
The Assassination of Berta Cáceres and the Imposition of the “Consultation” Law Developed by UNDP
On March 3rd, it will be four years since Berta Cáceres was murdered. An indigenous leader who constantly fought for the defence of indigenous peoples’ territories and the implementation of Free, Prior and Informed Consultation as a mechanism for the recognition and respect of indigenous peoples’ rights. Everything indicates that the bloody murder was a…
Targeted Killings and Racism in Honduras: Another Land Defender Dies
On January 11th our colleague, Ignacia Lopez Martinez, died. She was shot on December 28th in the Garifuna community of Masca. Doña Coty -a name she was known by- was 70 years old and was shot seven times at 8 pm on December 28th. She survived until January 11th. Apparently there is a strategy to…
Racism in Honduras: New Attack on Garifuna Leader in Masca
On the evening of Saturday, December 28, Mrs. Ignacia Piota Martinez, a Garifuna from the community of Masca, was attacked by a mestizo and sustained seven gunshot wounds. She was immediately taken to Puerto Cortés and later to San Pedro Sula where she is in stable condition. Ignacia, 70 years old, was the sister of…
Bertha Zúniga: “It is the Poorest Sentence the State of Honduras Could Have Delivered”
Albinson Linares From a very young age, Bertha Zúniga Cáceres knew the dangers faced by people who defend rivers, jungles, forests and territories. She saw how many of her parents’ friends disappeared, how they were killed, tortured and threatened for defending the environment. But nothing could prepare her for midnight on March 2, 2016, when…
COPINH Communiqué on the Reading of the Sentence in the Case of Berta Cáceres
After the reading of the sentence of the first trial against the perpetrators of the murder of our colleague Berta Cáceres, the daughters and son of Berta Cáceres, together with COPINH, make the following known: 1. Impunity does not end with the sentencing of the perpetrators. There is sufficient evidence to prosecute and punish members…
Enough of the Killings of the Garifuna People!
In response to the spate of murders of Garifunas that has occurred in recent months, we express our total rejection of the narrative of violence that has taken hold of Honduras, which is being used as political tool as well as a strategy of dispossession to foment the exodus, which has been institutionalized in Honduras….
Honduras: The Murder of Garífuna Teacher Digna Montero and the State’s Failure to Comply with the Sentence of the IACHR
The murder of the teacher Garífuna Digna Montero, which took place in the afternoon of October 12 in the community of Cusuna, is related to the defense of the ancestral territory of our people. The assassins, apparently mestizos from the community of Río Miel, escaped from the scene, driving motorcycles, leaving no time for the…
OFRANEH Declaration on the Extermination of the Leaders and Members of the Garifuna Communities
We, the Honduran Black Fraternal Organization (OFRANEH), express our deep concern about the escalation of violent deaths and the extermination of the inhabitants of the Garifuna communities, mainly women, without any investigation by the authorities into these murders. So far in the months of September and October, six (6) Garifuna women have been violently murdered…
Honduras: The Farce of the War on Drugs and Narco-Democracy
Since the 2009 coup d’état, Honduras has been turned into a political laboratory, making it possible to condense the history of the last decade into a narcocorrido where the blue and red car gangs dedicated themselves to drug trafficking and the looting of the country; all under the discreet gaze and complicity of the Obama…
Indigenous Land Defender, Milgen Idán Soto Ávila, Assassinated in Honduras
Zoe PC Milgen Idán Soto Ávila 29 years old, holds up a picture of his cousin Samael Matute, assassinated because of his struggle in defense of the territory and ancestral forest. Social movements in Honduras are mourning the assassination of Milgen Idán Soto Ávila, a 29-year-old member of the Tolupán Indigenous community and of the…
