Protests in Honduras over murder of human rights leader.
| Autor | Rodriguez, George |
Honduras has been mercilessly battered by corruption, violence, and impunity, and those who seek to fight this state of affairs place themselves at high risk--too frequently, at the highest risk. Activists who defend human rights, natural resources, justice, and the rule of law become targets for powerful forces that, feeling a threat to their interests when corruption is exposed, do not hesitate to kill.
The problem is not limited to Honduras, but also to other countries in the region like Guatemala (NotiCen, April 7, 2016).
Honduran history is filled with examples. The political murders of civil society leaders in the 1980s led to the creation of the Comite de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos en Honduras (Committee of Relatives of Detained and Disappeared People, COFADEH). The systematic violation of the rights of peasants and indigenous peoples led to the emergence, a decade later, of the Consejo Civico de Organizaciones Populares e Indigenas de Honduras (Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations, COPINH).
And now, after 23 years of a tenacious and risky struggle as a staunch activist for human rights in general and for the rights of women and indigenous peoples in particular, and as a strong advocate for natural resources, Berta Caceres has been gunned down. Caceres was also a leader of the Lenca people, the largest of the seven indigenous groups in Honduras.
But because of Caceres' relentless leadership, because her voice echoed beyond national borders and her commitment was uncompromising, her murder stands as an emblematic crime in Honduras' long history of violence. As such, and in the face of the national tradition of impunity for political killings, Caceres' assassination poses a major challenge to the Mision de Apoyo Contra la Corrupcion y la Impunidad en Honduras (Mission to Support the Fight against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras, MACCIH).
The work group was created by the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Honduran government (NotiCen, Nov. 12, 2015), which was already under pressure from the country's civil society, angered by last years' revelation that the Instituto Hondureno de Seguridad Social (IHSS) had been plundered, and allowed to collapse (NotiCen, July 2, 2015, Aug. 27, 2015, and Oct. 29, 2015).
For months, thousands of Hondurans, united as the Oposicion Indignada (Indignant Opposition), held weekly demonstrations demanding an independent investigation of the case, punishment for...
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