10 years after the murder of Berta Cáceres

Ten years ago, on the night of March 2-3, 2016, the leader of the Lenca indigenous community, human rights activist and Honduran environmentalist Berta Caceres He was killed by gunmen in his home in the city of La Esperanza, the capital of the southwestern department of Intibucá. The government of the Central American country had ignored a 2009 order from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to provide him with police protection due to repeated threats against his life.

A mother of four, Berta, head of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (Copinh), had led the movement that in 2013 and 2014 succeeded in stopping the construction of a hydroelectric dam on the western Gualcarque River, considered by the Lenca people as sacred and crucial to their survival.

“Berta Cáceres was such a significant figure for the Lenca people, for the Honduran people, that even though a criminal act was committed against her, she is always invoked in territorial disputes, in the imaginary of resistance, in the need to transform the country due to the conditions of militarization, corporate dispossession, corruption, and widespread violence,” "Her daughter confirmed this in a 2020 interview with the Argentine newspaper Página 12." Bertha Zúñiga, General Coordinator of COPINH. And she elaborated: “It’s about saying that Berta will continue to sprout in many struggles, in new generations, in the struggles of women, which are so urgent and which are making a strong impact. That is what the legacy of Berta Cáceres means to us.”

Zúñiga added: “We must focus on preventing further crimes, on continuing to defend the rights of communities, the right to free, prior, and informed consultation, which is under threat. And we must see how to confront the extractive model more forcefully, because it continues to advance… The control of communities is advancing through the control of water. Privatizations, projects in response to the scarcity that is already beginning to be felt in many places. Dams, the use of water for mining, large tourism projects, restrictions on artisanal fishing and the promotion of industrial fishing. So many things are happening around water.”

Rescuing the struggle and teachings of the Honduran leader, in 2017 CLACSO established the Berta Cáceres Prize and Scholarship, which highlight “The struggle of women for equality in Latin America and the Caribbean.” The aim is to recognize and promote the dissemination of the scientific work of women who investigate the processes of production of discrimination, inequalities and gender injustices in their various manifestations such as femicides, segregation and other forms of violence against women.