Honduran activist’s legacy grows a year after her killing
TEGUCIGALPA: The killing of land rights campaigner Berta Caceres has unleashed a wave of activism in support of women and the environment, said friends, colleagues, and family commemorating the first anniversary of the Honduran’s death.
The indigenous activist has become a figurehead for protests in her home country since she was shot and killed on March 3, 2016, after receiving death threats over her opposition to a hydroelectric dam project.
Speaking on the anniversary of her death, Caceres’s mother, Austra Flores, said her daughter’s “horrendous” murder had started a legacy of resistance against enivonmentally destructive developments and violence towards activists.
“The assassins were wrong when they thought they killed her, because she continues to live through millions of young people. She lives from beyond,” Flores told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview at her home.
Demonstrations demanding justice for Caceres have taken place in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, over the past year and banners bearing her image have been raised at protests for women’s, indigenous, and land rights across Latin America.
On Wednesday this week, hundreds marched on Honduras’ Supreme Court, amid chants of “Berta is not dead”, to submit a legal challenge against the hydroelectric project she had fought to prevent.
Caceres won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in 2015 for leading opposition to the $50 million Agua Zarca dam that threatened to displace hundreds of indigenous people.
Speaking to demonstrators, Caceres’ daughter, also called Berta, said her mother’s death had been an inestimable loss for all the people of Honduras.
Six people, including an employee of the hydroelectric company and Honduran military personnel, have been arrested since the 43-year-old teacher was killed by two men at her home in La Esperanza, 180 kms west of Tegucigalpa.
But protesters on the march said they were angry that authorities had failed to investigate business and government figures they accuse of orchestrating the crime.