Honduran environmentalist murdered
TEGUCIGALPA: Honduran indigenous activist Berta Caceres, an award-winning environmentalist, was shot and killed in her home Thursday, her family said, labeling her death an assassination.
Caceres won the 2015 Goldman Prize, considered the world’s top award for grassroots environmental activism, for leading the indigenous Lenca people in a struggle against a hydroelectric dam project that would flood large areas of native lands and cut off water supplies to hundreds.
Caceres’s mother, Berta Flores, said police had indicated her daughter was killed in a robbery, “but we all know it was because of her struggle.”
Caceres, a 43-year- old mother of four who had received death threats for her activism, was shot dead in the early hours of Thursday at her home in the western town of La Esperanza, Flores told TV network Globo.
In awarding her the prize, the Goldman organization commended her for carrying on her campaign despite the threats, writing: “Her murder would not surprise her colleagues, who keep a eulogy – but hope to never have to use it. Despite these risks, she maintains a public presence in order to continue her work.”
President Juan Orlando Hernandez called the killing ‘a crime against Honduras’ and vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice, while the secretary general of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, condemned the crime as “horrific.”
As Caceres’ body lay in a hall at a union headquarters in the Honduran capital late Thursday, supporters outside shouted, “Berta is alive, the fight goes on.”
Some 3,000 students blocked a road elsewhere in Tegucigalpa before police dispersed them with teargas.
Honduras, which has seen an explosion of gang violence in recent years, has one of the highest murder rates in the world.
Security Minister Julian Pacheco said police arrested two people, a security guard at the complex where Caceres lived and another suspect who was wounded, but he did not give further details on the investigation.
He said police had measures in place to protect Caceres, who recently won a ruling by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights granting her special security measures.
Police formerly provided her an around-the- clock guard, but switched to an occasional security detail at the activist’s own request, he added. — AFP