Berta Cáceres: Denouncing the structures of terror

Berta Cáceres: Denouncing the structures of terror
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

The assassination of Honduran indigenous environmental leader Berta Cáceres, in her home as she slept, has shaken human rights communities worldwide. The co-founder of the National Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) was a tireless crusader for indigenous land rights. Her stand with the Lenca indigenous communities of Honduras in their struggle against the Agua Zarca Dam along the Gualcarque River earned her the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in 2015. But, as many have sadly pointed out, even this high profile award did not protect her from the death squads that operate under the nose of the local police assigned to protect her.

In Honduras the cold-blooded murder of indigenous, environmental and peasant activists has returned as the coercive tool of choice for the voracious land grabbers and dam developers empowered by the coup that ousted the democratically elected Zelaya government.

"Since a 2009 coup in Honduras, journalists, judges, labor leaders, human rights defenders and environmental activists have been assassinated in targeted killings, with their murders often going unsolved. Twelve environmental defenders were killed in Honduras in 2014, according to research by Global Witness, which makes it the most dangerous country in the world, relative to its size, for activists protecting forests and rivers."

(Widely condemned by Latin American governments, the 2009 coup was quietly accepted by the United States. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was quick to recognize the new Honduran regime.)

The assassination of Berta Cáceres is an act of terrorism.

The point of terror, of course, is to immobilize people with fear. It is used to send a message to the peasant and indigenous communities being brutally displaced by the expansion of sugar cane, palm oil and soy plantations, by dams and by land speculators. The message is simple: do not resist.

The message of terror is not just for Hondurans but for the millions of rural communities in the Americas struggling to stay on their land, trying eke out a livelihood and avoid the perils of migration. The powerful forces of international capital are speaking very clearly to them: you are expendable.

The message is also for international advocates of environmental protection, human rights, indigenous rights, food sovereignty and even agroecology. It is offhanded: you are irrelevant.

Bertha Cáceres was awarded the Goldman Prize to inform the international community of the environmental destruction and human rights abuses of the Agua Zarca Dam. The Prize also hoped to help protect her life by raising her international profile. In this it failed, not because the Prize didn't help insulate a brave leader from violence, but because COPINH and the Lenca peoples were actually successfully mobilizing local and international support to stop the dam.

Terror paralyzes. It silences and it divides. It pulls a veil over the intentions behind the act itself, allowing the real criminals to proceed with impunity. Leaders like Berta Cáceres have shown us that to stand up to terror is to confront the entire structure of terror--from the perpetrators and accomplices to the vested corporate interests and halls of state.

In Honduras, there are many who will step forward to pick up Berta Cáceres cause. It's time for the rest of us in the international community to come together to denounce not just her murder, but the politics and the structures of terror itself.

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot