A friend recently described the life and death of Berta Caceres to me. Today, I’m sharing her story with you along with concerns about America’s role in the affairs of other nations.
Caceres was co-founder of COPINH, an organization created to protect the interests of the indigenous Lenca people of Honduras and to save their natural environment from rapacious development. She and her organization received threats and were victims of violence over the years. The controversy escalated when COPINH was able to stop construction of a huge hydroelectric dam that would have taken water and land historically belonging to the Lenca people. It was jointly sponsored by Honduras-based DESA and Sinohydro, a Chinese company that is the world’s largest dam builder. Defeating that project earned Caceres the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize (perhaps the world’s most prestigious environmental recognition). It also earned her the enmity of some very powerful people.
On March 2, 2016 Berta Caceres was shot and killed in her bed. The assassins were reportedly graduates of the “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation” (AKA “School of the Americas”) that is jointly operated by the US Army and the CIA. That school also educated at least 10 military dictators including Manuel Noriega (Panama) and Juan Velasco Alvarado (overthrew the government of Peru). Their training by American professionals included assassination and torture.
In January, 2006, Manuel Zelaya was elected President of Honduras. He ran on socialist principles and soon created closer ties to Venezuela and Cuba. That engendered concern from Honduran and American business interests and from the Bush Administration in the US. In June 2009, Zelaya was kidnapped and taken to Costa Rica by the Honduran military. Pre-arranged support from the Honduran Supreme Court included immediate installation of Pofiro Lobo as President.
Central American Nations and the European Union called for Zelaya’s return to power but dropped their insistence when the Obama Administration, in the person of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, encouraged recognition of the new regime. The never-stated quid pro quo may have been American acceptance of the regime’s legitimacy and its domestic policies in exchange for their collaboration in a war against drug lords. The Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America reports specifics of 229 politically related Murders under President Lobo. Many who died or disappeared at the hands of government death squads were environmentalists or social reformers.
When the journal “Intercept” interviewed Berta Caraces about security concerns and threats from government, businesses and paramilitary interests she said “The army has an assassination list of 18 wanted human rights fighters with my name at the top, I take lots of care but in the end, in this country where there is total impunity I am vulnerable. When they want to kill me, they will do it.” The Catholic Herald reports that many church-affiliated groups are urging the US to conduct transparent investigations of multiple political murders including that of Berta Caraces, but the US has not responded.
There are rumors that the dam project will be resurrected with support from banking, land development and construction interests. Assassinations and arrests of opponents continue, as does the drug trade; and Honduras continues to have the world’s highest murder rate.
Mass market journalists have paid little attention to these events, but recently the well respected National Catholic Reporter (US based) has confirmed the story and added that, “The leader of the coup, Honduran General Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, was a graduate of the notorious School of the Americas, a U.S. Army training program nicknamed “School of Assassins” for the sizable number of graduates who have engaged in coups, as well as the torture and murder of political opponents.” Nevertheless, US policy created by Secretary Clinton and still supported by her today is to refuse refugees from Honduras while continuing to accept them from Cuba.
After all the bloodshed, it seems that the US would have learned that training and equipping citizens of other nations to kill each other and overthrow their governments doesn’t help anyone. It certainly did not help Honduras control the drug trade or help Iraq eliminate terrorists and it made lots of new enemies for Americans. We’ve tried it without success in Iran, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Peru, Chile, Cuba, Syria, Guatemala, Nicaragua and probably in some places that I don’t know about. It’s evil. Let’s resolve to never do it again!