“We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi
The Goldman Environmental Prize is given to grassroots environmental activists from each of six world regions. The 2015 year winner included Honduran indigenous rights leader Berta Caceres and her organization. They were fighting not just governments, but some of the world’s most powerful corporations to protect their land and livelihood. They faced death death threats and repression.
Wednesday, Berta Caceres was shot and killed in her home in La Esperanza, Intibuca. While the killers’ ID remains unknown, activists, media observers and the Cáceres family pointed to the increasingly reactionary and violent Honduran government, which has frequently clashed with Cáceres over her high-profile activism against land dispossession and mining, and her defense of indigenous rights.
“…the struggles around the world — whether we call it environmental activism, or struggles around indigenous rights to their commons (and rights-to-their means-of-livelihood)– are the target. These are also as much struggles against various violations of women’s ESC rights. Women, whether in the leadership of these struggles, or participants, are physically harmed/ sexually abused.”- Shiney Varghese
There is a petition to end the US military aid to Honduras and stop the murder of environmental activists that reads:
“Secretary Kerry:
I have recently learned of the murder of Berta Cáceres, co-founder of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, and winner of the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize.
Her tragic death is emblematic of the grave human rights situation in Honduras today. Although we do not know who her assailants were, we believe her murder is the latest in a growing trend of state suppression against social movement leaders like Berta.
We urge the State Department to promote a truly independent investigation into the killing of Berta and the many other environmental and land defenders in Honduras, and begin subjecting Honduras to vetting process under the Leahy law, and to enforce the law by immediately stopping military aid to the country.
Sincerely,”