In Honduras, seven men were sentenced to up to 50 years in prison for the 2016 murder of indigenous environmental activist Berta Cáceres. Cáceres was fighting the construction of a major hydroelectric dam on Lenca indigenous land when she was shot dead in her home in March 2016. She was the winner of the prestigious Goldman Prize for environmental defenders in 2015. A court has ruled that Cáceres’s killing was ordered by executives of the Honduran company behind the dam, known as DESA, who hired the convicted hit men to carry out the killing. At least two of the men involved in the murder were trained by U.S. military forces. This is Berta Cáceres’s daughter Bertha Zúniga Cáceres speaking outside the court in Tegucigalpa.
Bertha Zúniga Cáceres: “The road to justice does not end here for us, because impunity will not end with a sentence for the main perpetrators of the crime. We continue to demand integral justice, including all people involved in this crime to be tried and put away.”
Honduras is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for environmental activists and land protectors, with at least 24 environmental leaders killed since March 2015.