A War on Activism

THE WORD MARTYR means “witness.” In times past, it meant dying for one’s beliefs; but increasingly it means dying for one’s faith because of justice.

On March 3, Honduran Indigenous leader Berta Cáceres was brutally murdered in her home. As co-founder of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, Cáceres had led the Lenca Indigenous communities in a nonviolent struggle to defend the sacred lands, forests, and water that her people have protected for generations.

She was beloved by many around the world for her extraordinary leadership on the environment, recognized in 2015 when she received the Goldman Environmental Prize for “sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk.” Her assassination sparked a global outcry, including a demand from the Vatican for an independent investigation into her death.

Cáceres’s life and death is a witness to what Pope Francis calls “the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.” Her martyrdom embodies the intimate connection between creation justice and social justice for the poor that is at the heart of Francis’ recent encyclical on the environment.

For years, Cáceres and the Lenca communities fought to block the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam on the Gualcarque River in western Honduras, which would have flooded large areas of land and cut off the supply of water, food, and medicine for the Lenca peoples. In addition, its construction violated the rights and sovereignty of Indigenous people to decide whether such mega-projects should be undertaken at all.

Since the 2009 coup in Honduras that deposed a democratically elected government and replaced it with a government more favorable to international business, hydroelectric and mining companies have been given concessions to exploit nearly half the country. This has led to an unprecedented pillaging of the land’s natural wealth, bringing grave harm to the natural environment, displacing entire communities, and targeting environmental activists in alarming numbers.

In August 2013, Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández established a new military police force, after running on a campaign promise to put “a soldier on every corner.” The results have been devastating.

CÁCERES IS ONE of more than 100 land and environmental activists in Honduras who have been assassinated in the past five years. Less than two weeks after Cáceres’ murder, her colleague Nelson Garcia was murdered by unidentified gunmen despite the region being in the international spotlight. After Garcia’s murder, several European funders pulled out of the Agua Zarca dam project.

The courageous witness of Cáceres, Garcia, and others challenges a global economy and political order based on structural injustice, institutionalized violence, and social sin. In words used by Óscar Romero, the martyred archbishop of San Salvador, to describe the fate of those who work for justice, Berta Cáceres “got in the way.” That’s why she was murdered.

What happened to Cáceres is not simply another lamentable death of a human rights activist. Her murder exposes the utter failure of U.S. policy in Honduras and U.S. complicity in a culture of impunity, particularly dating back to the 2009 coup, that prioritizes business interests over human rights. The U.S. is funding the growing militarization of the Honduran society, especially the security forces reportedly involved in widespread human right violations.

Before she was murdered, Cáceres said that she listened to the spirit of the Gualcarque River to determine her next actions. She jumped into the river, and it told her to go forward. The river told her that she would prevail.

In her life and in her death, Cáceres embodied “the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor,” a cry for life. The Lenca communities she served continue to defend the land and bear witness to the truth. With Berta Cáceres and the great cloud of witnesses, and with those who still live the drama of cross and resurrection in their daily lives, we are reminded: The martyrs have a claim on our lives. In the words of her people: “Berta Cáceres did not die, she multiplied.”