Who Killed Berta Cáceres?. Nina Lakhani
Who Killed Berta Cáceres?
Who Killed Berta Cáceres?
Dams, Death Squads and anIndigenous Defender’s Battle for the Planet
Nina Lakhani
First published by Verso 2020
© Nina Lakhani 2020
All rights reserved
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
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Verso
UK: 6 Meard Street, London W1F 0EG
US: 20 Jay Street, Suite 1010, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Verso is the imprint of New Left Books
ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-306-9
ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-308-3 (US EBK)
ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-309-0 (UK EBK)
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lakhani, Nina, author.
Title: Who killed Berta Cáceres? : dams, death squads, and an indigenous defender's battle for the planet / Nina Lakhani.
Description: London ; Brooklyn, NY : Verso Books, 2020. | Includes
bibliographical references and index. | Summary: ‘Drawing on years of familiarity with Cáceres, her family, her vibrant movement, and with Central America generally, as well as chilling interviews with company and government officials, Lakhani paints an inti- mate portrait of a remarkable woman. Berta Cáceres fought for her ideals in a country beholden to corporate-military control and US power, becoming a role model for acti- vists the world over.’ – Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020001756 (print) | LCCN 2020001757 (ebook) | ISBN 9781788733069 (hardback) | ISBN 9781788733083 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Cáceres, Berta, 1973?–2016. |
Murder – Investigation – Honduras. | Trials (Murder) – Honduras. |
Political corruption – Honduras. | Business enterprises – Corrupt
practices – Honduras. | Lenca Indians – Honduras – Government relations. |
Environmentalists – Honduras – Biography. | Lenca
Indians – Honduras – Biography.
Classification: LCC HV6535.H66 L35 2020 (print) | LCC HV6535.H66 (ebook) | DDC 364.152/3092 – dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020001756
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020001757
Typeset in Sabon LT by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed in the UK by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
For all the defenders and truth-tellers fighting to save our planet. And for my grandmother (baa), Narabda Sanchdev, who would have been very proud.
You can’t kill the truth.
Contents
1. The Counterinsurgency State
The final few months of Berta Cáceres’s life were filled with ominous signs. Just before Christmas 2015, she confided in her sister Agustina that her life was in danger. ‘The messages never stop, the harassment never stops, they have me under surveillance. They don’t care that I have children. Those sons of bitches are going to kill me.’
Berta was involved in numerous land and water struggles alongside indigenous Lenca communities across western Honduras. But the battle to stop construction of a hydroelectric dam on the Gualcarque River, in the community of Río Blanco, had her more worried than usual. Berta told her children she was scared, and that they should take the threats seriously. ‘Mum said there was a group of dangerous sicarios [hit men] attacking the Río Blanco community and asking about us, her daughters,’ said Laura, twenty-three, the youngest, home from midwifery college for the Christmas break. ‘I knew the threats were serious because she wouldn’t leave me alone in the house, not even for a night.’
Berta had reasons to suspect the hit men were hired by DESA, the dam construction company. DESA’s trumped-up criminal charges against her and other leaders of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) had failed to silence them. Was it now it was pursuing other means to stop the opposition?
Her sense of unease intensified on 12 February 2016. Douglas Bustillo, a thuggish former army lieutenant and DESA’s ex-security chief, messaged her COPINH deputy, Tomás Gómez Membreño, out of the blue, accusing Berta of cashing in on the Río Blanco struggle to win the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize.
‘You don’t have the same support as before, it seems like you’ve sold out your conscience and ideals. And you’ve left the people of La Tejera [in Río Blanco] alone … you only used them for your boss’s prize and didn’t help them, not even with a maternity centre even though she got almost 4 million. Now the