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Honduras

In Honduras, USAID Was In Bed With Berta Cáceres’ Accused Killers

By Gloria Jimenez for Counter Punch - Less than three months before Lenca leader Berta Cáceres was brutally assassinated, the social arm of Desarollos Energeticos SA (DESA)–the Honduran company leading the Agua Zarca dam project Cáceres was campaigning against–signed a contract with USAID implementing partner Fintrac, a Washington DC based development contracting firm. The DESA representative who was present for the public signing of the USAID agreement was none other than Sergio Rodríguez, the company’s Social Investment Manager...

US Counterinsurgency Policing Tactics Ravage Honduras

By Staff of Tele Sur - The U.S. is pushing a counterinsurgency policing model for Honduras, while ignoring state corruption, impunity and violence. Meanwhile, corpses pile up. Honduran media is ablaze with the latest in the constant stream of police corruption crises. This time the Honduran newspaper El Heraldo published a leaked police investigation into the November 2009 murder of the chief of the anti-narcotics unit Julian Aristides Gonzales, and the related December 2011 murder of his advisor, Alfredo Landaverde.

The US Returns To Latin America

By Vijay Prashad for the Hindu and Counterpunch. The financial crisis of 2007-08 dented China’s economy and saw the slow deterioration of commodity prices. It took a few years for the economic impact to strike Latin America with ferocity. A sharp tumble in oil prices in the summer of 2008 put the brakes on many of the social programmes that had become essential to the Bolivarian dynamic. It signalled the weakness in the experiment against Western domination. President Barack Obama’s administration focussed intently on Latin America. Opportunity struck with the 2009 coup in Honduras against the Left-wing government of Manuel Zelaya. Mr. Obama recognised the new military-backed government. It opened the door to a more aggressive stance vis-à-vis Latin American states. The presidency of Peru’s Ollanta Humala (2011) and the second presidency of Chile’s Michelle Bachelet (2014) — both ostensibly of the Left — hastily drew in cabinet members vetted by the bankers and made their peace with the hegemony of the U.S. Chávez’s death in 2012 meant that the Bolivarians lost their most charismatic champion. The impact of the Honduran coup and Chávez’s death had made itself felt along the spine of Latin America. The U.S., it was being said, is back.

Gustavo Castro Leaves Honduras, Returns To Mexico

By Staff of Other Worlds - After being prevented from leaving Honduras for 24 days, the coordinator of Otros Mundos A.C./Friends of the Earth Mexico was notified that the ‘migratory alert’ impeding his travel has been lifted. Today, Thursday March 31, 2016, the First Courthouse of Letters of Intibucá, Honduras, acting on instructions from the judge Victorina Flores Orellana, decided to lift the measure prohibiting Gustavo Castro Soto from leaving the country, which has been in place since March 7.

Day #2: Caravan For Peace, Life And Justice

By Mackenzie McDonald Wilkins. Honduras -Today (March 29, 2016), the Caravan for Peace, Life, and Justice visited La Ceiba, on the Caribbean coast of Honduras. We met with leaders from Garifuna and indigenous communities that are being forced from their lands by US and Honduran military forces who claim the communities are trafficking drugs. There have been multiple assassinations and massacres, including of innocent women and children, in Garifuna, Tolupan, and Miskito communities. The news says that cartel members were killed. The military forces want to instill fear in these communities and force them to leave their coastal communities, leaving the land open for plantations and the beaches open to hotel and resort companies. The communities are fighting back though.

Newsletter: The Unfolding Story Of Latin America

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. Latin America has been a key battleground in the conflict between neo-liberal capitalism and US hegemony against the growing people power that is demanding a more equitable economy that builds from the bottom up and is more democratic. Venezuela has been the focal point of the campaign against the progressive cycle. The amnesty bill shows the extreme actions the US and oligarchs are willing to take to wrest power from the people and return it to the wealthy business interests. The wealthy have made progress in some key countries leading to people ask whether the progressive cycle has come to an end and what lies ahead for the region.

Gustavo Castro Soto & Rigged Investigation Into Berta Caceres’ Assassination

By Beverly Bell for Other Worlds - The sole eyewitness to Honduran social movement leader Berta Cáceres’ assassination on March 3, 2016 has gone from being wounded victim to, effectively, political prisoner. Now Gustavo Castro Soto may also be framed as the murderer of his long-time friend. Both the Mexican Ambassador, Dolores Jiménez, and Castro himself are worried that he will be charged by the government for the killing, they told the National Commission of Human Rights of Honduras on March 16.

‘Berta Lives!’ Indigenous Groups March For Justice In Honduras

By Staff of Tele Sur - Activists from across Honduras have mobilized for two days of action to demand that the murders of Berta Caceres and Nelson Garcia do not go unpunished. Under the banner “Berta lives, the struggle continues!” Indigenous groups and supporters from across Honduras will march on the capital city Tegucigalpa on Thursday and Friday to demand justice for murdered environmental leader Berta Caceres and an end to repressive mining and dam projects that threaten Indigenous rights across the country.

Justice For Berta Cáceres Rally Condemns Canada’s Lethal Influence In Honduras

By A. Splawinski for Rabble - Activists gathered outside Liberal MP Chrystia Freeland's office in downtown Toronto on March 11 to voice their solidarity with Indigenous activists and environmentalists, as well as to condemn the assassination of Indigenous Honduran activist Berta Cáceres. "The government killed her!" shouted the audience, as people waved signs the read, "Justicia Para Berta" (Justice For Berta) and "Justice for Berta, Safety for Gustavo."

Another Indigenous Activist Assassinated In Honduras

By Nika Knight for Common Dreams - Another member of Berta Cáceres' Indigenous rights group was brutally murdered by unidentified assailants on Tuesday, following a violent eviction of Indigenous people from their land. Nelson Garcia, a father of five and community leader, was shot four times in the face—"gunned down in his home," the Nation reported. His assassination occurred less than two weeks after Cáceres', and only days following her funeral.

Protest Inside USAID: Drop Honduran Dam Project

By Jake Dacks of BertaCaceres.org. Washington, DC – Concerned DC residents unfurled banners inside the Ronald Reagan International Trade Building today, in front of the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) information office, calling for USAID to break ties to the controversial Agua Zarca dam project being built in Honduras. On Thursday, March 3, world-renowned Honduran indigenous environmentalist Berta Cáceres, who led her Lenca peoples against the construction of a hydroelectric dam on the Gualcarque River, was assassinated in her home. Berta had received the Goldman award in 2015 – the highest award for environmental activism – in the very same Ronald Reagan building in April of last year.

Berta Cáceres Murder: Honduras Blocks Sole Witness From Leaving Country

By David Agren for The Guardian - Officials in Honduras have refused to allow the only witness to the murder of environmental activist Berta Cáceres to leave the country and return to his native Mexico. Gustavo Castro Soto, coordinator of Friends of the Earth Mexico and director of the NGO Otros Mundos, was shot twice during the attack on Cáceres on Thursday morning, and only survived by playing dead. Officials are treating him as a protected witness, according to the Associated Press, but activists say that the Honduran attorney general’s office has issued a 30-day immigration alert against him, preventing him from leaving the country.

Urgent Action For Protection Of Gustavo Castro

By Movimiento Mesoamericano Contra El Modelo Extractivo Minero. Early this morning, March 3, 2016, armed individuals forcibly entered and assassinated Honduran activist Berta Cáceres, founder of COPINH, in her home in La Esperanza, department of Intibucá in southwestern Honduras. Our friend and colleague Gustavo Castro Soto was injured during the attack. Gustavo is Mexican and a member of the organization Otros Mundos Chiapas/Friends of the Earth-Mexico, the Mexican Network of Mining-Affected Peoples and the Mesoamerican Movement against the Extractive Mining Model (M4). Gustavo survived the attack and has become a key actor in the investigation into the murder of our friend Berta. Berta and Gustavo are two people known for their role in international social and environmental struggles

Indigenous Activist Berta Cáceres Assassinated

By School of Americas Watch, HONDURAS - At approximately 11:45pm last night, the General Coordinator of COPINH, Berta Caceres was assassinated in her hometown of La Esperanza, Intibuca. At least two individuals broke down the door of the house where Berta was staying for the evening in the Residencial La Líbano, shot and killed her. COPINH is urgently responding to this tragic situation. Berta Cáceres is one of the leading indigenous activists in Honduras. She spent her life fighting in defense of indigenous rights, particularly to land and natural resources. Cáceres, a Lenca woman, grew up during the violence that swept through Central America in the 1980s. Her mother, a midwife and social activist, took in and cared for refugees from El Salvador, teaching her young children the value of standing up for disenfranchised people.

The Struggle Continues: Garifuna Land Defender Shot In Honduras

By Sandra Cuffe for IC Magazine - "This is where the first bullet grazed me," says Vidal Leiva, pointing to the side of his face. Shot three times outside his home on Nov. 27, the Garifuna community leader survived and is now recovering from the gunshot wounds to his torso. However, since the attack, members of Leiva's family and of the Land Defense Committee he heads report receiving threats. Sitting up carefully, Leiva lifts his shirt. On his right shoulder, front, and back, stitches mark bullet entry and exit points. A bandage covers the middle of Leiva's abdomen, where a bullet pierced internal organs before exiting through his back.

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