Inside the plot to murder Berta Cáceres

December 21, 2019 7:29 PM

"It has been more than three years since Berta Cáceres was murdered in her home in Honduras. Cáceres was a 44-year-old activist, mother of four, and an international celebrity — she won the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize for leading a grassroots campaign to prevent a private energy company, Desarrollos Energéticos Sociedad Anónima, from building a hydroelectric dam on Indigenous land.
...
In preparation for the trial of the assassins, the Honduras Public Prosecutor’s Office extracted thousands of private call logs, SMS, and WhatsApp messages from their phones. The call log evidence was examined by an independent expert, and it showed that the assassins had communicated through a compartmentalized chain that reached the highest ranks of leadership of the company whose dam she had been protesting."
(El artículo también está en español.)
posted by primalux (3 comments total)

This was horrifying. I had to stop half way and come back to it later.

What are the chances any of the executives ultimately responsible for this atrocity of catastrophic greed corruption are ever brought to justice? It’s amazing it even got to this point, really
posted by Philby at 12:53 AM on December 22, 2019 [4 favorites]

I want and don't want to read stories like this. I feel the need to bear witness to her courage but it's hard not to be swallowed by despair.
posted by emjaybee at 6:47 AM on December 22, 2019 [7 favorites]

I'm amazed that it was only in 2016 that she was assassinated. It feels like it was so much longer ago, the way that details have been revealed gradually year after year.

From earlier this year, referring primarily to neighboring Guatemala: Women land defenders face 'extreme criminalisation', added risks
posted by XMLicious at 11:00 AM on December 22, 2019 [2 favorites]