Honduran Army Kills Indigenous Leader of COPINH Who Resisted Dam in Rio Blanco

16 July 2013 On Mon­day July 15th, while the Lenca com­mu­ni­ty of Rio Blan­co, in Hon­duras, marked 106 days of resis­tance to the build­ing of Agua Zarca hydro­elec­tric dam, the Army indis­crim­i­nate­ly shot at the demon­stra­tors killing one of the l

16 July 2013 On Mon­day July 15th, while the Lenca com­mu­ni­ty of Rio Blan­co, in Hon­duras, marked 106 days of resis­tance to the build­ing of Agua Zarca hydro­elec­tric dam, the Army indis­crim­i­nate­ly shot at the demon­stra­tors killing one of the lead­ers of the resis­tance, Tomas Gar­cia, and seri­ous­ly injur­ing his son (pho­to).

Tomas was a Lenca indige­nous leader who was part of his community’s Indige­nous and Aux­il­iary Coun­cil and of the Nation­al Coun­cil of the Civic Coun­cil of Pop­u­lar and Indige­nous Orga­ni­za­tions of Hon­duras (COPINH).

The Hon­duran activist was shot dead while he was walk­ing with oth­er com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers to the project’s facil­i­ties owned by Desa and Sino­hy­dro com­pa­nies, while his son, who was seri­ous­ly injured by a high-cal­i­bre bul­let, is in hos­pi­tal and his life is in dan­ger, Berta Cac­eres, leader of COPINH, told Real World Radio.

Berta described the act as “a des­per­ate and crim­i­nal reac­tion” by the com­pa­nies that want to build a dam on Riv­er Gual­caeque, seri­ous­ly affect­ing the com­mu­ni­ties liv­ing there. The Hon­duran army sup­ports the com­pa­nies, said Berta, and they even pay for the trans­porta­tion and main­te­nance of troops deployed by the Hon­duran gov­ern­ment in Tegu­ci­gal­pa in Rio Blan­co.

On Mon­day night, COPINH report­ed of more mil­i­tary troops being deployed in Zaca­pa, San­ta Bar­bara, and there were fears of new shoot­ings against civil­ians dur­ing the wake of the mur­dered indige­nous leader.

“The com­mu­ni­ty is out­raged. We are in great sor­row, also because we believe we have to con­tin­ue our strug­gle”, said Berta dur­ing a phone inter­view. “As the elec­tions approach (in Novem­ber) they want to teach COPINH a les­son”, she explained and said the com­mu­ni­ty decid­ed to con­tin­ue occu­py­ing the access to the dam.

A few hours after the inci­dents, COPINH had report­ed that since Fri­day 12, top exec­u­tives of the com­pa­ny Desar­rol­lo Energéti­co Sociedad Anón­i­ma (DESA)- which is in charge of the project togeth­er with the orig­i­nal group Sino­hy­dro – trav­elled to meet with local hit­men, who are respon­si­ble for direct threats against sev­er­al mem­bers of the indige­nous coun­cil, includ­ing Tomas Gar­cia.

Before they start­ed shoot­ing at civil­ians, the mil­i­tary made no attempt to talk with the activists, said Berta.

The leader of COPINH was ille­gal­ly arrest­ed in May and sub­mit­ted to a tri­al for pur­port­ed­ly hav­ing an ille­gal weapon, some­thing that the court could not prove and the case was final­ly dis­missed.

The leader high­light­ed that in the new cas­es of repres­sion against res­i­dents of the com­mu­ni­ty of Rio Blan­co, we urgent­ly need inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty to report the civic and mil­i­tary author­i­ties and both com­pa­nies for mur­der.

“We are aware that we are con­front­ed with an impuni­ty strat­e­gy in a con­text that seems to be wors­en­ing”, said Berta. She said the com­mu­ni­ties’ deter­mi­na­tion to defend their ter­ri­to­ry is strength­ened in these sit­u­a­tions of state and pri­vate vio­lence.

In fact, riv­er Gual­car­que is con­sid­ered an essen­tial part of the Lenca spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and the com­mu­ni­ties are con­fronting the busi­ness projects as a trib­ute to their culture’s sym­bol­ic fig­ure: Lem­pi­ra.

“We con­tin­ue fight­ing, we are not afraid, we will not be prey to fear and we will con­tin­ue this peace­ful but strong bat­tle for life”, she con­clud­ed.