At Alba Posse, Argentinians and Brazilians pledged to advocate against the construction of more hydropower dams on the Uruguay River. Photo: Tatiana Lencina
(LWI) – Churches and other organizations in Latin America are intensifying calls for action to protect human rights workers in Honduras, following the March killings of two leaders of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH).
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders urged Honduras “to take immediate and concrete actions, or risk turning the country into a lawless killing zone for human rights defenders.”
COPINH founder Berta Cáceres was murdered on 3 March, and the organization’s outspoken leader Nelson García was killed on 15 March in Honduras.
In a press statement, 18 March, during the 31st session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, rapporteur Michel Forst regretted that García’s killing had occurred despite calls to Honduras to provide precautionary measures for all COPINH members.
The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) member churches in Latin America are among churches and civil society organizations in Honduras speaking out for human rights workers and the struggle against injustices.
Honduran human rights and environmental activist Berta Cáceres led a “tireless struggle” for the rights of those who are marginalized by the country’s unjust political and economic systems.
In Honduras where Cáceres along with other activists had been resisting the construction of the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam on the Gualcarque River in the northwest, some 220 organizations said the country had become one of the “most dangerous places to be a human rights’ defender of any kind.”
“The murder of Berta Cáceres sends a devastating message to all Hondurans trying to exercise their rights,” the faith-based, human rights and environmental organizations said in a letter addressed to United States Secretary of State John Kerry. They called for pressure on the Honduran government to prosecute those responsible for the killing of Cáceres and other human rights defenders in recent years.
Tireless struggle for the marginalized
At the Christian Lutheran Church of Honduras (ICLH), Rev. Suyapa Ordoñez, national coordinator of women’s network, condemned the assassination of 43-year-old Cáceres. She said the human rights and environmental activist had led a “tireless struggle” for the rights of those who are marginalized by the country’s unjust political and economic systems.
The Agua Zarca project by private developers and the government aims to provide access to electricity and create job opportunities for the locals. However, it did not receive free, prior informed consent from the indigenous Lenca people and COPINH.
Ordoñez said she hoped Cáceres’ death would “not go unpunished” like similar murders in a country where 111 human rights activists had been killed between 2002 and 2014, with 80 of them killed in the last three years alone.
A free Uruguay River
In Alba Posse, northeast Argentina, local and Brazilian churches and human rights organizations paid tribute to Cáceres’ commitment and called for investigations into her death.
Around 150 participants in a 12 March ecumenical celebration, held a few meters away from the Uruguay River, said opposition to the mega dams was a shared concern across the region. The Evangelical Church of Lutheran Confession in Brazil organized the event.
They called on the Argentinian and Brazilian governments to “keep the Uruguay River free of dams,” saying such construction leads to social, health and environmental problems.
In recent years the LWF has issued public statements condemning violence in Honduras and other Latin American countries, and urged protection of human rights workers there.
Compiled from the Latin America and Caribbean Communications Network.
