One of Honduras’ most prominent environmental and indigenous rights defenders was murdered in her home Thursday. Local officials say Berta Cáceres was killed during an attempted robbery in her hometown of La Esperanza, in western Honduras.
But her family and supporters call her death by two armed men an “assassination,” and many in Honduras believed it was inevitable after she’d spent two decades protesting hydropower projects.
The United Nations special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, said today that "it is highly probable that her assassination is linked with her work in protecting the human rights of the Lenca indigenous peoples to their lands and territories."
Since 2009, Cáceres had been given special protection by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights after an increase in the number of death threats she had been receiving. In 2013, Cáceres led a year-long protest of the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam on the Gualcarque River that scared off foreign investment and stalled the project.
“The Gualcarque River is very important, it is a sacred river for the Lenca people,” Cáceres told journalist Jenni Monet in January.
Monet conducted one of the last interviews with Cáceres before her death.
“In a word, Berta was amazing,” Monet says. “She had a loyal circle of followers, and people who just believed in the kind of indigenous nation-building that she was doing.”
Monet says Cáceres was very aware of the danger she was in while fighting to protect indigenous lands, but the 44-year-old mother of four continued her activism.
“Much of the strength that my mother has to do this work comes from my grandmother,” Caceres’s daughter Bertita Cáceres said in January.
“[My grandmother] was a social activist in the 80s during the time of the dictatorships,” Bertita Cáceres said, “and so she very well understands the risks that my mother faces and would never think my mom should not do what she does because of fear.”
According to the AP, the US ambassador to Honduras on Friday called on the country to "quickly and comprehensively" clarify the circumstances surrounding Cáceres’ murder.
"We call for a rapid and thorough investigation so that the weight of the law will be applied to those responsible,” said ambassador James Nealon.
Honduras is the most dangerous country in the world to be an environmental activist, according to human rights group Global Witness. Since 2010, more than 100 activists have been killed.
The group says an average of two people are killed every week defending their land, forests and waterways against agriculture, logging or energy projects.