Honduras: News & Updates

The killing of Indigenous environmental defender Berta Cáceres on March 2, 2016 was not unique.  More than 1,000 people were killed for political reasons during the 12 years of the narco-dictatorship. The people of Honduras know that when communities organize in defense of their territories, they too often face militarization, repression, criminalization, and violence. But Berta’s assassination does remain as one of the most visible symbols of the risks borne by land and environmental defenders.  The behind-the-scenes plotting of her brutal assassination is slightly complicated but the  reasons very straight forward.  The narco-dictatorship that “opened up Honduras for business” tried to kill the organized resistance to their mega-projects (like the privatization of the Gualcarque River for foreign investors' hydro-electric project) that illegally dispossess Indigenous and campesino communities of land, water, and self-determination. 

How can we honor Berta?

For one, we can affirm the demand of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organization of Honduras (COPINH) that the intellectual authors of the assassination be brought to justice. Moreover, we can do what Berta would do. Live, organize, educate, work and struggle together. Reach out and support the too many victims of this violent, unjust and unequal global human order. Name, denounce and hold accountable the responsible actors—countries,  companies, wealthy elites, banks, investors and more. Organize, educate, work and struggle against all injustice, inequality and discrimination. Live with the knowledge that another world is indeed necessary and act as though we believe it is indeed possible.

To support IRTF’s accompaniment work with human rights and environmental defenders in Honduras, click here.

This article by Consortium News examines the Zones for Employment and Economic Development (ZEDEs) in Honduras and how tech billionaires like Peter Thiel profit of neocolonialist enclaves, allowed to have their own government, police force, courts, laws and any taxes collected, while indigenous people that have been dependent on that very land are subjected to exploitation, persecution and displacement.  

Support a historic shift in U.S. foreign policy. House Resolution 1056 calls for ending the Monroe Doctrine and building a “New Good Neighbor” relationship with Latin America and the Caribbean. Urge your US representative to co-sponsor this landmark resolution acknowledging two centuries of intervention and injustice. 

This article by ProPublica examines the special treatment enjoyed by convicted then pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez, former President of Honduras, who was imprisoned for accepting bribes and allowing traffickers to export more than 400 tons of cocaine to the U.S.

The presidential election in Honduras in November 2025 has evolved into a constitutional crisis, with fraud allegations, recount demands, and clashes between government institutions after the electoral council declared Nasry Asfura the winner. The controversy is also tied to U.S. political and corporate interests, including Trump-linked support and high-stakes “model city” investment projects.

This aricle published in The Guardian gives insight on what consequences the pardoning of convicted drug smuggler and former president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernandez might have on enviromental defenders in Honduras.  Impunity for violent crimes committed against environmental defenders gives a green light to would-be assassins. In February 2025, an environmental defender in the central department of Comayagua, Juan Bautista, and his son were ambushed and killed, with their bodies dismembered and discarded in a canyon. These were just two of at least 155 murders of land and environmental defenders in Honduras documented by Global Witness between 2012 and 2024, the vast majority unresolved.

In response to Trump's pardon of Juan Orlando Hernández, one environmental defender noted: “There is a sense that the brakes are off again. People feel exposed.”

The hardline approach to violence, a model used by President Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, is gaining increasing support in Central America, a region that has been historically plagued by insecurity, whether related to gangs or drug trafficking.

Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Honduras are three countries that have adopted measures similar to those implemented by the Salvadoran leader, despite the criticism he receives from human rights organizations.

The article examines Honduras’s fragile political transition after a narrowly contested and widely questioned election, assessing the mixed legacy of the recent president (Castro), the deep crisis of the electoral system, and the enduring power of corruption and impunity. It analyzes the fragmented National Congress, the human rights risks tied to a private sector-driven economic agenda, and the renewed alignment with the United States under Trump, warning that without structural reforms and accountability, governance will rely on transactional politics rather than democratic legitimacy—_at high cost to civic space, Indigenous and Garifuna communities, and long-term stability.

Admist media attention being drawn to trumps "war on drugs" and his interference in Venezuela, a regime change operation in Honduras and the pardoning of its former president --a  convicted criminal, drug trafficker--is overshadowed. This article gives insight on how the elections went (November 30 2025) and which parties were involved with not only influencing elections but the broader political landscape in Honduras.

This article by InSight Crime reviews the conspiratorial nature of the Berta Cáceres murder ten years ago. In February 2025, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights announced the creation of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (Grupo Interdisciplinario de Expertos Independientes – GIEI) responsible for producing this report. ary 2025 The report’s investigators tied one deposit in the amount of $2.6 million that development banks made to the account of CONCASA (a shell company) in December 2015 directly to Cáceres’ murderers.