Berta Cáceres: 10th anniversary of her assassination
Sources: most of this posting is adapted from Graham Russell’s post on Rights Action. Other sources include Honduras Now, MIRA Feminisms & Democracies, Denver Justice & Peace Committee
One decade after the assassination of the Honduran environmental and indigenous leader, Berta Cáceres, IRTF joins with organizations across the globe to celebrate and honor her life and demand full truth and justice in her case.
On March 2, 2016, Berta was assassinated late at night in her bed, in her home in La Esperanza, Honduras. She was shot dead by a well-coordinated and paid for team of sicarios, a death squad assembled on behalf of an inner circle of Honduras’ most powerful and wealthy families, high-ranking military officers, and the U.S. and Canadian-backed, narco-regime in power at the time. [Read Karen Spring’s blog post “The Morning of Berta’s Murder: Reflecting Ten Years Later.”]
The killing of Berta Cáceres 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 are slightly complicated but the reasons very straight forward. The narco-dictator regime that “opened up Honduras for business” tried to kill the resistance to the extractive projects that dispossess Indigenous and campesino communities of land, water, and self-determination.
A witness
Staying in the guest room that night was Gustavo Castro, Berta’s friend and companero from Chiapas, Mexico, that COPINH (the organization Berta co-founded and coordinated) had invited to give community workshops on human rights, environmental and agroecology issues.
When the death squad killed her, they hadn’t known Gustavo would be there. As the killers were fleeing, one of them opened the guest room door and found Gustavo, who had been reading, sitting wide-eyed in bed. The man shot twice and ran off. Paralyzed with fear in the moment, Gustavo instinctively jerked to one side. One of the bullets grazed the side of his head as he fell to the floor and then lay in his own blood. A miraculous survival. Gustavo is the key eyewitness to the actual killing.
Justice for the material and intellectual authors
The demand for justice led by her family and the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (Berta was a co-founder of COPINH) has been a long road.
Ten years later, COPINH, now led by one of Berta’s daughters, together with other family members and supporters continue to get ever closer to identifying not only the members of the death squad, but more importantly identifying all the individuals, companies and investors that approved of and/or paid for the killing of Berta.
Recently, the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) published an extensive 530-page report on its investigation into the decision-making, financing and carrying out of the March 2, 2026 assassination of Berta. [Read a short summary here, executive summary here, full report (only in Spanish) here]. As is now proven by this investigation, Berta was assassinated for defending the Gualcarque River from privatization imposed by powerful economic and political interests aligned with Global North investment and extractive development. Her life and martyrdom illuminate a devastating truth: across Latin America, extractive projects continue to dispossess Indigenous and campesino communities of land, water, and self-determination.
Ten years later, we affirm COPINH’s position that it is not enough to convict only the gunmen and those who gave the orders to kill (like Roberto David Castillo Mejía who is serving a 22-year prison sentence). Indisputable evidence proves who was behind the crime: the Atala Zablah family, owners of the Desarrollos Energéticos (DESA), which was the domestic partner in the internationally-financed Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam project. Complicit were also the Honduran government and the financial backers--the Dutch FMO bank and the Central American Bank for Economic Integration.
COPINH continues to demand justice for Berta Cáceres, seeking the trial and conviction of all individuals involved in her assassination. COPINH demands the capture of the members of the Atala family (Jacobo Atala, José Eduardo Atala, Pedro Atala, Daniel Atala Midence) who were among the intellectual authors of Berta’s assassination. Although the Atala Zablah family has long denied any involvement in the high-profile killing, text messages intercepted by Honduran prosecutors show that David Castillo (who ordered the hit squad) was in direct communication with the leader of the hit squad at the same time that the funds controlled by CONCASA (Concretos del Caribe, a shell company) were being transferred to pay for the assassination. So in December 2023, Honduran prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Daniel Atala, but he remains a fugitive of the law.
Current political landscape makes justice hard
At the time of Berta’s assassination, the people of Honduras were living under a narco-dictatorship, ruled by a military-backed regime headed by President Juan Orlando Hernandez (known popularly as JOH) who operated a drug smuggling cartel from the president’s office in partnership with military, police and organized crime groups. (Yes, this is the same Juna Orlando Hernández who was sentenced to 45 years in US federal prison but pardoned by Trump on November 28, 2025—just two days before the presidential elections in Honduras.) Due to interference by the U.S. in Honduras’ presidential election on November 30, 2025, the conservative party candidate Nasry Juan Asfura Zablah (of JOH’s National Party) was brought to power and inaugurated on January 27, 2026.
During the entire time that JOH was in power, the U.S. and Canada maintained full economic, political and military relations with his regime, referring to JOH and military-backed government as staunch “democratic allies”. The mainstream media in the U.S. and Canada ignored the repression and drug-trafficking that were well-known and evident in Honduras. More than 1,000 Hondurans were killed for political reasons during the years of the regime – the assassination of Berta being the most widely known case. It was the reporting on independent media outlets (e.g. The Gray Zone, HondurasNow) and the work of the international solidarity community (such as the Honduras Solidarity Network) that brought the crimes and corruption of the narco-dictatorship to the attention of Congress, the US State Department, and the US public.
This makes for an extraordinarily difficult political climate in which COPINH and family members of Berta continue to push for the capture and trial of Daniel Atala, whose family is deeply connected to the National Party. As dangerous as it is to name and confront the wealthy, corrupt and globally connected traditional elites, further steps in the struggle to arrest and put on trial some of the “intellectual” authors are in the works. But for the jailing of eight material authors of Berta’s death, no justice has been done for any of the political killings and repression (jailings, beatings and maimings) during this time.
Who was Berta
Born in 1971, Berta was the mother of four, a grandmother, daughter, sister, and -to all who knew her, learned from her, got strength, courage and wisdom from her- a companera.
She was targeted and killed because of who she is, what she lived for, and what she worked and fought for her whole life. Since her early teens, Berta followed the path of her mother, other family members and siblings. She lived, worked and struggled against all repression and military interventions, all injustices and inequalities, all human rights violations and discriminations, all Mother Earth destroying activities.
Bertha combined her commitment to feminism, internationalism, environmentalism and indigenous rights, showing us that they are inseparable in all true anti-systemic work and to create the future we want and need--a future that respects all living creatures and the natural forces that sustain us.
Berta worked against, and was killed by …
- Over 500 years of racist, violent, dispossessing European imperialism, colonialism and settler colonialism
- Over 200 years of the so-called “Monroe doctrine” and endless U.S. military interventions, exploitation, corruption and impunity
- Generations of violent, exploitative regimes in power in Honduras propped up by the U.S. and so-called “international community” (Canada, global corporations and investors, IMF, World Bank, etc.)
- Centuries of patriarchy and violence/discrimination against women and girls
- Centuries of racism against the Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples of the Americas
- The greed, corruption and violence of corporations and investors who conceive of forests and earth, rivers and water, and the people of Honduras as exploitable and discardable, and who steal, kill and destroy to produce ‘for export’ and profits
Berta was killed by …
- The banana barons (United Fruit Company, Standard Fruit, Dole Bananas, Chiquita Bananas) of the last 200 years
- The producers of African palm (including the World Bank-funded Dinant corporation) and sugarcane for export to global consumers of food products and “green energy” (ethanol and bio-diesel fuels)
- Maquiladora factory exploiters of cheap labor producing clothes for Gildan Activewear, Hanesbrand, JCPenney, Saks Fifth Avenue’s The Works, etc.
- Privatized hydro-electric dams such as the Agua Zarca project spear-headed by the Atala Zablah family and international investors that was violently forced upon Indigenous Lenca territories that Berta and COPINH defend
- Tourism enclaves along Honduras’ north Caribbean shore, operated by Canadian Randy “porn king” Jorgensen and his ilk, illegally and violently evicting Garifuna peoples from communal, ancestral lands
- Mining companies (Goldcorp, NUCOR, Aura Minerals) ripping the earth for gold and iron, poisoning the waters of Guapinol and the Siria Valley, poisoning the blood of local residents, evicting communities and illegally digging up the dead from the 200-year-old Azacualpa cemetery
Most recently, Berta was killed by …
The U.S. and Canadian backed military coup of 2009, that ousted the democratically elected government of president Mel Zelaya, and brought back to power the same elites that for so long have dominated and abused Honduras, who -once back in power– announced that “Honduras is open for global business”, while opening Honduras’ borders and using the military and State institutions to traffic illegal drugs to U.S. and Canadian markets, hiring sicarios to kill people who stood in their way, … people like Berta.
How to honor Berta Cáceres
Berta was a tireless defender of all creatures on the planet. She fought for Mother Earth herself—for air, water, and all life forms on our precious, unique planet. Berta lived, stood and struggled because another world is necessary and possible.
Do what Berta would do, as she always did. Live, organize, educate, work and struggle together. Reach out and support the so 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 injustices and inequalities, all discriminations, all Mother Earth destroying activities, and for another world is necessary and possible.
