GLOBAL CATHOLIC CLIMATE MOVEMENT & ECCLESIAL PAN-AMAZONIAN NETWORK STATEMENT ON MURDER OF BERTA CÁCERES:
The Ecclesial Pan-Amazonian Network – REPAM and the Global Catholic Climate Movement -MCMC express their strong condemnation of the brutal murder of indigenous and environmental leader Honduras, Berta Cáceres. We join our voices to thousands of people and institutions. They demand justice to this unfortunate and painful fact that robs us so violent to a brave woman, mother, wife, activist and human rights advocate.
Berta Cáceres’s death unites us in mission in the defense of life, the earth, and the many peoples’ rights of future generations. This death cries out, away from silence us. It moves us, and calls us to resist and to demand justice.
Our companion Berta Cáceres, from Lenca indigenous identity, was cofounder of Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) to fight for their rights. She led the peaceful opposition to the construction of a dam that would have destroyed farmland of local communities and limited access to drinking water and was initiated without their notification or consent. Her actions led to the Goldman Prize being awarded to her last year, the highest recognition for environmental activism.
She protected the environment, defended human rights, and defended the common home of humanity; it was this “crime” that the powerful do not forgive. Berta’s life and other indigenous leaders has been threatened repeatedly, but they have continued and still continue their valuable work. International organizations and governments have pressured Honduran authorities to ensure the safety of human rights activists. Today we are witnessing the price of inaction.
From the REPAM and GCCM-MCMC, we join our prayers, together with Berta’s friends, family members, and colleagues. And we make an urgent call to all entities and international justice agencies and the Government of Honduras to punish the perpetrators of this unfortunate murder and demand that everything possible be done to stop violence and intimidation against social activists.
Honduras mourns, indigenous, peasants, the Pan Amazon, Latin America and the world cry out for justice in the face of this injustice and violence. We demand answers instead of deaths, murders, imprisonments, silence, indifference, and social, governmental and institutional failures and indolence. No more impunity, no more persecution, no more killings of fighters who defend a decent life for their peoples and for humanity.
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