Public Letter: We Have the Right to Think that You are Part of the Crime
March
29,
2016
Translated
by
Scott Campbell
Relatives
of
Berta Cáceres report that the Attorney General is protecting the
murderers.
There are economic ties between the coordinator of the prosecution
and DESA’s
lawyers [the company behind the Agua Zarca dam]. They claim that
the Honduran State
knew of the plan to murder indigenous leader Berta Cáceres.
Public
Letter
President
of
the Republic, Juan Orlando Hernández,
Attorney
General
of the Republic, Oscar Chinchilla,
The
relatives
of Berta Cáceres, the COPINH [Civic Council of Popular and
Indigenous
Organizations of Honduras], the Platform of Social and Popular
Movements of
Honduras (PMSPH) and the Popular Coordination Berta Cáceres, for
the ears of
Honduran society and the international community, we are writing
you to express
and demand the following:
It
is about
to be one month since the crime against Berta Cáceres and Gustavo
Castro. To
date, what we know with certainty is that you, as leading figures
of the
government and the Honduran State, failed in your duty to protect
the life of
Berta, despite repeated reports of death threats, and that since
2009 the CIDH
[Inter-American Commission on Human Rights] informed you that she
faced real
and serious risks and requested that you protect her. That is to
say, you are
now responsible for this crime and we hope that one day you will
be judged.
Following
the
crime against Berta and Gustavo Castro, several matters have come
to light
that require your explanation and clarification, but this must
first be done
for the victims and later to those who will judge you. Among the
main points to
be clarified are:
Who
came up
with the hypothesis (the only one you have made public), that the
crime against
Berta is related to a personal or internal conflict within COPINH?
What actions
have been taken regarding those public officials who failed or did
not comply
with their obligations to protect Berta Cáceres? What actions have
been
initiated against the police, prosecutors, witnesses and other
persons who in
the hours following the incident had already solved the case, with
obvious
falsehoods, and insisted on accusing anyone, for the purpose of
generating
impunity and lessening the national and international pressure
that the crime
had caused? What actions are underway regarding the tampering with
of the
investigation and the crime scene that has been publicly reported
by several
figures, among them the victim Gustavo Castro? Why do you insist
on holding
Gustavo Castro in the country and continuing to violate his human
rights, when
he has cooperated with the investigation and is willing to
continue cooperating
from his home in Mexico?
Why
aren’t
you responding to the requests made by the daughters, son, mother
and other
relatives of Berta? Why aren’t you accepting an independent
commission led by
the CIDH, who can help investigate the crime? Why are you, through
your legal
representatives, prohibiting the active participation of the
victims in the
investigation?
What
are you
hiding? What do those covering it up fear? Why do you insist on
continuing to
violate the rights of the victims?
What
role is
the FBI playing in the investigation of the crime? How have they
intervened?
Who and what types of skills and experiences do those who are
supposedly
collaborating with the Honduran authorities have? Are those FBI
agents involved
in the investigation there in order to ensure the impunity of
DESA, USAID, the
U.S. Embassy in Honduras, and you, as the government? How do you
explain and
what are the terms of the cooperation agreement between USAID and
DESA, the
licensee of the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project and the main
suspect in
conceiving and executing the crime against Berta?
How
do you
explain the independence of the investigation when the current
head of the
prosecution, Arturo Duarte, an active participant in the
investigative process,
has been a partner at the law firm that represents DESA and filed
charges
against Berta in the courts in La Esperanza in 2013? Do you
believe that he
could hide the fact that DESA’s lawyer, Juan Sánchez Cantillano,
has been a
partner and personal friend, and that this constitutes a clear
source for the
contamination and manipulation of the investigation?
Mr.
President
and Mr. Attorney General,
Your
behavior
and the doubts outlined above give us the right to believe that
you
not only failed to protect Berta, but that you may have known of
the plan to
murder her and today are part of the plan to keep the crime in
impunity. That
is to say, all of the State’s actions and omissions regarding the
case of Berta
Cáceres allow us to assert that there exists an express will of
the State to
ensure that justice is not done.
We
wish to affirm
that, as victims: the family, COPINH, PMSPH, and the Popular
Coordination Berta
Cáceres, we are determined to seek and obtain the truth and
justice for this
crime.
That
is why
we urge you to address the requests that the victims have already
placed on
your desks:
·
That you accept the
intervention of an
independent commission of international experts overseen by the
CIDH that will
actively contribute to the investigation and the clarification of
the crime
against Berta and Gustavo Castro;
·
That you respect the right
of the victims to
actively participate in the investigation that the Public
Prosecutor is
carrying out;
·
That you respect and
guarantee the lives and
rights of the victims, of COPINH and of the legal team that
accompanies them;
in particular, that you allow them to continue with their
legitimate defense of
the human rights of indigenous peoples;
·
That you respect the right
of the victim Gustavo
Castro to return to his country, from where he will continue
contributing to
the investigation, if necessary;
·
That you reverse and
devalue the Río Gualcarque
concession given to DESA and all the concessions that
illegitimately impact
Honduran territory.
We
demand
that you cease the campaign against Berta’s family, COPINH, and
the Honduran
social movement. The culprits of the human and economic failure
this country is
living through are you, together with a political-economic class
that has been
leading the country to point of corruption, violence and
ineptitude.
Finally,
we
reaffirm our unwavering commitment to continue insisting on and
contributing to
our Honduras where justice and dignity are daily occurrences for
the victims, we
who are the great majority of Hondurans.
March
2016
