STOP FUNDING DEATH PROJECTS ON INDIGENOUS LAND

The family of Berta Càceres, the Civic Council of Grassroots and Indigenous

Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), the Social and Grassroots Movement of

Honduras, and the Berta Caceres Grassroots Campaign gathered in front of the Central

American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) today, 27 days since the malicious

murder of our colleague and sister Berta Isabel Càceres Flores.



We demand that CABEI suspend its funds indefinitely to the Agua Zarca hydropower

project, which has caused community division in the project area and unrest and

violence that claimed the lives of COPINH’s colleagues. We hold CABEI partly

responsible for the murder of comrade Bertha Càceres Flores.

This project, as well as others, under the guise of supporting development actually

engenders bloodshed, because they are promoted with total arrogance, contrivances,

promises and enormous amounts of money to crush the culture, spirituality, social fabric

and cohesion of the community and only benefit transnational corporations and their

shareholders.

For centuries the communities in these areas have been exercising our rights to

autonomy and respecting our connection with the rivers, land, and all living beings. Now

companies like Desarrollos Energeticos S.A. (DESA) accuse community members of

being violent. However, until their arrival, there has not been the kind of murder and

destruction that now leave us in mourning and pain; where there once were promises,

there is now blood.

CABEI cannot claim innocence or deny that these events are directly related to their

business interests and investments. The blood of the people is on their hands. For this

reason, we say that it is time to stop business transaction on this project, which is

certainly generating profits for them. Besides, they will suffer major international

disrepute for being complicit in the death and horrors of this country. Those of you who

belong to these organizations need to be aware that you are part of a chain that unites

us all as humans; and if you believe that you are beyond reach from negative

repercussions as a result of this project, you are mistaken. There is one life, one water,

one land, destroying it is collective suicide.

We want to say to those who fight against “death projects”, such as those that are

funded, that we will denounce at every opportunity CABEI’s interventions and projects so

that the people will not forget, and that Honduras, Berta Càceres, COPINH will be world

assets; so that our fight will be supported by international mobilizations, where millions of

people are watching you and monitoring your actions; so that you are unable to hide the

crime, the lies, the spoils.

To DESA, we say get out from the sacred land of Gualcarque

To all the businesses that destroy our indigenous and black communities in Honduras,

Enough funding of murders in our communities

we say get out

Tegucigalpa, 29 March 2016