COPINH STATEMENT of April 8, 2016
April
8,
2016
Translated
by
Scott Campbell
The
Civic
Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras
(COPINH) reports, communicates
and denounces the following:
1.
We appreciate the national
and international
solidarity for an objective, impartial and non-racist
investigation that
clarifies the facts around the political assassination of our
compañera and
General Coordinator, Berta Cáceres, and leads to the truth and to
justice, with
the true material and intellectual authors of the murder being
subjected to the
law, as well as learning the facts and motives by which her murder
was planned
and carried out, however, we reiterate that the State of Honduras
continues to
fail to fulfill its obligations in this respect. Not accepting our
requests,
such as for an independent international investigative commission
that has the
trust of our organization, are the reasons for which we haven’t
trusted, don’t
trust and never will trust in the national laws and for which we
denounce our
country’s legal authorities’ manipulation of the investigation
into the vile
and horrendous murder of our compañera Berta Cáceres. And that Mr.
Juan Orlando
Hernandez has not shown the political will to speed up the
investigative
process and one month after the murder, neither the compañera’s
relatives nor
COPINH have received an official report on behalf of the
government about how
the investigation is proceeding into identifying the material and
intellectual
perpetrators.
2.
We note that the return of
compañero Gustavo
Castro Soto to his home in no way means that the State of Honduras
is released
from its responsibility for the moral, legal and economic damages
done to
Gustavo Castro Soto during his captivity.
3.
According to the principles
and statutes of
COPINH, compañero Tomas Gomez Membreño, who currently holds the
position
Organization Coordinator, officially assumes the position of
General
Coordinator of our organization, having the responsibility to sign
all types of
cooperation agreements with sister organizations, be they national
or
international, that may be of great interest exclusively for
COPINH.
4.
We denounce that there are
organizations and
people who are using the name of our compañera Berta Cáceres to
raise funds for
COPINH that don’t have as their objective the strengthening our
organization
but rather of benefiting themselves.
Given
this,
we wish to make public knowledge that the exclusive official
contacts for any person
or organization that has an interest in helping or supporting
COPINH are: Tomas
Gomez, Interim General Coordinator of COPINH and Lilian Lopez,
Financial
Coordinator. The direct contact to these COPINH officials are:
telephone (504)
2783 0817 and email: administracion@copinh.org.
Any
funding
or support that is not made through these official contacts is not
recognized
by COPINH.
BERTA
LIVES!!!
Intibucá,
April
8, 2016
