Suspects in Caceres Murder Linked to Military, US Training
Many believe that Honduran authorities were involved in the death of environmental activist Berta Caceres one year ago.
Last
year’s death of Honduran environmental activist Berta Caceres closely
resembles that of a planned extrajudicial killing by Honduran military
forces with links to U.S.-trained special forces, according to newly
leaked court documents.
RELATED:
Changes to Penal Code in Honduras Raise Human Rights Concerns
An
investigation into Caceres’ murder launched by the Guardian looked at
court documents of the eight men who were arrested in connection with
the murder. Three of the suspects had served in the military, and one
was a key figure in the hydroelectric dam which Caceres helped to lead
an indigenous struggle against.
The
new allegations center around Major Mariano Díaz, a veteran of the
country’s special forces who was chief of army intelligence and was
quickly arrested and discharged from his post. According to the leak,
Diaz was in close contact with another suspect Lt. Douglas Giovanny
Bustillo. Both served together and received U.S. training.
Former
special forces sniper Sgt. Henry Javier Hernandez was also named a
suspect. Hernandez worked under Diaz and prosecutors suspect that he
also worked as an informant for military intelligence once he left the
army in 2013.
According
to phone records and Hernandez’s testimony, he and Bustillo had visited
Carceres’ hometown of La Esperanza on a number of occasion in the weeks
leading up to her murder last year.
Sergio
Rodriguez, a manager at the DESA-Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam – the
project which Caceres focused her struggle against – was also named as a
suspect. The company behind the project, DESA, previously employed
Bustillo as its head of security.
Others
from the company have state and military connections with company
president Roberto David Castillo Mejia, a former military intelligence
officer, and company secretary Roberto Pacheco Reyes, a former justice
minister.
Despite
a lack of consent from the local Lenca community, licenses for the Agua
Zarca Dam and another dam were granted in 2010. Caceres received
numerous death threats over her activism against the dam and at the time
was supposedly under the protection of the state, but was killed on
March 3, 2016.
RELATED:
Another Indigenous Leader Assassinated in Honduras
At
the time of the murder, a number of armed men broke into the house
where Caceres and Mexican environmentalist Gustavo Castro were staying
and shot her three times. Castro and Caceres´ family claim that DESA, in
connection with the Honduran government, hired contract killers to
murder Caceres and other environmental and indigenous activists.
But
while state authorities and the military have continually denied their
involvement in the murder and the wider use of death squads targeting
activists, a source from the Guardian investigation said that the murder
“has all the characteristics of a well-planned operation designed by
military intelligence, where it is absolutely normal to contract
civilians as assassins.”
“It’s
inconceivable that someone with her high profile, whose campaign had
made her a problem for the state, could be murdered without at least
implicit authorization of military high command,” the source continued.
Earlier
this week, Amnesty International criticized the Honduran state for a
“scandalous lack of an effective investigation” into Carceres' murder
and a failure to protect human rights and environmental activists within
the country.
According
to a January 2017 report by human and environmental rights group Global
Witness, Honduras is the deadliest country in the world for
environmental activists, with over 120 activists murdered since the 2009
U.S.-backed military coup that ousted former President Manuel Zelaya.http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Suspects-in-Caceres-Murder-Linked-to-Military-US-Training-20170228-0008.html
