. . WOMEN’S EQUALITY . .

An article from the Nobel Women’s Initiative

Bertha Zúñiga Cáceres, general coordinator of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras [COPINH]. COPINH fights for the environmental, cultural, social, health, economic and educational rights of Honduras’s largest indigenous group, the Lenca people. 

Photo by Mel Mencos

Bertha Zúñiga Cáceres was born to what she’s described as “a people of great dignity and strength.” She also was born into struggle. She was just a toddler when her mother, Berta Cáceres, one of Honduras’s most high-profile activists, founded COPINH to defend the land rights of the country’s Indigenous Lenca from exploitation by mining, dam-building and logging interests. (She also advocated against racism, sexual discrimination and the victimization of women.) Her mother, Zúñiga Cáceres recalled, “instilled in us from a very early age that we must continue forward defending the rights of our people.”

The fight was intense. Extractive industry companies hold concessions on more than 30 percent of Honduras’s land. With her siblings, Zúñiga Cáceres went to marches and protests – she learned young how to best avoid breathing in tear gas – read about racism, and spent time in the Indigenous communities that were her mother’s focus. The experience forever shaped her. As she put it, “To make the ancestral struggles of the communities yours, is to assume a way of seeing and being in the world.”

Zúñiga Cáceres also learned early that in Honduras speaking truth to power is a dangerous act. Her mother fought the construction of a hydroelectric project with a series of dams that would dry up the Gualcarque River, which is both sacred to Lenca communities and vital to their survival.  Death threats were constant. Later Zúñiga Cáceres acknowledged that the danger in which her family lived “was so frequent that it became normal.”

The danger also was real. At least 124 environmental and land activists have been murdered in Honduras since 2009; Global Witness calls the country the most dangerous in the world in which to defend natural resources. On March 2, 2016, one year after Berta Cáceres won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize—sometimes called the Green Nobel—and one day before her 45th birthday, gunmen pushed into her home and shot her to death.

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Do women have a special role to play in the peace movement?

Indigenous peoples, Are they the true guardians of nature?

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Zúñiga Cáceres, who is sometimes called Bertita, or Little Bertha, suspended her graduate studies and went to work on two fronts: to find and bring her mother’s killers to justice, and to continue her mother’s fight against the dam and for a more general social justice—a struggle, she’s said, that “goes beyond one person or one single individual.”

Neither has been easy.  Eight people are in custody in relation to the killing of Berta Cáceres, two with links to the company trying to build the dam, three with military ties. A recent independent investigation by five international human rights experts revealed evidence that both state agents and the hydroelectric company’s executives and employees had taken part in planning, executing and cover up the murder. But in Honduras almost no one gets punished for any murder, and the Honduran government has made it clear that going after who planned or ordered that Berta be killed is not likely.

Zúñiga Cáceres, who assumed leadership of COPINH last summer, has called for a full and independent investigation into the assassination of her mother – or as she put it in 2016, “We want to set a precedent of justice in a country where there is none.” She also began to campaign in support of pending U.S. legislation that would suspend all military aid to Honduras until the country demonstrates that it has taken action on the unlawful killing of human rights activists.

She soon discovered the danger in her own outspokenness. Just weeks after Zúñiga Cáceres assumed leadership of COPINH, she and two colleagues survived an attack by four men who followed them home from a visit to a community in central Honduras, attacked with rocks and machetes, then tried to force their vehicle off a cliff.

Death did not silence the mother, Berta Cáceres: during her funeral procession, a crowd of thousands followed chanting “Berta vive, la lucha sigue!” COPINH’s fight, Zúñiga Cáceres has said has become “a universal struggle…a struggle that is modestly and humbly taken over by a community.” Her mother, she says, did not die, “but entered the earth, like a seed.”

Like her mother, Zúñiga Cáceres will not be silenced either. As she wrote in a column published last March, in Spain’s El País, “If I could tell my mother anything now, it would be ‘don’t worry: your fight lives on in me, in my brothers and sisters, and in our community.’”

(Thank you to Janet Hudgins, the CPNN reporter for this article.)

. . WOMEN’S EQUALITY . .

An article from Nobel Women’s Initiative

Journalist and human rights defender. Dina Meza is a well-known independent journalist and defender of the rights to freedom of expression and information. She is also the founding President of PEN Honduras, which supports journalists at risk. Dina also publishes investigative reports on human rights violations and corruption through her online news magazine Pasos de Animal Grande. In 2007, Dina received Amnesty International UK’s special award for at-risk journalists, and in 2014, Dina received the Oxfam Novib/PEN International Freedom of Expression Award.

Photo courtesy of Daniel Cima for Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos.

Although I have been a journalist since 1992, I am not able to work in mainstream media because I’m considered a dissident.  So in 2014, I created Pasos de Animal Grande, an online news magazine.  There is a lot of censorship in Honduras, but using digital media allows me to independently address profound themes such as impunity, violence against women, and violence against human rights defenders. I also work as a human rights defender, and despite the multiple threats I receive constantly, I am able to do my work thanks to the support of Peace Brigades International  which accompanies me when I do my interviews. I also accompany students at the national university when they protest, and are jailed for expressing their views.

What made you decide to do this work?

It was a family tragedy that made me focus on human rights. In 1989 my older brother was abducted by the military and taken to a clandestine location where he was tortured for five days. Thankfully he made it out alive, but the military broke his spine and he was never able to return to a normal life. It wasn’t until that moment that I realized to what extent human rights violations were plaguing Honduras. This experience taught me that no family should go through this alone, and I have committed my life to working with families as they fight for the human rights of their loved ones. I could not look my children in the eye and live with the knowledge that I didn’t do anything to help my country. I have three children, two sons and a daughter, and they are all deeply impacted by my work. They understand that this could have terrible consequences, but they also understand that it is necessary to bring the change we all long for in our country.

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Do women have a special role to play in the peace movement?

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What kind of threats have you had to face as a result of your work?

On a daily basis, I live with the constant fear of someone breaking into my car, I am followed by cars with plates that have no numbers, and have received several threatening phone calls.  My family and I have lived with threats against us for the past 11 years. We constantly have to move houses. Armed men regularly come to our door. My daughter has received sexual threats, even on her way to school. My phone is taped every hour of the day. This is what life looks like for a human rights defender in a country like Honduras. But it has also taught us how to protect ourselves. And the support of organizations like Amnesty International, Peace Brigades International and PEN International  has been key for me to continue what I do.

Being a human rights defender in an oppressive environment can be deeply overwhelming. How do you take care of heart and spirit in such an aggressive space?

I believe that one should never lose hope. I am a Christian, and feel like God protects me. I hear testimonies of people who suffer from extreme human rights abuses every day. I often have students crying on my shoulders after being beaten by the men in uniform for exercising their rights. Seeing the youth fighting for a better Honduras gives me strength and inspiration. It may be hard but I absolutely love my work. I love being a journalist, and I love defending human rights.

What would you say to a young activist—in Honduras or anywhere in the world—who is fighting a situation that seems hopeless?

Everything changes. No evil lasts forever, so do not despair. Hold on to hope, hold on to your motivation to change the system. Those who are harming the world are fewer than those of us who are fighting to correct them. We need to remember, and focus on that.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Honduras is a beautiful country but needs much solidarity from the world. About 12 people are controlling the wealth in the country and oppressing local communities. I would like for people to come and witness it for themselves. I run an organization for democracy and human rights; if a young person wants to come to Honduras and help, we are happy to welcome them, we take volunteers in all the time.

(Thank you to Janet Hudgins, the CPNN reporter for this article)