The Atala Zablah family’s company, Inversiones Las Jacaranda, raised their money – despite pleas from Berta – from FMO (a Dutch development bank), FinnFund (a Finnish development investor), and the Central American Bank of Economic Integration (a multilateral development institution).īertha and Laura Zúniga Cáceres at a mural made by el Colectivo Culturas Vivas, Tegucigalpa, Honduras, 2021. She was killed, her family says, by a conspiracy that involved the Atala Zablah family, the main financial backers of the dam project. As Vásquez said of the murder of Carlos Cerros, Berta too was killed for the work she did. Berta Cáceres opposed the Agua Zarca dam and defended the land of the Lenca people. In 2013, DESA had initiated the construction of a hydroelectric dam without consulting the Lenca community, who consider the river to be a sacred and common resource. This money went from DESA’s chief financial officer, Daniel Atala Midence, to David Castillo, who then funnelled it to the military officer Douglas Bustillo, who coordinated the assassination of Berta. The lawyers filed paperwork that showed confirmation of a payment of $1,254,000 from DESA to Potencia y Energia de Mesoamerica S.A. The next day, on a plea from the defence, the Court agreed to suspend the trial for the fourth time.īefore the suspension, the legal team representing Berta and her family presented new evidence that established a wider conspiracy that involved the Atala Zablah family. Castillo, the former president of Desarrollos Energéticos Sociedad Anónima (DESA), the company behind the Agua Zarca dam project on the Gualcarque River, came to face charges that he was the mastermind in the 2016 assassination of Berta Cáceres, the leader of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organisation of Honduras (COPINH). Two and a half weeks later, on 6 April, Roberto David Castillo Mejía entered the Supreme Court in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. Carlos Cerros was killed, Vásquez said, ‘because of the work we do’. Jorge Vásquez of the National Platform of Indigenous Peoples said that Juan Carlos Cerros had been threatened for his leadership of the Lenca peoples and their fight to protect their land. The gunmen opened fire in front of a catholic church, killing this leader of United Communities in front of his children. On a Sunday night on 21 March 2021, gunmen stopped Juan Carlos Cerros Escalante (age 41) as he walked from this mother’s home to his own in the village of Nueva Granada near San Antonio de Cortés (Honduras). We analyze MACCIH as an example of a particular type of tool of national and international decision-makers – an international body created with national government consent to work in close collaboration with authorities and civil society in the realm of rule of law and anti-impunity.Colectivo Culturas Vivas, Senderos latinos / Latino paths, Honduras, 2019 Although we examine degrees to which MACCIH has reasonably fulfilled its mandate during its initial two years, the report assesses the contribution of the MACCIH experiment beyond its strict mandate, examining how its creation and evolution have contributed to combating impunity and corruption in Honduras. Based on dozens of interviews with OAS and MACCIH officials Honduran officials representatives of Honduran and international civil society organizations and diplomats of the United States, United Nations and other international stakeholders, the report considers the extent to which MACCIH has contributed to the fight against corruption. This report analyzes the experience of MACCIH in reducing corruption and impunity in its first two years.
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