Bertha Isabel Cáceres Flores (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈbeɾtajsaˈβel ˈkaseɾes ˈfloɾes]; 4 March 1971 – 2 March 2016) was a Honduran (Lenca) environmental activist, indigenous leader, co-founder and coordinator of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH). She won the Goldman Environmental Prize, one of the most prestigious awards for environmental activism, in 2015 for "a grassroots campaign that successfully pressured the world's largest dam builder to pull out of the Agua Zarca Dam" at the Río Gualcarque.
In 2016 she was assassinated in her home by armed intruders, after many years of threats against her life. A former soldier, with the US-trained special forces units of the Honduran military, asserted that Cáceres' name was on their hitlist for months prior to her assassination. As of February 2017, three of the eight arrested people have been linked to the US-trained elite military troops. Two had been trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, USA, at the former School of the Americas (SOA), now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, or WHINSEC. Having been founded in 2001, WHINSEC has since been linked to thousands of murders and human rights violations in Latin America by its graduates. In November 2017, a team of international legal experts released a report finding "willful negligence by financial institutions." For example, the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), the Netherlands Development Finance Institution (FMO) and the Finnfund pursued a strategy with shareholders, executives, managers, and employees of the Honduran company Desarrollos Energeticos SA (DESA), private security companies working for DESA, public officials and State security agencies "to control, neutralize and eliminate any opposition".
Twelve land defenders were killed in Honduras in 2014, according to research by Global Witness, making it the most dangerous country in the world, relative to its size, for activists protecting forests and rivers. Berta Cáceres' murder was followed by those of two more activists within the same month.
In July 2021, Roberto David Castillo, the former president of DESA, was found guilty of being a co-conspirator in her murder, and sentenced to 22 and a half years in prison.
Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores was born in La Esperanza, Honduras into the Lenca people, a predominant Indigenous group in southwestern Honduras. The youngest of 12, she grew up in the 1970s during a time of civil unrest and violence in Central America. Her mother Austra Bertha Flores Lopez was a role model of humanitarianism: She was a midwife, assisting in thousands of natural births in the Honduran countryside, and social activist who took in and cared for refugees from El Salvador. Austra Flores was elected and served as a two-term mayor of their hometown of La Esperanza, as a congresswoman, and as a governor of the Department of Intibucá.
After attending local schools, Cáceres studied education at a university and graduated with a teaching qualification. Fr. Ismael Moreno, a priest and director of Radio Progreso & ERIC-SJ, became a close friend and collaborator of Cáceres.
In 1993, as a student activist, Cáceres co-founded the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), an organization to support indigenous people's rights in Honduras. She led campaigns on a wide variety of issues, including protesting illegal logging, plantation owners, and the presence of US military bases on Lenca land. She supported feminism, LGBT rights, as well as wider social and indigenous issues. Early on in her life of activism, she understood the value and the implications of the LGBT struggle, as she recognized that they experienced the same discrimination and oppression that her and her people did.
In 2006, a group of indigenous Lenca people from Río Blanco asked Cáceres to investigate the recent arrival of construction equipment in their area. Cáceres duly investigated and informed the community that a joint venture project between Chinese company Sinohydro, the World Bank's International Finance Corporation, and Honduran company Desarrollos Energéticos, S.A., also known as DESA, had plans to construct a series of four hydroelectric dams on the Gualcarque River.
The developers had breached international law by failing to consult with the local people on the project. The Lenca were concerned that the dams would compromise their access to water, food and materials for medicine, and therefore threaten their traditional way of life. Cáceres worked together with the community to mount a protest campaign. She organized legal actions and community meetings against the project, and took the case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
From 2013, Cáceres led COPINH and the local community in a year-long protest at the construction site to prevent the companies from accessing the land. Security officers regularly removed protesters from the site. On 15 July 2013, the Honduran military opened fire on the protesters, killing one member of COPINH, Tomás García, and injuring three others, including his 17-year-old son, Alan. The community reported regular threats and harassment from the company employees, security guards, and the military. In May 2014, members of COPINH were attacked in two separate incidents that resulted in two members dead and three seriously injured.
In late 2013, both Sinohydro and the International Finance Corporation withdrew from the project because of COPINH's protests. Desarrollos Energéticos (DESA) continued, however, moving the construction site to another location to avoid the blockade. Other local business leaders supported the project. Officials filed criminal charges against Cáceres and two other indigenous leaders for "usurpation, coercion and continued damages" against DESA for their roles in the protest, which was alleged to have incited others to cause damages to the company. In response to the charges, Amnesty International stated that, if the activists were imprisoned, Amnesty International would consider them prisoners of conscience. Dozens of regional and international organizations called upon the Honduran government to stop criminalizing the defense of human rights and to investigate threats against human rights defenders.
On 20 February 2016, more than 100 protesters were detained by security while protesting, and threats against their organization began to increase.
Cáceres singled out Hillary Clinton for her involvement in legitimizing the 2009 Honduran coup d'état:"The return of the president, Mel Zelaya, became a secondary issue. There were going to be elections in Honduras. And here, she, Clinton, recognized that they didn't permit Mel Zelaya's return to the presidency. There were going to be elections. And the international community—officials, the government, the grand majority—accepted this, even though we warned this was going to be very dangerous and that it would permit a barbarity, not only in Honduras but in the rest of the continent. And we've been witnesses to this."Clinton claimed that her method of handling the situation was better for the Honduran people.
Threats and human rights concerns
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACH) included "Bertha Cáceres" [sic] on its 28 June 2009 list of people under threat during the 2009 Honduran coup d'état. The following day the IACH issued so-called "precautionary measures (MC 196-09)" in defense of her and other activists, while acknowledging reports that military forces had surrounded her home.
In 2013, Cáceres told Al Jazeera:
The army has an assassination list of 18 wanted human rights fighters with my name at the top. I want to live, there are many things I still want to do in this world but I have never once considered giving up fighting for our territory, for a life with dignity, because our fight is legitimate. I take lots of care but in the end, in this country where there is total impunity I am vulnerable... When they want to kill me, they will do it.