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Death by Impunity: Foei Human Rights Berta Cáceres and Agua Zarca Defenders MARCH | 2019

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Death by Impunity: Foei Human Rights Berta Cáceres and Agua Zarca Defenders MARCH | 2019 Death by impunity: foei human rights Berta Cáceres and Agua Zarca defenders MARCH | 2019 THE URGENT CASE FOR BINDING LEGISLATION ON TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS Death by impunity: Berta Cáceres and Agua Zarca friends of the earth international MARCH | 2019 friends of the earth international is the world’s largest grassroots environmental network with 73 member groups and over two million members and supporters around the world. Our vision is of a peaceful and sustainable world based on societies living in harmony with nature. We envision a society of interdependent people living in dignity, wholeness and fulfilment in which equity and human and peoples’ rights are realised. This will be a society built upon peoples’ sovereignty and participation. It will be founded on social, economic, gender and environmental justice and be free from all forms of domination and exploitation, such as neoliberalism, corporate globalisation, neo- colonialism and militarism. We believe that our children’s future will be better because of what we do. Our vision Is of a peaceful and sustainable world based on societies living in harmony with nature. We envision a society of interdependent people living in dignity, wholeness and fulfilment in which equity and human and peoples’ rights are realized. This will be a society built upon peoples’ sovereignty and participation. It will be founded on social, economic, gender and environmental justice and be free from all forms of domination and exploitation, such as neoliberalism, corporate globalization, neo-colonialism and militarism. We believe that our children’s future will be better because of what we do. Lead Author: Sophie Colsell. Editor: Ike Teuling. Acknowledgments: Paul De Clerck, Sam Cossar-Gilbert. Design: www.onehemisphere.se. Images: Courtesy of the Goldman Environmental Prize. www.goldmanprize.org. Friends of the Earth International gratefully acknowledges financial assistance from the European Commission’s LIFE Programme and from Directorate General for International Cooperation of the Dutch Ministry for Foreign Affairs (DGIS). The contents of this documents are the sole responsibility of Friends of the Earth International and cannot be regarded as reflecting the position of the funders mentioned above. www.foei.org friends of the earth international tel: +31 (0)20 6221369 Secretariat [email protected] P.O.Box 19199, 1000 GD Amsterdam Follow us: twitter.com/foeint The Netherlands facebook.com/foeint 2 | FOEI 2019 / DEATH BY IMPUNITY foei human rights defenders FOREWORD Berta Cáceres. © Goldman Environmental Prize “I cannot freely walk on my territory or swim in the Several international institutions financed the project, including two sacred river and I am separated from my children European financiers: the Dutch Development Finance Institution (FMO) and the Finnish Development Finance Institution (Finnfund). because of the threats. I cannot live in peace, I am When they were made aware by the community of the human rights always thinking about being killed or kidnapped. violations linked to the construction of the dam, they turned a blind But I refuse to go into exile. I am a human rights eye and continued their involvement. fighter and I will not give up this fight.” 1 The banks claimed that they followed the voluntary United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP) guidelines on human rights due diligence, despite the overwhelming evidence Berta Caceres, murdered in her home by hitmen on 2 March 2016 in retaliation for her work defending her peoples’ territory and human rights. that the project disregarded international standards. After Berta’s murder, the companies were put under strong pressure and, finally, agreed to stop financing the project. Berta Cáceres was murdered for protesting against the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam that was threatening a river considered sacred by This case clearly shows that, in order to prevent such human rights her community. The community faced years of intimidation and violations, we need legally binding norms to hold corporations to military repression and, in total, five members of the community account for the human rights violations and environmental damages were killed. The company constructing the dam turned out to be their activities cause. As shown by this case, voluntary commitments directly involved in these killings. clearly don’t work. We are therefore calling for a UN binding treaty on transnational corporations and human rights. 1 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/03/remembering-berta-caceres-interview-la- esperanza-honduras-human-rights FOEI 2019 / DEATH BY IMPUNITY | 3 Introduction 01 Gualcarque river. © Goldman Environmental Prize On the 2nd March 2016, armed hitmen broke into the home of Berta Intimidation of environmental activists Cáceres two days before what would have been her 45th birthday. According to Global Witness, two people are killed worldwide every They shot her three times with a .38 revolver, and then fled to a week for taking a stand against environmental destruction.2 In waiting getaway car. She died shortly afterwards in the arms of her 2017, 201 activists across the world were recorded to have been friend Gustavo Castro, the director of Ortos Mundos/ Friends of the killed for taking a stand against environmental destruction and Earth Mexico and old friend, who had also been shot, and who had land-grabbing by governments and companies, and for calling out survived by pretending to be dead. At the time of her assassination, the corrupt and unjust practices associated with it.3 The actual the internationally-renowned Lenca indigenous leader and number is likely to be much higher. Most of the activists were killed Honduran human rights and environment defender was leading in disputes over hydropower, mining and agri-business, and many the struggle against the Agua Zarca project: the construction of an of them were indigenous people. internationally-financed hydroelectric dam on the Gualcarque River in western Honduras. The Gualcarque River is sacred to the According to Global Witness, Latin America had the world’s highest Lenca people, and the dam’s construction threatened to desiccate number of killings of land and environment defenders in 2017, and, the river and endanger the livelihoods of the Lenca people. Her within Latin America, ‘nowhere on earth are you more likely to be fearless work with COPINH (Civic Council of Popular and killed for protesting the theft of land and destruction of the natural Indigenous Organizations of Honduras) to defend the Gualcarque world than in Honduras.’4 After the 2009 military coup that River, its surrounding environment and local people had won her introduced a pro-business government that sanctioned large the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2015. Before her murder, numbers of renewable energy projects, mines, and biofuel Berta had been given a prison sentence by the Honduran plantations in rural communities without consulting the local government for opposing the Agua Zarca project and had been population, there has been a wave of death threats, assassinations repeatedly threatened, placed under surveillance, and persecuted for her opposition to the project. 2 https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/environmental-activists/how-many-more/ 3 https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/environmental-activists/at-what-cost/ 4 https://www.globalwitness.org/documents/18804/English_Honduras_full_report_single_v6.pdf 4 | FOEI 2019 / DEATH BY IMPUNITY foei human rights defenders and systematic targeting of environmental and human rights In March 2013, DESA blocked access to the Gualcarque river. In activists in Honduras. 123 known land and environmental defenders response, on April 1, 2013, the COPINH community of Río Blanco have been killed in Honduras since the coup, making it the most began a blockade, preventing the dam company from reaching the dangerous country in the world to be an environmental activist. river and blocking the construction of the dam. The crisis escalated over the following months, with the site becoming increasingly The Agua Zarca Hydroelectric project militarised. The continued protests and serious conflicts that took place between the developer and local communities caused The Agua Zarca project, under construction by the Honduran Sinohydro to cancel its contract agreement with the project in corporation Desarrollos Energéticos S.A. (DESA), was a proposed 2013. However, DESA, the Honduran company and promoter of the hydroelectric project on the Gualcarque river in Río Blanco, western project, continued its involvement and sought out new financiers Honduras. It was predicted to have a generating capacity of and participating companies, including the Dutch development 22 megawatts, and consist in a 300 metre-long reservoir and a bank FMO, the Finnish Fund for Industrial Cooperation (Finnfund), 3-kilometre-long diversion channel between the dam and the the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), and turbines.5 In relative terms it was a small hydroelectric project, but it Voith Hydro (Siemens/Voith), the company foreseen to supply the posed an enormous threat to the indigenous Lenca people, who turbines, generators and automation technology to the project. consider the river to be sacred, and use it for irrigating their farmland The Lenca people continued their protest addressing the fact that as well as for swimming, washing and fishing. The Agua Zarca project they were not properly consulted regarding
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