Thank-you Berta Caceres: “Wake up humanity, we are out of time”

Photos-commentary by Grahame Russell.  Feel free to repost and share

(“Despertemos humanidad, ya no hay tiempo.  Berta Caceres Flores, March 4, 1971 – March 2, 2016.  “Wake up humanity, we are out of time”.)

Roberto Caceres squats (March 5, 2017) by the grave of his sister Berta Caceres, assassinated March 2, 2016, by the deeply corrupted and repressive Honduran regime that is – it bears repeating over and over – fully supported and empowered by the U.S. and Canadian governments, the World Bank and other global economic actors in the “international community”.  Since the 2009, U.S.- and Canadian-backed military coup, Honduras has become the most violent country in the world (highest murder rates in the world, according to the United Nations), and has the highest levels of government repression, corruption and impunity in the Americas.

(Mama Berta (Berta’s mother) waters flowers in the family home in La Esperanza.  Berta lived here for most of her life, until a few months before her assassination, when she moved nearby.)

Mama Berta – along with Berta’s children, siblings and cousins, along with Berta’s organization COPINH, along with Gustavo Castro (who was shot twice during the assassination of Berta Caceres, and survived) and his organization Otros Mundos – has been at the forefront of political and legal efforts, inside Honduras and internationally, to have justice done for the killing of Berta.

To date, 8 men have been arrested for Berta’s well planned and financed assassination.  To date, none of the intellectual authors (they who planned and paid for the killing) have been arrested.  There is no doubt that the assassination plot was hatched and paid for at the highest levels of Honduras’ economic, military and political elites.  Berta was that empowering to so many people that she – through her vision and life work and struggle – represented a real threat to their corrupted, repressive elites.

It also bears repetition that Berta’s killing is the tip of the ice-berg in Honduras.  As Mama Berta and all family members are quick to remind everyone, hundreds of Hondurans have been assassinated and killed for political reasons, with complete impunity, since the 2009 military coup.

(Mama Berta and brother Roberto stand with Salvador Zuniga, Berta’s ex-husband, in the family home where a spiritual ceremony and gathering of family and friends was held on March 3, 2017.)

With the U.S. and Canada, with the World Bank and global companies and investors maintaining or expanding economic, military and political relations with the corrupt, repressive regime since the 2009 military coup, Honduras continues to be a hell-hole of exploitation and racism, government repression and generalized violence, corruption and impunity.

It is no surprise that tens of thousands of Hondurans are forced to flee north, year after year, to try and enter the U.S..  The U.S., Canada and the “international community” are perpetuating and benefiting from the very conditions that force so many to desperately flee north, even as the U.S. government and a sector of the society howl about “illegal” immigrants.

The racist, ugly and repressive crackdown against “illegals” in the U.S. begs the question as to why is there nothing “illegal” about supporting and legitimizing the military coup in 2009 and then perpetuating and benefiting from the ensuring repression and violence, corruption and impunity that force so many people to flee?

·        Berta Cáceres Court Papers Show Murder Suspects’ Links To US-Trained Elite Troops, by Nina Lakhani, 28 February 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/28/berta-caceres-honduras-military-intelligence-us-trained-special-forces

·        The Vision and Legacy of Berta Caceres Lives On, by Beverly Bell, 3 March 2017 ~ Berta Zuñiga Caceres and Laura Zuñiga Caceres talk about their mother’s life of resistance, http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/The-Vision-and-Legacy-of-Berta-Caceres-Lives-On-20170303-0013.html

·        An Idealist’s Martyrdom Fails to Move Honduras, by Silvio Carrillo, March 2, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/opinion/an-idealists-martyrdom-fails-to-move-honduras.html?_r=0

·        Honduras: To Honor Berta Cáceres’ Memory, Carry on Her Struggle, by Sandra Cuffe, March 4, 2017, http://upsidedownworld.org/archives/honduras/honduras-to-honor-berta-caceres-memory-carry-on-her-struggle/

·        Berta Caceres: Who She Is & What She Lived For, re-posting a reflection by Grahame Russell, March 3, 2016, http://us9.campaign-archive2.com/?u=ea011209a243050dfb66dff59&id=8904124d57

Even as Berta’s assassination – similar to all brutal, vicious deaths – leaves a gaping hole in the hearts and lives of family members and loved ones, it is also true that Berta’s vision and life-so-well-lived are planting seeds of empowerment, resistance and another-world-is-possible throughout Honduras, and beyond.

(12 noon, March 5, 2017 – the outside wall of the home of Mama Berta.)

(Sundown, March 5th, with Tegucigalpa artists/activists.)

As a 2^nd year begins of seeking justice for Berta’s assassination, an 8^th year continues of denouncing and resisting the repression and racism, corruption and impunity of the Honduran regime, and an 8^th year continues of denouncing and trying to hold accountable the U.S. and Canadian governments, the World Bank, and our companies and investors (in mining, African palm, bananas and sugar cane, sweatshop garment industry, tourism, mining, etc.) for their complicit role in doing business as usual with and empowering and legitimizing the Honduran regime.

Berta’s organization COPINH – Civic Council of Indigenous and Popular Organizations

www.copinh.org; copinhonduras.blogspot.com; www.facebook.com/copinh.intibuca; https://twitter.com/COPINHHONDURAS

Since 1998, Rights Action has been funding the community development, indigenous rights and environmental defense work of COPINH.  Since Berta’s assassination –March 2, 2016-, we have channeld your funds to Berta Caceres’ family, COPINH and Gustavo Castro’s organization Otros Mundos.

Make checks to “Rights Action” (write “Justice for Berta” on memo line) and mail to:

U.S.:  Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887

Canada:  (Box 552) 351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8

Credit-Card Donations in Canada and U.S.: http://rightsaction.org/donate/