The person believed to be responsible for orchestrating the murder of Indigenous environmental activist Berta Cáceres has been issued an arrest warrant by authorities in Honduras.
In March of 2016, Cáceres was fatally shot in her residence as an act of revenge for her leadership in a movement to halt the building of an internationally funded dam for hydroelectricity.
Last Friday, a warrant for the arrest of Daniel Atala Midence was issued by a court, following formal accusations from prosecutors that he orchestrated the murder as the former financial manager of Desa, a dam company.
Atala Midence, a member of one of the most influential economic and political dynasties in the nation, co-managed Desa alongside the company’s president, David Castillo.
Last year, Castillo, a former intelligence officer who was trained in the US, received a sentence of 22 years and six months for his involvement in orchestrating and organizing the murder.
Atala Midence was summoned to give evidence in Castillo’s 2021 trial due to his role in running operations – which included authorising payments to informants used to monitor Cáceres. But Atala Midence was excused at the last minute after state prosecutors revealed that he was under investigation for the murder.
The majority shareholders of the dam company are Atala Midence’s father and two uncles, also known as the Atala Zablah brothers. Prosecutors have not implicated them in the assassination.
The announcement of the charges and arrest warrant was met with approval by Cáceres’s children. Her eldest daughter, Olivia Zúniga Cáceres, who serves as the Honduran ambassador to Cuba, expressed that the family is hoping for justice to be served.
The family’s lawyer, Victor Fernández, expressed a desire for justice and an end to impunity.
Cáceres, the coordinator of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (Copinh), was best known for defending indigenous Lenca territory and natural resources, but she was also a respected political analyst, women’s rights defender and anti-capitalist campaigner.
On March 2, 2016, two days before her 45th birthday, she was killed by paid assassins. This came after she had received multiple threats due to her opposition to the construction of the Agua Zarca dam on the Gualcarque river, which holds significance to the Lenca community. Along with Castillo, seven others, including two former military officers who were trained in the US, have been found guilty for their involvement in the murder.
The construction of a dam on the Gualcarque river was approved following the 2009 coup that brought in a government focused on promoting business, despite not meeting the necessary environmental and community regulations at both national and international levels.
Xiomara Castro, the current president, declined to discuss the matter while attending the UN climate negotiations in Dubai.
Nina Lakhani wrote the book “Who Killed Berta Cáceres? Dams, Death Squads, and an Indigenous Defender’s Battle for the Planet.”
Source: theguardian.com
