Statement Referring to the Constant Persecution and Repression of Members of COPINH Collaborative Initiative: Women, Territory, and the Environment Urgent Action Fund of Latin America and the Caribbean May 12, 2016 Organizations and activists, united by the Urgent Action Fund of Latin America’s Initiative: Women, Territory, and the Environment, from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, México, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina express our solidarity and support for the demands of the Lenca People and of COPINH (acronym in Spanish), Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, given the impunity surrounding the assassination of comrade Berta Cáceres and the continuous persecution of its members, in response to their defense of the Gualcarque River, threatened by the Agua Zarca dam and the DESA company. We wish to express our profound sorrow for the attacks and human rights violations against their members during a non-violent demonstration last Monday, May 9th, in front of the Presidential residence, as they demanded an international and independent commission to investigate the assassination of Berta Cáceres, persecuted, criminalized, and in the end, assassinated, on Mach 3, 2016. We denounce and demand justice for this brutal repression by the Honduran Army and Police, as a result of which several male and female comrades, as well as children and youth, had to be sent to hospital due to serious injuries, in addition to demonstrators, among them two minors, being detained. During the attacks, a member of the Army threatened the protestors saying that if they did not withdraw they would suffer “severe and dire consequences” and ordered his subordinates to capture Tomás Gómez and Gaspar Sánchez, members of COPINH’s General Coordinating Body. In addition, we are denouncing the pursuit, harassments, and arbitrary detentions to which members of COPINH have been subjected, related to this mobilization and in general, within a context of their defense of territory. Together with COPINH, social organizations in Honduras and Latin America are demanding the setting up of a Commission of Experts, through the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which, under conditions of objectivity and impartiality, will clarify and guarantee the capture of all material and intellectual authors of the assassination of Berta Cáceres. We add our voices to the demands of Berta´s family to ensure that their right to information be respected and that their participation throughout the entire investigation be guaranteed. The Agua Zarca dam has been a source of systematic violation of the Lenca Peoples’ collective rights and of the defenders of nature, both men and women. We are demanding the withdrawal of the Desarrollos Energéticos D.E.S.A. Company, and of the Honduran Army, from the territory and the sacred Gualcarque River, as well as of all funds destined to Agua Zarca, culminating in the definitive suspension of this project. We support the public letter emitted by the Meso-America Initiative of Women Human Rights Defenders that warned of recent declarations by Mr. Jim Kim, President of the World Bank, justifying human rights violations as minor collateral damages of development projects. We wish to back up their demands that Mr. Jim Kim rectify his comments and publicly excuse himself, and that public officials abstain from justifying human rights violations and the assassination of human rights defenders through their affirmations.
We, Latin American women, defenders of the environment, nature, and life, reject the imposition of all types of hydro-power and extractive ventures in our territories, which threaten the self-determination of peoples and the right to Prior Consultation, as enshrined in ILO Convention 169. We demand justice and the cessation of criminalization, assassinations, and all harassment against those men and women who defend water, land and life in Latin America and the world (unofficial translation of the names of organizations by the author).
Fondo de Acción Urgente de América Latina y el Caribe FAUL- AL (Urgent Action Fund of Latin America and the Caribbean UAF-LA) Fondo de Mujeres del Sur (Fund of Women from the South) Red Latinoamericana de Mujeres Defensoras de Derechos Sociales y Ambientales (Latin American Network of Women Defenders of Social and Environmental Rights) Unión Latinoamericana de Mujeres- ULAM (Latin American Union of Women) Enlace Continental de Mujeres Indígenas de las Américas (Continental Network of Indigenous Women of the Americas) Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña OFRANEH- Honduras (Black Peoples’ Fraternal Organization of Honduras) Red Nacional de Mujeres en Defensa de la Madre Tierra - RENAMAT Bolivia (National Network of Women in Defense of Mother Earth) Colectivo de Coordinación de Acciones Socio Ambientales CASA- Bolivia (Coordinating Collective of SocioEnvironmental Action) Instituto Internacional de Derecho y Sociedad- IIDS (International Institute on Law and Society) CONAMURI - Paraguay RAP-AL – Uruguay Red en Defensa del Maíz – México (Network in Defense of Corn) Frente de Mujeres Defensoras de la Pachamama – Ecuador (Women´s Front for the Defense of Mother Earth) Red de Sanadoras– Guatemala (Women Healers’ Network) Escuela Mujer y Minería CENSAT – Agua Viva – Colombia (School on Women and Mining) Mujeres del Común – Santander, Colombia (Women of the Common) Asociación de Mujeres Ambientalistas AMUD (Ambientalists Women Association AMUDA)- Costa Rica Consumo Ético- Panamá (Ethical Consumption) Mujeres Defensoras del Río Pilmaiquén – Chile (Women Defenders of the Pilmaiquén River) Acción Ecológica – Ecuador (Ecological Action) Madres de Ituzaingó Línea Fundadora – Argentina (The Mothers of Ituzaingó, Original Founders Group) Ningunas Santas, Mujeres por las perspectivas de géneros – Argentina (Not Saints, Women for the Perspectives of Genders) Foro Boliviano sobre Medio Ambiente y Desarrollo – Bolivia (Bolivian Forum on Environment and Development) Organización Nacional de Mujeres Indígenas Andinas y Amazónicas del Perú – ONAMIAP- Perú (National Organization of Andean and Amazonian Indigenous Women of Peru) FEMUCARINAP – Perú