Berta
Cáceres Lives Honduran Popular Alliance moves towards unity and sets an agenda of struggle
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| Tegucigalpa, Honduras April 9th, 2016 Photo by Giorgio Trucchi |
Photos and article by G.
Trucchi from Lista Informativa Nicaragua y Más - LINyM
In a packed room, grassroots social movements who make up
the Berta Cáceres Popular Alliance met this April 9th to initiate a
path towards unity, towards building principles to guide an agenda of struggle
by organized sectors of the Honduran people.
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| Bertha Zúniga Cáceres - Photo by Giorgio Trucchi |
The document condemns the clear will of the national
oligarchy and the transnational corporations to “appropriate our shared natural
resources" through the concession of land, rivers and mineral riches.
Faced with this context, the Assembly demanded the truth be
brought to light about the "political femicide against compañera Berta Cáceres Flores," as
well as the implementation of an independent international commission through
the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights."
Likewise, it rejects involvement in the investigation by the
MACCIH (Mission of Support against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras), driven
by the Organization of American States and agreed to with the Honduran
government, and demands the immediate and definitive cancellation of both the
concession given to the company Desarrollo Energéticos S.A. (DESA) to build the
Agua Zarca hydroelectric project, as well as all other extractive concessions
“that are plundering our national territory."
For years, Berta Cáceres and COPINH (Civil Council of
Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras), the organization coordinated
by the indigenous leader, have fought arduously against the development of the
Agua Zarca project.
According to Cáceres’s family, the main trail that should be
followed by the authorities in their investigation should be the struggle the indigenous leader and
human rights defender waged against the extractive model in Honduras, in
particular against the project carried out by DESA and financed by national and
international financial institutions.
Step up the Struggle!
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| Miriam Miranda of OFRANEH - Photo by Giorgio Trucchi |
Miranda also highlighted the importance of reaffirming the
need to strengthen territorial resistance struggles against the extractive
model.
The Final Declaration demanded the immediate cessation of
persecution, criminalization, prosecution, violence against and death of the
women and men leading popular organizations.
Likewise, it condemned the "ongoing attack against
workers fired without justification by the regime” under orders
of the IMF and other international financial institutions.
Action plan
The various organizations that make up the Berta Cáceres
Popular Alliance began to create an action plan for permanent mobilization.
"It is about bringing the legacy Berta left us to life.
To do that we have to come together around what unites us and leave aside what
divides us,” explainted the Garífuna leader.
"We re-affirm that for us it is important that this not
just be a confluence, an alliance, a unifying around our demand for justice in
the assassination of our sister Berta Cáceres, but also about building
sustained processes of struggle over the mid- and long-term. It is an
opportunity that we cannot fail to seize, which is why the agendas of each
sector need to fit within this alliance," added Miranda.
The Final Declaration reaffirmed the struggle against "this
system of death and in favor of
life, stepping up our demands in unity and with strength to demand
justice for the assassination of our sister Berta Cáceres Flores," the
document concludes.
The Berta Cáceres Popular Alliance will meet again at the
end of May in COPINH’s "Utopia" center outside La Esperanza,
Intibucá.
Final Declaration
of the 1st Assembly of the Berta Cáceres Popular Alliance
“Berta Cáceres Lives” – I Assembly of Berta Cáceres Popular
Alliance
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| Photo by Giorgio Trucchi |
Gathered in the city of Tegucigalpa, capital of the Republic
of Honduras, the grassroots movements making up the Berta Cáceres Lives
Honduran Popular Alliance agree to to begin working toward UNITY built on
PRINCIPLES that will guide an agenda of struggle by all organized sectors of
our people for the liberation of our homeland.
We are living through a political, social and economic
moment characterized by the decimation of living conditions for the majority of
the population amidst persecution, threats, assassination of the women and men
of our social movements.
In Honduras a repressive and authoritarian model is
consolidating, openly attacking popular organizations.
There is a clear will by the oligarchy’s auctioneers and the
transnational corporations to appropriate our shared natural resources through
concessions of territory, rivers and mineral riches to a handful of national
and foreign capitalists.
These conditions of adversity for our peoples’ struggles
come in the midst of a a re-entrenchment of the imperialists’ strategy of
militarization and attack on our territories as well as strengthening of the
Latin American right wing. Faced with this context, we demand the following:
1. Bring the truth to light about the political femicide
against our sister Berta Cáceres Flores; we demand the implementation of an
independent international commission through the IACHR endorsed by the complete
confidence of COPINH and the Berta Cáceres Lives Popular Alliance. We reject
the investigation of her crime by the MACCIH, which we see as an instrument for
the manipulation of national and international public opinion.
2. Immediately and definitively cancel the concessions given
to the DESA corporation to build the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam and cancel
all concessions for extractive projects that are plundering the national
territory.
3. We demand the immediate cessation of persecution,
criminalization, prosecution, violence against and death of the women and men
leading popular organizations.
4. We reject the remilitarization of society and of our
territories as an instrument for repression and control.
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| Photo by Giorgio Trucchi |
5. Our sister Berta Cáceres Flores was assassinated with
bullets as just like thousands of women killed in femicides and men killed in
the name of “social cleansing” carried out by the State in coordination with
paramilitary groups. We demand an end to violence and death.
6. We condemn the ongoing attack against workers fired
without justification by the regime” in order to follow orders given by the International
Monetary Fund and other financial institutions, continuing to deepen the
application of the neoliberal model.
We re-affirm that we continue in the struggle against this
system of death and in favor of life, we will step up our demands in UNITY and
with STRENGTH to demand justice for the assassination of our sister Berta
Cáceres Flores.
Berta Didn’t Die, She Multiplied!
United we will win!
Wake up humanity, we’re out of time!
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Saturday April 9th, 2016
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