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The murder of Berta Cáceres and the context that made it possible
January 12, 2026, by the GIEI (Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts)
Executive Summary
Full report: https://bit.ly/InformeGIEIBertaCaceres
On the night of March 2, 2016, Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores was murdered in her home in La Esperanza, Intibucá. Gustavo Castro Soto, a surviving witness, was seriously injured in the same attack.
The armed raid that ended Berta Cáceres' life was not a random event or an act of common violence. It was the culmination of a prolonged process of persecution, surveillance, criminalization, and violence against the indigenous leader who, for years, spearheaded the defense of Lenca territory against the imposition of the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project.
Berta Cáceres was a nationally and internationally renowned figure. As coordinator of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), she led the resistance of indigenous communities against projects granted without prior, free, and informed consultation, in violation of the Honduran state's constitutional and international obligations.
Her leadership was decisive in halting the progress of the Agua Zarca dam, promoted by the company Desarrollos Energéticos S.A. (DESA), and in raising awareness, both within and outside the country, of the social, environmental, and cultural impacts of these projects.
Strategic Obstacle
From the early stages of the Agua Zarca project, Berta Cáceres was identified by company executives as a strategic obstacle to the consolidation of the hydroelectric venture. This placed her in a foreseeable and widely documented situation of risk. Despite having precautionary measures granted by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the State did not take effective measures to protect her life or to defuse the risk factors associated with the territorial conflict.
The murder took place in a climate marked by violence, militarization, corruption, concentration of economic power, and institutions increasingly captured by private interests.
Following the 2009 coup d'état, Honduras promoted the accelerated expansion of extractive and energy projects, supported by privatization processes and flexible regulatory frameworks. This initiative was sustained by national government and business decisions, and with the financial backing of international development banks, whose loans provided economic viability and institutional legitimacy to projects imposed on indigenous territories without prior consultation.
The relationship between the state, companies, and international financiers was built on weak institutions that were prone to corruption and focused on prioritizing investment over protecting human rights.
The Agua Zarca hydroelectric project, located in the Lenca indigenous territory of Río Blanco, is a prime example of this model. Its authorization was based on irregular licenses, flawed administrative contracts, and individual titling processes that disregarded collective rights. The project was implemented through the militarization of the territory, the co-optation of the community, the use of violence, and the systematic criminalization of those who defended the Gualcarque River as a sacred, cultural, and subsistence space.
Its implementation was made possible thanks to international financing provided by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) and the Netherlands Development Bank (FMO) in 2014, despite the existence of a known territorial conflict, sustained community opposition, and obvious risks for those defending the territory.
For several years, Honduras has been one of the most dangerous countries in the world for defenders of land, territory, and the environment. Violence against defenders is structural and selective, systematically targeting those who challenge economic interests linked to agribusiness, mining, energy projects, and other forms of extraction of common goods.
Persistent impunity has acted as an enabler of this violence, sending a clear message of tolerance and leniency towards attacks against defenders. It has reinforced an environment in which threats, criminalization, and murders rarely result in criminal consequences for those responsible.
In the case of Berta Cáceres, her status as an indigenous Lenca woman, community leader, and public figure who challenged deeply patriarchal and racist power structures exposed her to different and aggravated forms of stigmatization and violence.
The violence against Berta Cáceres should be understood not only as retaliation for her opposition to a specific project, but as part of a broader pattern of structural violence that disproportionately punishes indigenous and Afro-Honduran women who defend land, territory, and the environment in Honduras.
Impunity has historically been the main feature of the state's response to violence and human rights violations in Honduras. The violations that culminated in the murder of Berta Cáceres continue to this day, as evidenced by the persistent lack of demarcation and titling of the ancestral Lenca territory of Río Blanco, the continued validity of the Agua Zarca project concession, and the failure to purge the intelligence files used for the surveillance and criminalization of defenders.
However, in the case of Berta Cáceres, convictions were obtained against several perpetrators, as well as against some DESA employees and a company executive, confirming that the crime was neither an isolated nor spontaneous act.
Nevertheless, these advances did not address the higher levels of responsibility and reveal that a core of impunity persists, particularly with regard to the possible involvement of other DESA executives and shareholders, as well as the full extent of state complicity and tolerance.
From the early hours following the murder, Berta Cáceres' family, COPINH, and their legal representatives consistently demanded the formation of an independent group of experts who could thoroughly investigate all responsibilities, in contrast to an ordinary criminal investigation marked by omissions and bias.
After years of resistance and a tireless search for truth and justice, these demands finally led to a formal request for international technical assistance from the Honduran state, constituting a significant—albeit belated—step in the fight against structural impunity.
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