River Keeper

“In more than 150 indigenous assemblies, our community decided that it did not want that hydroelectric dam… We denounced this dam and were threatened with smear campaigns, imprisonment and murder. But nobody heard our voices—until we set up a roadblock to take back control of our territory… Seeing these men murdered, the community became indignant, forcing a confrontation. The company was told that they had to get out...

In our worldviews, we are beings who come from the Earth, from the water and from corn. The Lenca people are ancestral guardians of the rivers, in turn protected by the spirits of young girls, who teach us that giving our lives in various ways for the protection of the rivers is giving our lives for the well-being of humanity and of this planet. COPINH, walking alongside people struggling for their emancipation, validates this commitment to continue protecting our waters, the rivers, our shared resources and nature in general, as well as our rights as a people.

Let us wake up! Let us wake up, humankind! We’re out of time. We must shake our conscience free of the rapacious capitalism, racism and patriarchy that will only assure our own self-destruction. The Gualcarque River has called upon us, as have other gravely threatened rivers. We must answer their call. Our Mother Earth, militarized, fenced-in, poisoned, a place where basic rights are systematically violated, demands that we take action. Let us build societies that are able to coexist in a dignified way, in a way that protects life. Let us come together and remain hopeful as we defend and care for the blood of this Earth and of its spirits...

I cannot freely walk on my territory or swim in the sacred river and I am separated from my children because of the threats. I cannot live in peace, I am always thinking about being killed or kidnapped. But I refuse to go into exile. I am a human rights fighter and I will not give up this fight. The army has an assassination list of 18 wanted human rights fighters with my name at the top. I want to live, there are many things I still want to do in this world. I take precautions, but in the end, in this country where there is total impunity I am vulnerable. When they want to kill me, they will do it.”

~ "Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores (1971- 2016) was a Honduran environmental activist, indigenous leader of her people, and co-founder and coordinator of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras. She won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2015, for "a grassroots campaign that successfully pressured the world’s largest dam builder to pull out of the Agua Zarca Dam" at the Río Gualcarque.

She was assassinated in her home by armed intruders, after years of threats against her life. Twelve environmental activists were killed in Honduras in 2014, according to research by Global Witness, which makes it the most dangerous country in the world, relative to its size, for activists protecting forests and rivers. Her murder was followed by two more of activists within the month. A former soldier with the US-trained special forces units of the Honduran military asserted that Caceres' name was included on a hitlist distributed to them months before her assassination. According to a February 2017 investigation by The Guardian, court papers show that three of the eight people arrested in connection with the assassination are linked to the US-trained elite troops. Two of them received military training at Fort Benning, Georgia." ~ Wikipedia