Honoring Berta Cáceres, 10 years later
In these times of extreme U.S.-led, Western violence and aggression
By Grahame Russell
On March 2, 2016, Berta was assassinated late at night in her bed, in her home in La Esperanza, Honduras. She was shot dead by a well-coordinated and paid for team of sicarios, a death squad assembled on behalf of an inner circle of Honduras’ most powerful and wealthy families, high-ranking military officers, and the U.S. and Canadian-backed, narco-regime in power at the time.
Berta was targeted because of all that she opposed and fought against her entire life, and all that she worked and struggled for.
She was targeted because of her beautiful skills and characteristics as a grassroots and community leader, a companera to all, an astute political analyst and strategist, and –most importantly– because of how she honored, respected and empowered the most exploited and abused of people to organize, educate, work and struggle in defense of their own rights, their own lands and of Mother Earth.
Gustavo Castro
Staying in the guest room that night was Gustavo Castro, Berta’s friend and companero from Chiapas, Mexico, that COPINH (the organization Berta co-founded and coordinated) had invited to give community workshops on human rights, environmental and agroecology issues.
When the death squad killed her, they hadn’t known Gustavo would be there. As the killers were fleeing, one of them opened the guest room door and found Gustavo, who had been reading, sitting wide-eyed in bed. The man shot twice and ran off. Paralyzed with fear in the moment, Gustavo instinctively jerked to one side. One of the bullets grazed the side of his head as he fell to the floor and then lay in his own blood. A miraculous survival. Gustavo is the key eyewitness to the actual killing.
Gustavo Castro. BERTA VIVE commemoration, La Esperanza, Honduras, March 1, 2026
Photo @ COPINH
Justice for the material and intellectual authors
10 years later, COPINH, now led by one of Berta’s daughters, together with other family members and supporters continue to get ever closer to identifying not only the members of the death squad, but more importantly identifying all the individuals, companies and investors that approved of and/or paid for the killing of Berta.
Recently, the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) published an extensive investigation into the decision-making, financing and carrying out of the March 2, 2026 assassination of Berta.
As dangerous as it is to name and confront the wealthy, corrupt and globally connected traditional elites, further steps in the struggle to arrest and put on trial some of the “intellectual” authors are in the works.
Berta was assassinated by the U.S., Canadian-backed narco-dictatorship
It bears repetition over and over in the U.S. and Canada, that Berta was assassinated by a narco-dictatorship government and sectors of the traditional Honduran elites who came back to power after the U.S. and Canadian-backed regime change coup in June 2009.
What followed was close to 13 years of U.S. and Canadian political, economic and military support for a corrupt, repressive, drug-trafficking, open-for-global-business regime headed by President Juan Orlando Hernandez who literally operated a drug trafficking cartel from the President’s office.
During his entire time in power, the U.S. and Canada regularly presented President Hernandez as a democratic ally in international forums. For the most part, the mainstream media in the U.S. and Canada ignored this repressive, drug-trafficking regime all together, or dutifully repeated government statements about Honduras being a democratic ally.
Over 1000 Hondurans were killed for political reasons during the years of the regime – the assassination of Berta being the most widely known case. But for the jailing of eight material authors of Berta’s death, no justice has been done for any of the political killings and repression (jailings, beatings and maimings) during this time.
“Assassinated by JOH (Juan Orlando Hernandez)”. @ Honduran Social Movement
Que companera mas companera
I met Berta in 1998 through my work with Annie Bird at Rights Action that, for 18 years, funded and was a partner-in-activism with Berta and COPINH that Berta had co-founded with her former partner Salvador Zuniga. Over these 18 years, Berta became a very dear friend.
L-R: Berta Caceres, Gustavo Castro, Grahame Russell, Annie Bird. Quebec City, April 2001, protesting Free Trade Agreement of the Americas that would further devastate lives of majority populations in Honduras, Chiapas (Mexico) and beyond. Photo @ Rights Action
Born in 1971, Berta was the mother of four, a grandmother, daughter, sister, and -to all who knew her, learned from her, got strength, courage and wisdom from her- a companera.
She was targeted and killed because of who she is, what she lived for, and what she worked and fought for her whole life. Since her early teens, Berta followed the path of her mother, other family members and siblings. She lived, worked and struggled against all repression and military interventions, all injustices and inequalities, all human rights violations and discriminations, all Mother Earth destroying activities.
Berta worked against, and was killed by …
Over 500 years of racist, violent, dispossessing European imperialism, colonialism and settler colonialism
Over 200 years of the so-called “Monroe doctrine” and endless U.S. military interventions, exploitation, corruption and impunity
Generations of violent, exploitative regimes in power in Honduras propped up by the U.S. and so-called “international community” (Canada, global corporations and investors, IMF, World Bank, etc.)
Centuries of patriarchy and violence/discrimination against women and girls
Centuries of racism against the Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples of the Americas
The greed, corruption and violence of corporations and investors who conceive of forests and earth, rivers and water, and the people of Honduras as exploitable and discardable, and who steal, kill and destroy to produce ‘for export’ and profits
Berta was killed by …
The banana barons (United Fruit Company, Standard Fruit, Dole Bananas, Chiquita Bananas) of the last 200 years
The producers of African palm (including the World Bank-funded Dinant corporation) and sugarcane for export to global consumers of food products and “green energy” (ethanol and bio-diesel fuels)
Maquiladora factory exploiters of cheap labor producing clothes for Gildan Activewear, Hanesbrand, JCPenney, Saks Fifth Avenue’s The Works, etc.
Privatized hydro-electric dams such as the Agua Zarca project spear-headed by the Atala Zablah family and international investors that was violently forced upon Indigenous Lenca territories that Berta and COPINH defend
Tourism enclaves along Honduras’ north Caribbean shore, operated by Canadian Randy “porn king” Jorgensen and his ilk, illegally and violently evicting Garifuna peoples from communal, ancestral lands
Mining companies (Goldcorp, NUCOR, Aura Minerals) ripping the earth for gold and iron, poisoning the waters of Guapinol and the Siria Valley, poisoning the blood of local residents, evicting communities and illegally digging up the dead from the 200-year-old Azacualpa cemetery
Most recently, Berta was killed by …
The U.S. and Canadian backed military coup of 2009, that ousted the democratically elected government of president Mel Zelaya, and brought back to power the same elites that for so long have dominated and abused Honduras, who -once back in power– announced that “Honduras is open for global business”, while opening Honduras’ borders and using the military and State institutions to traffic illegal drugs to U.S. and Canadian markets, hiring sicarios to kill people who stood in their way, … people like Berta.
Berta was killed by all these powerful people, institutions and governments because, as anyone who knew her will tell you, as anyone who learned from her, got strength, courage and wisdom from her will tell you, these are the things she lived, organized, educated, worked and struggled against.
What did she live, work and struggle for?
For your rights and mine. For the human rights – collective and individual – of all people, in all regions and corner of the planet. For Mother Earth herself – the fields and forests, air and water. For all life forms on our precious, unique planet. Berta lived, stood and struggled for another world is necessary and possible.
BERTA VIVE commemoration, La Esperanza, Honduras, March 1, 2026; Photo @ COPINH
What to do?
Do what Berta would do, as she always did. Live, organize, educate, work and struggle together. Reach out and support the so many victims of this violent, unjust and unequal global human order. Name, denounce and hold accountable the responsible actors – countries, companies, wealthy elites, banks, investors and more. Organize, educate, work and struggle against all injustices and inequalities, all discriminations, all Mother Earth destroying activities, and for another world is necessary and possible.
Thank you, Berta.
Grahame Russell
info@rightsaction.org
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More information
COPINH (Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras)
www.copinh.org / https://bertavivecopinhsigue.copinh.org / copinhonduras.blogspot.com / http://copinhenglish.blogspot.com / @COPINHHONDURAS