In times of Covid19, and now devastated by flooding caused by tropical storms Amanda and Cristobal, the Mayan Q’eqchi’ women of the Lote 8 village are suffering the multiplying impacts of the January 2007 gang-rapes and destruction of their home village by Guatemalan military and police, and armed security guards working for Skye Resources (Hudbay Minerals).

For years, villagers have been courageously resisting the environmentally harmful, socially divisive, open-pit, cyanide-leeching gold mine of the U.S./ Canada-based Aura Minerals (and MINOSA, its Honduran subsidiary) that are backed by the coercive power of the Honduran regime’s police and military.

Since mid-March, Rights Action has sent $43,000 in regular, small grants ($250-$1500) to community groups mainly in Honduras and Guatemala doing whatever they can to respond to Covid19, a pandemic that is worsening the “normal” pandemics of systemic impoverishment and racism, land dispossession, human rights violations and repression, corruption and impunity.

Canadian-dominated global mining industry “getting back to normal”, benefitting shareholders and investors in the global north, increasing Covid19 spread in the global south

It is important that FAIR.org reports on the reporters. We need much more of this to help overcome the pandemic of media mis-reporting on global issues.

Writing about Honduras, Kirk Semple and the New York Times report that “As the coronavirus pandemic stalks the globe, some nations find themselves under extraordinary strain as they simultaneously contend with other outbreaks, chronic public health problems and challenges posed by government mismanagement, poverty and armed conflict.”

Interview with author Nina Lakhani about state of affairs in Honduras that is the backdrop for the decision to kill Berta. Lakhani’s book, “Who Killed Berta Cáceres?: Dams, Death Squads, and an Indigenous Defender’s Battle for the Planet,” is available now with Verso Books.

• This is an extract from “Who Killed Berta Cáceres? Dams, Death Squads, and an Indigenous Defender’s Battle for the Planet”, by Nina Lakhani, published by Verso Books on 2 June

• Join conversation: with Nina Lakhani and Guardian US international editor Martin Hodgson to discuss the story behind Cáceres’s assassination

• When & how: Tuesday, June 9, 1pm EST/10am PST/5pm BST. To sign up, email: events.us@theguardian.com

Rights Action Covid19 update #5

The deaths and harms caused by Covid19 – a devastating threat to life and huge challenge to how humans co-exist – are multiplied and worsened by deeply entrenched systems of human inequality, discrimination and violence.