Justice for Berta & Victory for the Guapinol 8

Episode Title: Justice for Berta & Victory for the Guapinol 8


Guest: Karen Spring host of the podcast Honduras Now. She is
also the in-country coordinator for the Honduras Solidarity
Network.  


Berta Caceres was a Honduran (Lenca) environmental activist,
indigenous leader,[3] and co-founder and coordinator of the
Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras
(COPINH).[4][5][6] 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.[7][8]


Six years ago today, she was assassinated in her home by armed
intruders, after years of threats against her life.[9] A former
soldier with the US-trained special forces units of the Honduran
military asserted that Caceres' name was on their
hit-list months before her assassination. Her assassins
are yet to stand trial.  


On February 24, after 914 days of arbitrary imprisonment, the
defenders of the Guapinol River were released. The village
of Guapinol sits downstream from the open-pit mining project in
Carlos Escaleras National Park. Many locals view the mine as a
threat to the regional watershed.


Newly inaugurated president Xiomara Castro has declared justice
for Berta and on February 28 declared Honduras free of open-pit
mining.


In partnership with Friends of Latin
America, Massachusetts Peace Action and Task Force
on the Americas, original broadcasts of WTF is Going on in Latin
America & the Caribbean can be viewed every Wednesday at
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