COPINH coordinator Bertha Zúñiga Cáceres expresses support for the Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act

On March 21, during the Women Warriors panel of the Building Movements in Defence of Life film festival, Bertha Zúñiga Cáceres, general coordinator of COPINH, expressed her support for the proposed Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act.

On March 3, US Representative Hank Johnson reintroduced the Act.

His website notes: “The Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act would suspend U.S. funding for police and military operations, and prohibit international loans providing security assistance from being dispersed unless the Honduran government investigates and prosecutes blatant human rights violations by their police and military forces.”

The Berta Caceres Act is backed by US Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar among several others members of Congress.

Representative Omar says: “In 2019 and 2017, I had the honor of meeting with her daughter as she pursues justice for Berta. Yet to this day, we continue to provide security aid to a government that murders human rights activists with zero legal accountability.”

This coming March 24, Ilhan and Bertha will be speaking again on a Witness for Peace Solidarity Collective organized webinar titled: Connecting Indigenous Resistance to US Extractivism and Militarization.

Witness for Peace explains: “The event will focus on building international solidarity amidst the struggle against extractive projects, militarization, and continued violence.”

In 2009, Canada provided $16.4 million in official assistance to Honduras. After the coup, that aid has increased to an average of $29 million per year between 2010 to 2016. On July 30, 2009, about a month after the coup, The Globe and Mail reported: “Canada is still providing training to members of the Honduran army.”

PBI-Canada and PBI-USA co-sponsored the screening of the film La Lucha Sigue at this weekend’s Mutual Aid Media organized film festival.

To see the trailer for that film, please click here.

PBI-Honduras has accompanied COPINH since May 2016.

“We never wanted to go to the police, because it was the police who were chasing us.” The National Network of Women Human Rights Defenders in Honduras explains that in Honduras 70 per cent of the attacks against women defenders the aggressors are state security forces, especially police or the military.