DESA: Fraud and Corruption

On the third anniversary of Berta Cáceres' murder, MACCIH and the UFECIC-MP (Unidad Fiscal Especial Contra la Corrupción y la Impunidad del Ministerio Publico) announced new legal cases against 16 individuals, brought as a result of studying the approval and license allocation processes for the Agua Zarca dam on the Gualcarque river in Honduras. 

So far in the Honduran press, only El Tiempo and Proceso Digital reported it, both digital publications.  The major Honduran print papers have ignored it.

The combined forces of MACCIH and UFECIC-MP chose to investigate the more than 40 complaints about irregularities in concessioning and licensing hydroelectric projects that affect the Lenca people, complaints lodged by Berta Cáceres before her murder, complaints about DESA and the Agua Zarca dam. Ana Maria Calderón, the Corruption coordinator in MACCIH, noted that the implications of their findings have a much larger application:

In light of today's findings, the Mission suggests that the [Government of Honduras] review the remaining active contracts and the norms that regulated them, because to continue with this energy strategy could produce an unbalance in the market and bring about the bankrupcy of ENEE;  its possible that all the contracts tied to renewable sources were let in the same way [as this one].

If all of the many contracts and licensing processes underwent the same irregularities as this contract, it has implications for the future viability of ENEE, the national electric company, which currently runs at a loss.  The Honduran government is due to tell the IMF how they plan to bring this entity to profitability sometime in the next three months.  With more contracts authorized like the DESA one, they probably cannot.

The investigation found that DESA was created in 2009 by two brothers (the Abate Ponces) and almost immediately Roberto David Castillo Mejia was its de-facto representative. 

But Castillo Mejia was also employed full time in ENEE, in the department that reviews and allocates contracts for hydroelectric projects. Very convenient for DESA.

He obtained shares in the firm through a front company formed in Panama, called PEMSA, which had just two shareholders, Castillo Mejia and Carolina Lizeth Castillo Argueta.  Castillo Argueta was the lawyer for the ENEE workers' union at the time, but became DESA's lawyer as well and signed the contract for DESA.  She signed instead of Castillo Mejia to cover up his conflict with his role in PEMSA.  DESA has another investor, Inversiones Jacaranda, owned by the Atala Zablah banking family.

Both David Castillo Mejia and Carolina Castillo Argueta worked directly for the head of ENEE, Roberto Anibal Martinez Lozano, who signed the contract with DESA on behalf of ENEE.  He signed the contract despite knowing DESA was not on the list of ENEE approved contractors (a prerequisite to any ENEE contract).  He signed without investigating how a front company with no technical or financial assets was going to carry out this somewhat tricky contract.  In short, it was an illegal contract, but he signed anyway, even over objections from his legal department.

Fraud happened in the approvals process at a number of government institutions.  SERNA, the environmental resources agency, for example, approved the feasibility study on December 16, 2009, without bothering to locate the land on which the project would take place, or determining who owned that land, or confirming approvals from the municipality where the dam would be located, all abnormalities that the legal department at SERNA noted.  Yet they too recommended approval of the project.

The feasibility study itself was improperly done.  It was submitted to SERNA on October 5, 2009, just 24 hours and 5 minutes after ENEE gave its permission.  Nevertheless, SERNA and Castillo Argueta signed a contract on January 22, 2010 that gave DESA the use of national water.  This contract was signed despite a negative recommendation from the National Energy Council, which noted that DESA did not meet the legal requirements for a contract.

SERNA issued a "Category 2" environmental license for the Agua Zarca project on March 24, 2011.  MACCIH and UFECIC-MP allege the project was miscategorized in favor of DESA, giving them cheaper license fees. The environmental license required a two-year study of the amount of water flowing in the river, and the law specifies that is two years after the water use contract is issued. The study was supposed to contain two years of data on the volume of water flowing in the Gualcarque river.  It was supposed to be current data.

Instead the study contained data from a 2003 proposal previously rejected by ENEE, that Carolina Castillo Argueta had access to because the union she represented was supposed to partially finance the rejected project.

Less than two years after the water use license was approved on January 22, 2010, SERNA issued an environmental approval for the Agua Zarca dam.  They had to know the data included were falsified.

The 2003 project DESA plagiarized asked to construct a 6 MW power plant, and DESA's original request was also to build a 6 MW project. 

In August of 2010, DESA received a concession for a 14.5 megawatt project. 

On May 14,  2011, DESA asked for, and received an increase to 21.5 megawatts. 

DESA said it would add a third turbine to generate this power, but MACCIH suggests that it's not clear the river actually has enough water to support a third turbine, or even fully support the second turbine. Without a constructed project producing power using the proposed model, it's difficult to judge the alleged improvements. 

An economic analysis suggested the proposed investment in a third turbine was intended to increase the total investment DESA had in the project, which would then increase the purchase price ENEE would have to pay for their electricity. 

Higher investment ==> higher purchase price in ENEE's pricing models.

All in all, not only does the project have the problems we knew with community consultation and approval; as an engineering project, its feasibility was uncertain. The record of approvals and contradictory roles of individuals involved is a clear indication of violation of law. And it seems the main purpose in setting the project up the way it finally was approved and was to be implemented might have had more to do with extracting more government money, than with any actual power production.

The sixteen individuals charged in this case are:  Francisco Rafael Rivas Bonilla, Julio Alberto Perdomo Rivera,  Catarino Alberto Cantor López, Luis Eduardo Espinoza Mejía, Anna Lourdes Martinez Cruz, Aixa Gabriela Zelaya Gomez, Dario Roberto Cardona Valle, Mauricio Fermin Reconco Flores, José Mario Carbajal Flores, Oscar Javier Velásquez Rivera, Roberto Anibal Martínez Lozano, Roberto David Castillo Mejia, Julio Ernesto Eguigure Aguilar, Raul Pineda Pineda, Carolina Lieth Castillo Argueta, and Saida Odilia Pinel. 

They now stand accused of Abuse of Authority, failing to fulfill the requirements of a public official, falsification of documents, negotiating in a way not compatible with holding public office, and fraud.

Lawyers Group: DESA executives instigated Berta Cáceres' murder

A group of five international lawyers investigating the murder of Berta Cáceres has concluded that three senior executives of Desarrollos Energeticos (DESA) instigated and ordered the murder of Berta Cáceres in Honduras.  In the report, to be published on Tuesday, the lawyers wrote:

"The existing proof is conclusive regarding the participation of numerous state agents, high-ranking executives and employees of Desa in the planning, execution and cover-up of the assassination."

The evidence that allowed them to reach this conclusion are 40,000 pages of text linked to telephones belonging to two of the accused murderers, plus another phone confiscated from the DESA offices.  One of the phones belonged to Sergio Rodriguez, the Environment director for DESA.  The other phone belonged to Douglas Geovany Bustillo, a retired military officer who reported to the Director of Security for DESA. These text messages were provided by court order by the Public Prosecutor's office in Honduras.  The Public Prosecutor's Office has had the text messages since April and May, 2016, but have taken no apparent action in the case to pursue those who ordered the murder of Cáceres. Those messages show that two of the group accused of her murder, Rodgriguez and Bustillo, remained in frequent contact with three senior DESA executives via text and WhatsApp as they tracked Cáceres and harrassed COPINH members.

The New York Times wrote:

The conversations reveal, the lawyers said, that the orders to threaten Copinh and sabotage its protests came from Desa executives who were exercising control over security forces in the area, issuing instructions and paying for police units’ food, lodging and radio equipment

Miguel Bustillo,  a member of the lawyer's group said:

"What the public ministry has yet to do is indict the people who hired Bustillo to plan the operation."

Honduras has arrested eight men charged with carrying out the murder of Berta Cáceres in 2016. DESA has repeatedly denied any involvement in the harassment or murder of Cáceres. 

MACCIH to investigate DESA, government contracts, funding

The Misión de Apoyo Contra la Corrupción y la Impunidad en Honduras (MACCIH) announced Thursday that it would begin investigating, not the murder of indigenous activist Berta Cáceres, but the funding and government contracts of DESA, the company building the Agua Zarca dam for possible corruption and money laundering.

Mission spokesperson, Juan Jimenez Mayor announced the OAS mission would look into DESA, how it got its government contracts for the Agua Zarca dam and ENEE electricity purchase, and how it grew from a company with less than $1000 in capital in 2009 to have over $17 million in 2014.  In particular, Jimenez Mayor said the Mission wanted to verify the source of the funds, and whether DESA was money laundering.

Another aspect of the Agua Zarca project that Jimenez Mayor said was interesting was the awarding of the original environmental license in 2010, and the enlarged project environmental license in 2011.  The latter, approved by Dario Roberto Cardona, then sub secretary of the Secretaria de Recursos Naturales y Ambiente (SERNA).  Jimenez Mayor noted that while Cardona was being prosecuted for issuing the expanded environmental license in 2011 without proper consultation with the indigenous communities around Agua Zarca, he wondered why the issuer of the first environmental license, then Minister Rigoberto Cuellar, was not being investigated for the same crime since the same problem exists with the first environmental license issued in 2010. 

Jimenez Mayor also pointed to Congress, and its approval of an electricity buying contract from DESA to ENEE that called for ENEE to purchase more electricity than initially agreed on.

DESA denies there was an increase in its electricity production licensed by Cardona, and maintains it properly consulted with the municipality through open meetings, and that ILO 169 has not been codified into Honduran law.

The Agua Zarca project remains suspended.  The recent withdrawal of two of the international funding agencies (the Netherlands Development Bank (FMO) and the Finland Fund for Industrial Cooperation (FINFUND)) has not resulted in its cancelation because much of the funding comes from the Banco Interamericano de Integración Económica (BCIE) which has not withdrawn its support.

Sole Witness To Cáceres Murder Condems Honduran Government Investigation.

The Mexican indigenous rights activist, Gustavo Castro Soto, who was with Berta Cáceres when she was murdered is being held against his will by the Honduran government.  He is the sole eye-witness to her murder and was shot and wounded himself by Cáceres's attackers.

Late Monday afternoon, the following letter allegedly from him began to appear in Honduran social media and was picked up and reported even by the pro-government press in Honduras.  Among its many allegations are that the crime scene has been modified, and that even though he's been subjected to hours of looking at photos, no one has shown him photos of the hit men known to be associated with either of the dam companies, that the sole line of questioning was which member of COPINH did it.  The complete letter is provided below in a hurried translated below:

Dear friends, family, comrades in the struggle,

From the lands that saw the birth and death of our dear friend Berta Cáceres, beloved, supportive, and friend and exceptional woman, I'd like to thank you for all the support that little by little, in the moments that I can receive messages, I see the story of all that is out there moving.  Its not easy, the alarm here, but neither is it easy when one has to make thousands of declarations to the government.

Here the waters are turbulent.  The assassins that murdered Berta and who tried to murder me continue in impunity while the government tries to undermine the memory of Berta, the honor and the magnificent struggle that COPINH has made for so many years in the defense of the lives, the territories and human rights.

I saw Berta die in my arms, but also how her heart planted in every struggle that COPINH has realized in the many people that we knew.

There is no rain that resembles all the tears shed for her death, but there is no force that resembles the Lenca struggle that they face every day, hand in hand, in territorial disputes with the large transnationals.  They maintain an unbreakable struggle with more than 40 hydroelectric projects, dozens of mines, and a struggle to recover their lands in more than 50 locations in their ancestral region.  COPINH marches, walks, protests, recuperates, and extends its hand in solidarity with these movements.

That also was Berta.

The murder of Berta could signify for many companies and interests, the opportunity to advance on their territories.  But COPINH is stronger than ever and will need the support of all to join in the struggle with solidarity and with the memory of Berta in our hands.

The murderers already know that I did not die, and I'm sure they're wanting to finish their work.  Even though the Mexican consulate came immediately to my help and has not left me, in spite of the patrols and police, this does not mean that my life is out of danger, and that's something the Honduran government doesn't want to see.  They tried through today to retain me to control the information of my testimony.  They've denied me copies of my testimony.  They threatened that if I leave Tegucigalpa for my security, they've issued orders for my preventative arrest.  If I leave without their consent there will be no security and will be on our responsibility.  I declare that I committed no crime, and their legal questioning could be answered from my country.

It pains me enormously to be locked up alone in this city while thousands gather on the streets to say goodbye to our beloved Berta.  But I want to tell you that I am with you there, crying a sea of tears for lost Berta, but also thanking her for the life I know that has inspired me so much.  But I know that I have to leave and the government continues to prepare its sophistry to present to the public opinion that the murder of Berta was due to internal conflicts, when there's already complaints filed against those that have threatened to murder her, people associated with the hydroelectric company protected by the government.  They only want to investigate COPINH, to fragment it, and put an end to one of the principal and most emblematic struggles in the last 20 years in Honduras.

And my testimony is an obstacle for them to put who they want in prison.  I didn't hear cars arrive, nor leave, during the murder;  the crime scene has been modified and altered; the blood evidence and others left blank lines that later can be altered.  They've ordered a majority of COPINH to testify and not any of the suspects from earlier times that threatened to murder Berta.

Until today I was under official medical attention for my wounds with a supporting family and a supporting doctor.  It was all day yesterday and well into the night before I could change my bloody clothes; but the government continues to hold my luggage without giving it back to me.  I remained hungry and it was not until the afternoon that they offered me something to eat;  I did not taste food until today, replying to questions, taking tests and the many things that were happening.  It appears that they forgot that I'm a victim and for 48 hours I was not allowed to close my eyes, no rest, attending to their things.  The sweetest thing was having COPINH outside, in the room at whatever moment, accompanying my security, silent, attentive, marvellous.  One senses the human warmth and tremendous support.  One feels more secure with them than with a thousand police.

After leaving the Public Prosecutor's office last night to go to the court to give protected witness testimony, dressed in a black robe to my fingernails, and a black hood, I came back to more tests and questions;  Finally they gave me a chance to change and brought me my suitcase, but later took it away again.  The Counsel found me a hotel as hundreds on hundreds were arriving in the city to say goodbye to Berta.  Finally at dawn we arrived at a room in a hotel and I finally could rest for a few hours because I was supposed to leave Tegucigalpa in a few hours.  But they came to the hotel with photos and videos for me to identify the murderers that I saw face to face, but unfortunately all of the photos and videos were of marches of COPINH, and they wanted me to indicate which of them did it.
But they never showed me the faces of the owners of the companies, or their paid assassins  In place of two hours, it was four hours of questions and photos.

They came when we were about to get into the armored car that the Counsel had to go to Tegucigalpa when the high officials of the Prosecutor's murder office, and the Agencia Tecnica de Investigaciones Criminales arrived and asked me to stay to help them reconstruct the crime.  I consulted and found it convenient to stay with the condition that they let me go to the wake for Berta, with the people.  They agreed.  During the two hours of the reconstruction I drank coffee because I wanted to help reconstruct the murder.

I thought this would be the last that the government asked of me, because when I wasn't, they were tempted to place me in preventative custody because I am the only eye witness. But confusion reigned not only in our crushed hearts because we had to bury Berta before her time, but also reigned in the same Public Prosecutor, and in his offices the same reigned.  Well, I agreed to help them in this difficult test of reconstructing the events.  For Berta, for COPINH, so that some day justice would be done and those who promulgate death and destruction would be expelled from the land.

Thanks to so many people for their support, for the waiting of this valued people.  Thanks, really thanks, I was moved to tears and more, that my friends and so many people, had been so concerned that they condemned this situation.

Gustavo Castro Soto.

Whitewashing The Murder Of Berta Cáceres

The process has begun in Honduras to whitewash any possible investigation into who killed indigenous activist Berta Cáceres.  Minister of Security Julian Pachecho Tinoco confirms there's strong international pressure to solve her murder, but the police in Honduras have issued no statements beyond the first day, when they told the press they were holding 2 witnesses and a "suspect".

The Honduran Police have floated trial balloons in the press and social media blaming Cáceres, because even though she supposedly had government protection, she was staying at a house in Intibuca that they claimed not to know was hers, blaming her for not telling them.  They've also floated the rumor that it was someone known to her, perhaps an ex-lover who killed her since there was no sign of forced entry into the house.  What they haven't done is investigate any of the people who likely murdered her.

That's not just our conclusion, but also that  (translated here) of the Movimiento Amplio por la Dignidad y Justicia (MADJ) in Honduras.   None of the theories the National Police have proposed for her murder have followed up on the threats to her life and liberty disclosed by her to the police in Honduras on numerous occasions.

Among the suspects that MADJ says the police should be investigating are the local management of Desarrollos Energéticos, and particularly its managing engineer for the project Segio Rodríguez who has threatened the COPINH protest marchers, including Cáceres, with death.  MADJ also identifies the mayor of San Francisco de Ojuera, the town whose extent includes the region disputed.  Mayor Raul Pineda ignored the rights of the Lenca people to their land.

Then there's the National Police, and the Military Police, who violently break up peaceful protests in the region, sometimes shooting and killing protesters.  They have previously planted evidence in Cáceres's car during traffic stops and arrested her on charges that could lead to a 20 year prison sentence.  Luckily for Cáceres, that case failed to thrive in court.

Desarrollos Energéticos, SA. is the union of two previous energy companies in Honduras, Inversiones Las Jacarandas, represented by José Eduardo Atala Zeblah, which provided two thirds ($1.6 million) of the initial capital of the company, and Potencia y Energia de Mesoamerica (PEMSA), which supplied the other third ($832,500).  PEMSA was represented in the merger by Gerardo Carrasco Escobar.  However, as Rights Action noted in their report on the Agua Zarca dam conflict, little is known about Desarrollos Energeticos, Las Jacarandas, or PEMSA because Honduras has public access to corporation ownership records, which facilitates the obscuring of company ownership.  This same kind of corporate ownership secrecy often leads to corruption by what the financial industry calls Politically Exposed Persons (PEPS), those in high government positions amenable to embezzlement and massive bribery.

However, Rights Action also notes that Jose Eduardo Atala Zeblah and his brothers Jacobo Atala Zeblah and Pedro Atala Zeblah are on DESA's board of directors.  Jacobo is also Director of Honduran operations for the Banco de Centroamerica (BAC).  Jose Eduardo Atala served as Vice President of the Association of American Chambers of Commerce in Latin America in Washington, DC, in 2011.  He also served as the Honduran representative to the Central American Bank of Economic Integration (CABEI) which undoubtedly served him well since it loaned DESA $24.4 million for the Agua Zarca dam project in 2012.

All we know about PEMSA is that its a Honduran holding company in the energy sector, and that it did not go away after forming part of DESA.  In 2014 and 2015, PEMSA engaged in other energy projects in Honduras, including the solar energy project at Agua Fria, near Nacaome, where its listed as the local partner of the Norwegian companies that supplied the technology and funded the project.

The Atala Zeblah brothers are cousins to Camilo Alejandro Atala Fraj, arguably now the richest man in Honduras.  Camilo Atala owns the Banco Ficohsa, a financial empire that stretches across 9 Latin American Countries.  Camilo Atala strongly backed the 2009 coup in Honduras  He was the head of the Consejo Empresarial de America Latina (CEAL) when it contracted with Lanny Davis's lobbying firm to lobby Hillary Clinton, then head of the State Department, and the US Congress, to accept the coup.  Ironically in 2015 while CEAL was awarding the Banco Ficohsa their Bank of the Year award, it was being named in Panama as one of 13 banks that allegedly laundered the proceeeds of Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli during his term in office.  In Honduras, the Banco Ficohsa threatened to sue any Honduran media that wrote about the allegations of money laundering calling them unfounded rumors despite the numerous articles in the Panamanian press that were their sources of information.  They even went so far as to claim that "We are not under investigation by any foreign entities", desmonstrably false at the time since they were being investigated by the Panamanian Corruption Prosecutor.  So far the Banco Ficohsa has avoided prosecution in Honduras, perhaps because four of the members of the Honduran Bank Oversight Committee (CNBS in Spanish) are former Banco Ficohsa executives and directors.

Recently, a new dam project in the same region, on the Rio Cangel, was awarded to a US firm, Rio Energy LLC, owned by Peter L. Ochs of Capital III, along with Canadian firm Hydrosys Consultants.  Hydrosys has sole responsibility for the planning and construction according to their own project description.  The partnership, called Blue Energy, allegedly told the Honduran government the dam was in the department of Santa Barbara, and therefore not on the Lenca land of the Rio Blanco community, but when they walked to the edges of their community in 2014, they found the dam being constructed in their territory, without consultation or their permission, a violation of ILO 169.  Nor are these two dam projects the only ones in the Lenca area.  Blue Energy is also currently doing a study for a project called the Zompopero dam, and Capital III plans on financing a total of 4 dams in Honduras, all of them in Lenca territory.

Because the Rio Blanco Lenca community is now fighting two dams the Honduran government has imposed on it without getting their consent, Berta Cåceres found herself mired in yet another set of protests and subsequently received death threats.  On January 27 of this year, a bus load of Rio Blanco protestors was stopped on their way to protest the Rio Cangel project by Honduran police in the community of Agua Caliente and the bus was searched for the presence of Berta Cáceres, who fortunately was not aboard the bus but rather back in Rio Blanco.  She got word that the police in Agua Caliente were going to kidnap her, beat her, sexually violate her, and more.  Last April Cáceres had said that "men close to Blue Energy" or "close to politicians" and "death squads promoted from government policies" were behind the death threats she was receiving.

men close to Blue Energy

This content was originally published by teleSUR at the following address: 
 "http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Berta-Caceres-Received-Death-Threats-from-Canadian-Company-20160304-0027.html". If you intend to use it, please cite the source and provide a link to the original article. www.teleSURtv.net/english

men close to Blue Energy

This content was originally published by teleSUR at the following address: 
 "http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Berta-Caceres-Received-Death-Threats-from-Canadian-Company-20160304-0027.html". If you intend to use it, please cite the source and provide a link to the original article. www.teleSURtv.net/english

men close to Blue Energy,” a transnational Canadian company looking to build a dam in the Rio Blanco area in western Honduras, or people “close to politicians” and “death squads promoted from government policies” were behind the death threats leveled against her

This content was originally published by teleSUR at the following address: 
 "http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Berta-Caceres-Received-Death-Threats-from-Canadian-Company-20160304-0027.html". If you intend to use it, please cite the source and provide a link to the original article. www.teleSURtv.net/english
men close to Blue Energy,” a transnational Canadian company looking to build a dam in the Rio Blanco area in western Honduras, or people “close to politicians” and “death squads promoted from government policies” were behind the death threats leveled against her

This content was originally published by teleSUR at the following address: 
 "http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Berta-Caceres-Received-Death-Threats-from-Canadian-Company-20160304-0027.html". If you intend to use it, please cite the source and provide a link to the original article. www.teleSURtv.net/english

 On February 26, around 5 pm, Caceres received a phone call that told her a car was circling around her house in La Esperanza.  Cáceres was in San Pedro Sula at the time, and told police there that the two subjects named in expedientes 1001-2015-00107 and 1001-2015-00008 in Intibuca for carrying unregistered weapons and homicide who were threatening to kill her.  Both had been released by the court in Intibuca at the behest of the Honduran Public Prosecutor's office.

Berta Cáceres was murdered on March 3 at 1 am in the morning by two armed individuals in a white truck.  So far the Honduran police haven't made any effort to identify or interview any of those she told them were threatening to kill her, instead pursuing theories that blame her for her own death.  This is how murders are whitewashed in Honduras, by blaming the victims.

Indigenous Rights Activist Berta Cáceres murdered

Indigenous rights activist Berta Cáceres was murdered in her home in La Esperanza, Intibuca, this morning.  Preliminary accounts suggest someone broke into the house about 1 am this morning and killed her.  Caceres, who is also known for her environmental rights work, was most recently working on protecting the rights of the Lenca people being displaced without due process by the Chinese construction company, SinoHydro, building the Agua Zarca dam in her home department of Intibuca for the Honduran company Desarrollos Energéticos, SA (DESA).

"They follow me; they threaten me with death, with kidnapping.  They threaten my family.  This is what we face" Caceres said.

She was one of the co-founders of the Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras (COPINH), the primary Indigenous rights group in Honduras.  In 2015 she won the Goldman Environmental Prize given to people for " for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk."  Her biography on the Goldman prize website says of her:  "Berta Cáceres rallied the indigenous Lenca people of Honduras and waged a grassroots campaign that successfully pressured the world’s largest dam builder to pull out of the Agua Zarca Dam."

The dam project was owned by Desarrollos Energéticos, a Honduran company, and being constructed by SinoHydro, the state-owned Chinese construction company, and the German company Voith Hydro.  Funding came from the Central American Bank for Economic Integration and the Development Finance Company of the Netherlands, and the Central American Mezzanine Infrastructure Fund of EMP Global, a total of $24.4 million.

In 2006 she began her work representing the Lenca community of Rio Blanco, who were being forcibly displaced as part of the dam construction in violation of their ILO 169 rights.  Honduras is a signatory of ILO 169 but has largely ignored its obligations under the treaty.  Rio Blanco should have been consulted, and its permission requested, to authorize the dam project under ILO 169, but that never happened.

The current Honduran government militarized the dam project region in an attempt to break the Lenca blockade of the dam site, shot and killed peaceful protesters, and even went so far as to arrest Berta Cáceres on trumped up weapons charges, threatening her with imprisonment.  The charges were later dismissed.

Her body was flown to the capital, Tegucigalpa, by the Honduran Air Force where it was transferred to the morgue of the Forensic Medicine unit of the Police.  Outside the morgue, Lenca people have been building a "mural" with flowers and colored sawdust (like the murals done for Holy Week), this one depicting the Rio Gualcarque region she had defended from the hydroelectric project.

Cáceres is survived by her four children, and her mother.

Being An Environmentalist Can Kill You

Global Witness, an NGO that exposes corruption and environmental abuse, released a report this week that called Honduras the most dangerous country to be an environmentalist. 

The numbers are heartbreaking.

Global Witness looked at the period 2002 - 2014 to accumulate statistics on the death of environmental activists around the world.  Brazil had the highest number of deaths, at 477, while Honduras had 111. Almost all of those deaths happened since 2010.  If you look at the rate of death of environmentalists over the last 5 years, it turns out Honduras leads, with 101 deaths.

Here's how the numbers work. 

From 2002 to 2009, Honduras had 0, 1, 2, or 3 deaths per year of environmentalists.  Starting with 2010, those numbers skyrocketed:  21 deaths in 2010, 33 deaths in 2011, 25 deaths in 2012, 10 deaths in 2013, and 12 deaths in 2014.  90% of the Honduran environmentalist deaths occurred in the last 5 years!

Global Witness found that mining and other extractive industries caused the largest number of deaths in 2014, with a tie for the second spot between Water and Dams, and Agribusiness.  These three accounted for 84% of the environmentalist deaths in 2014.

This violence has come down particularly hard on indigenous environmentalists.  Three Tolupan leaders were shot and killed during an anti-mining protest in 2014. 

The Global Witness report came out the same day that another Honduran indigenous environmentalist, Berta Cáceres, won the Goldman Prize:

The Goldman Environmental Prize honors grassroots environmental heroes from the world’s six inhabited continental regions....The Prize recognizes individuals for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk.

Cáceres was honored for her grassroots organizing of opposition to the Agua Zarca dam project.  Agua Zarca was a joint project of the Honduran company Desarrollos Energeticos S. A. (DESA) and SinoHydro, the Chinese government owned company recognized as the largest dam builder in the world.  DESA received a $24 million loan from the Banco Centroamericano de Integración Economico for the project. 

As the Goldman page for Cáceres notes, the project was promoted and approved in a corrupt and fraudulent fashion, failing to do the required consultation with the local Lenca communities that lived within the region slated for the reservoir, a violation of ILO 169 and other treaties to which Honduras is a signatory.

DESA was founded in 2008 and claims to be a Honduran pro-environment company:

DESA has always been concerned for the protection of the environment and because of this all its business practices and maintenance follow strict guidelines to be in harmony with nature.

Nature maybe, but not in harmony with the Honduran people, who they seems to despise. 
 DESA guards killed Tomas Garcia while he was protesting against the dam.  They attacked protesters with guns, clubs, and machetes over and over again during the protest, with impunity for all the wounds and the death inflicted.

DESA doesn't list its ownership or any company officers. DESA was able to employ and command Honduran military troops in the protection of of the dam site and equipment. DESA also arranged for trumped up arms charges to be filed against Berta Caceres, to try and jail her to stop the protests.

Ultimately they've failed.  SinoHydro has left Honduras and the dam project is halted.

And Berta Caceres has been honored with the Goldman Prize, which we can hope will help protect her from the fate of too many other Honduran environmental activists.

Indigenous Leader Berta Caceres Ordered Jailed

"I will keep myself with my head held high and will all dignity: I say to them that those businessmen are mistaken if they think that the Lenca people will stop their historic fight in defense of the common property.... My crime is to carry blankets with the name of COPINH, to yell slogans and to create poems in defense of the Río Blanco..."

Honduras' progressive online news source, El Libertador reported these statements, made on Radio Globo by Berta Cáceres, Lenca activist and leader of the Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras (Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras: COPINH).

They came in response to a judge in Intibucá, Alicia Lizeth Naigh Reyes, ordering what El Libertador called "prisión preventiva" (preventive detention) for Cáceres. Preventive detention precedes trial.

In fact, as the notice posted by La Prensa late Friday made clear, this was the final sentencing for Cáceres' participation in Lenca mobilization against the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project in Río Blanco, Intibucá, by a Honduran-Chinese collaboration, DESA-SINOHYDRO

The lawyer for the three indigenous activists, Victor Fernández, said that the two other Lenca activists accused, Aureliano Molina and Tomás Membreño, were released under his parole, required to check in every 15 days.

Berta Cáceres was given a more severe sentence, to be served in the Centro Penal of La Esperanza, in the Department of Intibucá.

What Honduran media did not report is the full militarization of the scene, described by the Mexican news site Vanguardia:

The sentence was delivered... surrounded by some 700 police and military, including some inside the place, among them anti-riot police, who carried metal shields, tear gas bombs, and batons....in front of the court house, some 2000 Lenca supporting Cáceres with signs were present, while inside were Nora Cortina, one of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo of Argentina; Carlos H Reyes, Honduran labor leader; and Berta Oliva, director of the Comité de Familiares de Detenidos y Desaparecidos (COFADEH).

Not present at the sentencing was Berta Cáceres herself, who was represented by her legal counsel.

Proceso Digital published a story about the protest at the courthouse, claiming the indigenous protestors took over the building, but this detail does not appear in other coverage. They described the charges against the three Lenca leaders as

inciting the population of the western area of the country to cause damage to a business that is developing a hydroelectric project in the area.

It is apparently on these grounds, of inciting others, that Berta Cáceres was deemed a "subversive" and sentenced to jail.

The coverage of the sentencing, and the mass protest outside the courthouse, should call into question news reports that purported to show that the Lenca were in favor of the dam. El Heraldo, for example, headlined its September 7 story Lencas de acuerdo con construcción de represa, and wrote that

More than 100 residents, representing ten Lenca community organizations [patronatos] on the Río Blanco, north of Intibucá and south of Santa Barbará, signed an agreement of cooperation and mutual understanding with President Porfirio Lobo Sosa with the company Desarrollos Energéticos Sociedad Anónima (DESA) [the Honduran partner in this Chinese-Honduran project], accepting the construction of the hydroelectric dam “Agua Zarca”.

The event publicized in these stories notably lacked any participation from COPINH, although representatives from two other Lenca organizations were involved. According to these press reports, the signatories of the agreement stated that they were satisfied with the consultation of their communities-- a legal requirement for the project to proceed-- and in return, the company developing the project promised financial compensation of various kinds.

Of course, what the carefully orchestrated event held in Tegucigalpa did not address were the concerns of the protestors at the site of the Agua Zarca dam. There, in July, protests were met by the wounding of one protestor, and the death of another, through gunshot from army engineering division. In May, the same army unit was busy evicting protestors from the area of the dam.

In June, Radio Progreso posted video and an article in which the protestors specifically stated that the government had not consulted appropriately with the communities affected, as called for:

free, previous, and informed consultation, under ILO Convention 169, ancient land titles, historic rights and agreements signed between the Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones y Pueblos Indígenas de Honduras, COPINH, and the Estado de Honduras.

In this case, as in others, at issue is whether what the government did meets the standard of "free, previous, and informed" consultation.

The government stresses obtaining signatures from representatives of some groups, but does not address the wider question of whether these signatories are representing the actual position of the people.

The signing, taking place while three Lenca leaders were under trial for protesting, and after others had been wounded, killed, or kidnapped, arguably doesn't meet the criterion of being "free".

And getting signatures on documents on September 7, months after construction efforts and protests against them began, clearly does not qualify as "prior" consultation.