"The Honduran Government Wants to Incriminate Us"
"The Honduran Government Wants to Incriminate Us"
Tuesday, 29 March 2016 00:00
By Staff, Witness for Peace | News Analysis
Family members of Berta Cáceres, General Coordinator of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), and the leadership of the organization, accompanied by national and international human rights defenders, held a press conference Wednesday, March 9 in Tegucigalpa expressing their growing concerns over the Honduran government-led investigation of Cáceres' assassination.
Internationally recognized Honduran human rights leader Cáceres was assassinated on March 3, 2016 in her home in La Esperanza. Since then, Cáceres' family members and COPINH have denounced the government's failure to guarantee an international and independent investigation into her assassination. COPINH has demanded that the Honduran government sign an agreement with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for an independent and impartial investigation led by an international team of experts. "The same government that criminalized Berta Cáceres, ... the same government that persecuted her, threatened her, and is responsible for her murder cannot possibly investigate itself," the organization stated.
"Honduran authorities are losing precious hours and days in this investigation," exclaimed Marcia Aguiluz, representative of the Justice Center, referring to the investigation's failure to look into the root causes of Cáceres' assassination: primarily, the criminalization of her political work in defense of human rights. The Honduran human rights network of lawyers, the Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice (MADJ by its Spanish acronyms), shares these serious concerns and has noted that the initial proceedings of the investigation reveal significant signs that the murder scene has been tampered with and manipulated.
Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas Director for Amnesty International echoed similar sentiments in Tegucigalpa on Tuesday March 8 expressing, "Authorities in Honduras are saying one thing and doing another. They have told us they are committed to finding those responsible for Berta Caceres' death, yet they have failed to follow the most basic lines of investigation, including the fact that Berta had been receiving serious death threats related to her human rights work for a very long time."
More:
http://www.truth-out.org/speakout/item/35417-the-honduran-government-wants-to-incriminate-us
Good Reads:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016149524
