This Is Why You Could Lose Your Life Protecting Honduras’ Environment
This Is Why You Could Lose Your Life Protecting Honduras’ Environment
by Alejandro Davila Fragoso Jul 12, 2016 9:57 am
A week ago, Lesbia Yaneth Urquía, a businesswoman and environmental activist in the rural town of Marcala, Honduras, left her house as she usually did at the crack of dawn for her daily bike ride. She never returned.
On Thursday, news broke first in Honduras and then in the international press: Urquía’s family had found the activist leader dead in a municipal landfill. It was a gruesome sight. Urquía, a sympathizer of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), and a vocal opponent of hydroelectric development in the La Paz region, was dumped on top of trash bags. According to authorities, her head showed signs of massive trauma done with a blunt object. Police said they suspected it all stemmed from a bike robbery, though COPINH quickly attributed the killing to her activism.
Her family didn’t reply to a request for comment, but sources who knew the victim told ThinkProgress that Urquía showed machete injuries. “She was a fighter, an environmental defender, and had long opposed the privatization of natural resources, mostly water,” said Liliam Esperanza Lopez, financial coordinator at COPINH, and a native of La Paz who knew Urquía and has been in contact with the family. “That’s what we experience in this country when we defend the land, the forests,” she told ThinkProgress.
Death has become a part of life for environmental activists in Honduras. A click on any Honduran environmental organization website leads to allegations of persecution. Activists from all over the country describe armed home invasions; suspicious cars or men on motorcycles following them; as well as outright attacks and murders. Honduras recently underwent a massive distribution of land concessions to companies eager to extract timber, gold, silver, copper, and lead, as well as to develop the nation’s abundant hydropower capacity. Concessions are meant to show Honduras as a safe place for business and lift people out of poverty. But since resources are often found in rural indigenous land, experts said the government and companies are clashing with communities.
More:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/07/12/3796410/honduran-activists-murdered/
Environment & Energy:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1127103280
