#berta caceres

Honduras: As Berta Cáceres Murder Trial Nears End, Will True Perpetrators Be Brought to Justice?

Eight men are on trial in Honduras for the murder of environmentalist Berta Cáceres, who was gunned down in her home in La Esperanza in 2016. A verdict is expected this week—but UC Santa Cruz historian and author Dana Frank said on Democracy Now! today that the trial has been flawed from the outset:

“The trial itself has been a travesty. The government prosecutors have not introduced or taken into account a vast range of evidence of text messages, seized computer messages, phone call records that implicate all kinds of people. And they’re not taking that into account. And also Honduran law says that the family of the victim has the right to review all of the evidence, has the right to be there in court, and that has been violated over and over and over again.

So we’re going to get some kind of verdict—probably somebody’s going to take a fall for this—but we should not in any way confuse that with justice for Berta. The fact that there is even a trial is mostly because of international pressure, including from the United States Congress and people like yourselves. There is going to be a lot of pressure to act like somehow justice has been done and we’re going to put this under the rug, sweep it under the rug.

And it’s really important to say that this is not going to be justice for Berta. This is going to be some kind of a—something for show, as they say in Honduras—and that we still have to call for justice for Berta and have the true perpetrators fully brought to justice.”

See the full interview here.