Ten years ago, the murder of Berta Cáceres sparked a wave of outrage around the world. The leader of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH)—and a leading figure in the Lenca people’s struggle to defend the community of Río Blanco and the Gualcarque River from the Agua Zarca Hydroelectric Project—became a target of the company DESA (Empresa Desarrollos Energéticos S.A.), the dam’s main developer, which had the support of the Honduran government and financing from several European banks for its project. The company’s then-CEO, David Castillo, was convicted in 2021 as a mastermind behind the crime.
But it was not until January 2026 that a report by the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI)—appointed to investigate the case as a result of an agreement between the Honduran government and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights—determined the extent to which the Honduran government, the military, or the financing banks were involved in Berta’s death.
In this context, Bertha Zúñiga Cáceres, along with Camilo Bermúdez, visited several Spanish cities last June as representatives of COPINH, accompanied by Peace Brigades International (PBI). At one of the events in Madrid, they attended a screening of the documentary *Agua es vida* (*Water Is Life*), which chronicles the struggle of the Lenca people through the story of Berta Cáceres. The day after this event, Bertha Zúñiga spoke with El Salto about her mother’s legacy, the efforts to seek justice following her murder, and the urgency of defending alternative ways of life to a capitalist and colonial model that threatens their territories.
It’s been ten years since your mother’s funeral, and, as you were saying yesterday after the documentary, she’s still alive and present in many places. Even the equality center in my neighborhood is named after Berta Cáceres. How do you feel about your mother’s legacy—seeing how far her legacy has spread?
Throughout this entire process, we’ve received a great deal of solidarity. I think it’s also a form of healing for us—to feel such strong recognition of my mother’s memory in different places and territories where people know about her struggle and are also familiar with the cause of the Lenca people.
For me, personally, it’s not something that strikes me as particularly remarkable because I knew, while she was still alive, the journey she had taken. At COPINH, she was in charge of international relations; during that time, she traveled to many territories, supported many organizations, and was part of various coordination efforts.
During the legal proceedings she endured at the hands of the DESA company, many people also spoke out on an international level: for example, Norita Cortina, from the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, attended one of the hearings in the trials held against her. Former Colombian Senator Piedad Córdoba also stood by her side. So, it was already well known that she was a prominent figure.
What really moves me is seeing young people or even children talk about her and be aware of her struggle. To see that boys and girls know about these events strikes me as quite surprising.
In the documentary *Agua es Vida*, the river plays a central role, but a lawyer for DESA presents a false dichotomy between having a school and protecting the river—something like choosing between protecting the land and choosing development.
For us, it is really important to highlight COPINH’s vision for the struggle—as expressed in its founding documents—which is to improve the quality of life in communities. On the one hand, there is a broader international debate to be had, in the sense that energy investment projects do not always lead to community development; rather, energy investment can continue to perpetuate inequality, slavery, and discrimination, since these forms of energy are solely intended to fuel the development of capitalism and consumerism, not to advance the rights of communities.
We, as part of the movements fighting against dams—or as people affected by dams—always ask: Energy for what? Energy for whom? What is this energy transition model really doing, and how can we build a just energy transition? And, of course, we defend the rights of indigenous peoples. These banks deny these fundamental rights, such as the right to prior informed consent. They are institutions that perpetuate colonialism and discrimination.
“We, on the periphery of capitalism, receive only the waste products of this system of development.“
When people said that the Gualcarque River is a sacred river, others would mock them, saying, “How ridiculous, those people,” or in the chat logs of my mom’s murderers—which were seized during the investigations—they also spoke from that racist mindset and out of ignorance of ancestral wisdom. That’s one side of it.
On the other hand, it’s very important for communities—for Indigenous peoples—to strengthen the development of an alternative way of life, one in which it’s understood that we, as Indigenous peoples, are indeed capable of building our own models of development, and that it is indeed possible to have models of development different from what capitalism offers us. We, on the periphery of capitalism, receive only the scraps of this system of development.
For us, it is essential to work within our communities to keep alive our awareness—as the Lenca people—of our spirituality, and also to meet our basic needs through alternative projects and community initiatives. We must also develop a way of thinking about the international sphere that does not involve the plundering of our communities.
The theme of spirituality is also very much present in your words and actions.
Spirituality is very important to us because it is also a living reflection of our identity. Something we’ve learned from COPINH’s struggle is that as long as we hold onto our identity, we’ll continue to safeguard our territory; but the moment we lose our identity, we’ll lose our struggle because we’ll no longer have that vision of community life, of caring for nature, of building that alternative way of life, and not following the path that capitalism forces upon us.
I believe that all of us in organizations engaged in community-based struggles often face what we call “monsters”—entities so vast and powerful that they hold all the capital, possess the weapons, control the justice system, and exert influence over politicians. So for us, our strength also lies in our spirituality.
You also spoke about identity. The issue of identity, here in Europe, has often been hijacked by the right, which speaks of an identity under threat—an identity defined in opposition to others. What is your conception of identity? Would you describe it as a counter-hegemonic idea?
For us, the construction of our identity is closely linked to our own history as a people who have experienced the denial of our existence—who have seen how others have sought to make us disappear as a people, to ensure that we do not exist as the Lenca people—including denial by the State. Something fundamental to COPINH, to the struggle of indigenous peoples, is to show that we existed as a living people, that we do not merely appear in history books.
We, the Lenca people, have a distinctive characteristic: we are a diverse people. This means that for us, the value of our struggle—of grassroots organizing, cultural expression, and collective action—also stems from diversity: from the importance of diverse forms of resistance, from different perspectives on how to carry it out, and from our ability to weave together a process of resistance that is grounded in diversity and makes it a guiding principle.
We have shared experiences with different peoples; we have learned from their struggles—for example, through strategic litigation—and we have learned from the ancestral wisdom of other peoples whose worldview is different, but which, in the end, is a worldview of resistance and, as you say, counter-hegemonic.
We also believe in our duty to uphold the dignity of our struggle and our existence. The struggle in Río Blanco also represents this—standing up to Dutch banks, which, in their communications, even claimed there was no need for prior consultation because there were no communities there. We said: Who is a Dutch bank to decide where communities exist and where they do not? This is our way of reclaiming our existence.
There has been much talk about the 2009 coup in Honduras as a testing ground for an entire anti-democratic process that spread throughout Latin America. Now your country is home to Próspera, another colonial experiment. How do you assess these processes of resource extraction, but also of democracy?
For us, the 2009 coup—which was the first coup of the new century in Latin America, replicated in other parts of the continent and disguised as a democratic process—reflects the activities and strategy of powerful business groups, among which corporate power is becoming increasingly evident. We always say: the intention of the coup was not to remove a president; the intention of the coup was to intensify and deepen the privatization of nature’s common goods and to concentrate control of the renewable energy sector—a growing international market that receives financing and support from international financial institutions—in the hands of Honduras’s wealthiest families, who control the majority of businesses.
Special Economic Development Zones, such as Prospera, merely represent the deepening of a corporate privatization project in which the rights of indigenous peoples and rural farming communities are seen as an obstacle to implementing and developing the capitalist project—a project that also requires territorial expansion and territorial control. And when we talk about territory, we’re always referring to all the wealth that exists within it—such as water, mountains, and soil. Even oxygen, right? Which is now being commercialized as well. The ZEDEs imply the existence of corporate governments that are unregulated and unchecked, where we are ultimately, as I said before, merely on the periphery of capitalism—sometimes the labor force, sometimes just the victims. It’s a clash of worldviews. I believe that’s what my mother’s murder represents: putting profit above everything else.
“The purpose of the coup was not to oust a president; the purpose of the coup was to intensify and expand the privatization of shared natural resources.“
What is the role of the various actors in this extractivist game—from the United States to development banks, including DESA, and extending all the way to Israel?
This way of life we were talking about increasingly requires more authoritarian governments, where there is no real democracy in which communities decide our own future, where there is more coercion, more violence, more military presence, more weapons—for that is the logic of war. The business of war continues to grow in terms of weapons, military forces, and even video games, which are also consumed to gradually instill the concept of war in our minds.
On the other hand, regarding banks like those that participated in my mother’s murder, it is very clear that many financial institutions have been created under the false pretense of promoting development. We ask: To what extent are international financial institutions truly grounded in the needs of peoples regarding our rights? To what extent do they respect the autonomies that exist in the exercise of those rights? Or do they view us solely as territory to be exploited?
We see how the DESA company, as we mentioned earlier, organized local criminal hit squads, exploited state security forces, and worked with private security forces to neutralize and attack COPINH’s struggle. The Honduran state was completely subservient to this company’s interests and, in fact, lent its institutional apparatus to the goal of imposing the hydroelectric project through judicial proceedings, persecution, and criminalization campaigns.
Even when my mother was murdered, the head of what was then the Ministry of Security of the Republic—who was responsible for the protective measures Berta was entitled to—said that her death was due to a love triangle. And that also speaks to the discrimination that exists against women and their struggle. Because it’s very easy to say that when a woman who defended the territories is murdered, it was a crime of passion. It’s a way of seeking impunity, but also of continuing to cast judgment on women—especially those who speak out.
As for how banks financed DESA, it’s not as if this were an exception. The way the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project was carried out reflects a model that is taking hold not only in Latin America but in many other places as well. And in those places, there are communities raising their voices to defend their rights, their territory, or their ability to make decisions.
Yesterday you were talking about the limits of progressive governments; you said that the GIEI was only possible under a government like Xiomara Castro’s, but you also mentioned its limitations.
It’s a rather complex issue that could be explored in great depth, but generally speaking, one could say that the wave of progressive governments in Latin America has taught us a great deal about what a progressive government—one committed to certain popular demands—can achieve. But it has also highlighted the importance of keeping a territorial struggle—a popular struggle—alive and active. There needs to be a relationship in which popular struggles are heard and given an important place, because business and power elites will always exert pressure on governments. I also believe that, for example, Xiomara Castro’s government was very afraid to take many actions because it was acutely conscious of the coup d’état and always feared that if it did this or that, there would be a coup d’état—that without the United States’ approval, it would be unable to govern.
“Xiomara Castro’s government was very afraid to take many actions because it was acutely aware of the coup d’état.”
So it is essential to sustain the people’s struggle, maintain community strength, and even foster it from within the government. Demanding the support and active participation of social movements in every action is what can truly empower a more progressive government, because the reality is that when right-wing actors regain control, they are not afraid to act decisively against people’s rights.
The lesson COPINH has learned since the coup d’état is to focus on processes we call the refoundation of Honduras. It’s not about slogans, but about revising constitutions that are outdated—ones that barely mention the rights of indigenous peoples—and making the rights of indigenous peoples, women, and sexual minorities more evident and clearer, the human rights of all popular sectors, and to create participatory processes that bring about transformation through local practices—processes that are highly educational and that also change mindsets—because otherwise we will have generations who are automatons, obedient, who can only say yes or bow their heads.
These are very important issues. The topic of “Hondurasgate”—this Trump scandal—has come up, in which there is talk, for example, of the role Israel has played in intervening not only in Honduras but also in other Latin American countries to secure their approval for this proposal for war and discrimination—for genocide—and to gain their support for this militaristic vision of occupation and the dispossession of peoples.
Yesterday you were discussing how difficult it is to coordinate with other movements at this historic moment when communities are under attack and repression and violence are intensifying. I was wondering, however, whether this need to defend ourselves against the offensive of capital might also foster greater coordination, and whether coordination among movements itself is also a form of defense.
Yes, I think so; it’s always necessary to be able to do that work. For example, my mom was very active in Honduras in doing that work of connecting realities and supporting and empowering other communities—or learning from them. To the extent that we can share that knowledge—to learn more about what has worked and avoid repeating certain mistakes, or to gain a little more clarity on the strategies we have—it’s very important to coordinate our efforts.
Although we’re all connected in some way through this resistance for freedom—sometimes knowing each other, sometimes not, sometimes from the same continent, sometimes from different continents—honest, authentic dialogue and working together to strengthen one another across communities is important.
In this regard, it seems that internationalism has fallen a bit short; given the current state of nations, could we consider an inter-community perspective?
Yes, without a doubt, I believe there are many cultural experiences and initiatives related to agroecology, as well as different forms of resistance—which vary somewhat between the Global South and the Global North—but which are all important. It’s important to be able to connect these different experiences of resistance and also to connect the various processes and perspectives. It’s also important to hear about what’s happening in other parts of the world.
Original text by Sarah Babiker with photos by David F. Sabadell published in Desinformémonos on June 3rd, 2026.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.