Tag: Berta Cáceres

International peace activist Cynthia McKinney brought a very important point to me recently when she asked me to think about the fact that every time Black people reach a moral high ground over the police, something tragic happens to the police. It drives home the subliminal point that other ethnicities should be sympathetic to police who are paid to control these Black animals, who, untrained or barely trained and armed, can kill multiple elite, trained officers. Consider the cases of Larry Davis in New York and Lovelle Mixon in Oakland.

In an important decision, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has opened a case against the Government of Belize regarding the controversial Chalillo Dam built on Belize’s Macal River in 2005. The decision is in response to a petition from The Belize Institute of Environmental Law and Policy filed in 2004 on behalf of the Maya people and those living downstream of the dams who say their rights have been violated.

In Honduras, one month since the assassination of Berta Caceres on the 3rd of March, tens of thousands of African and Indigenous Hondurans and those in solidarity have taken to the streets throughout the country with deep sadness and in resistance to the neo-colonial forces at fault for her murder. Impunity is rampant since the 2009 coup d’état, supported by then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

I began writing a eulogy for Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores years ago, though she died only last week. Berta was assassinated by Honduran government-backed death squads on March 3. Like many who knew and worked with her, I was aware that this fighter was not destined to die of old age. She spoke too much truth to too much power. Long may Berta live, in the hearts, minds, passions and actions of all of us.