One of the fundamental themes at the 12th edition of the International Workshop on Emancipatory Paradigms "Berta Cáceres Lives On", held in January in Havana, Cuba, was the criminalization of activists in Latin America, with an emphasis on the situation in Honduras.

To know more about the situation experienced by the communities in the struggle for territorial defense in this Meso American country, Real World Radio, through its correspondents Danilo Urrea** and Loraine Morales, member of the communications team at CEPRODESO, talked to Laura Zúñiga Cáceres.

The activist is member of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) and daughter of activist Berta Cáceres, Lenca leader and Goldman prize winner, who was murdered in Honduras in March 2016.

With Berta´s murder on March 3rd, 2016 in Intibucá and the situation currently faced by COPINH, Zúñiga said that "murdering my mother and COPINH´s general coordinator, Berta Cáceres, and trying to dismantle our organization means that we need to train and prepare the communities in Honduras and Latin America that are resisting. This is the message: if we could eliminate Berta Cáceres, who was also a renowned figure at national and international level, and despite international pressure, we can go against everyone; to which we say: Berta will be multiplied and we are alive as an organization, reviving her in each and every one of our struggles".

“In response to the attempts to intimidate those who defend the rights of communities, we resist”. This is one of the trends that can be observed in Latin America with the increasing emergence of environmental conflicts in territories where the people face the arrival of extractivist projects. “This is why we continue with our motto, Justice for Berta is justice for the world, and prepare our organization to defend life against murders in this first anniversary of her death, to call for the world again to be united and to join the search for justice for Berta, supporting COPINH and reaffirming our principles of struggle for life against multiple domination systems and against the capitalism that loots our territories, the patriarchy that murders us and the racism that continues appropriating the lands of indigenous people", said the Honduran activist.

Trust in the future

Zúñiga also shared during the interview some memories about her mother, a woman that conveyed her daughters the importance "to trust in the people of the world, in ourselves and the future".
"There are more concrete things, such as like when she said, ‘I don´t want you to be apathetic towards society, I want you to fight’, that was her demand. We watched her develop herself and face violence by everyone who did not want to see a woman assume herself as an indigenous and revolutionary woman. We watched her make decisions together with other people to organize things, discuss and occupy public spaces. We saw how the violence in different places attacked my mom and how she grew, despite the violence and obstacles she had to face. That, for me, was one of the most beautiful things she left us", said Zúñiga.

*Danilo Urrea is the regional facilitator of Friends of the Earth Latin America and the Caribbean and member of CENSAT Agua Viva