DESA Employees Arrested In Honduras For Murder Of Activist Berta Cáceres
, May 2nd, 2016 | ||
Two employees of Desarrollos Energéticos SA (DESA) have been arrested and charged with the murder of Berta Cáceres, an activist who was fighting the Agua Zarca dam on the territory of the indigenous Lenca people in Honduras. DESA was awarded a permit to build the 22 megawatt dam in 2011.
The Agua Zarca dam on the Gualcarque River was initially supported with funding from the World Bank and Sinohydro of China. Construction began in 2012 and access to the river was cut off soon after, heavily impacting the local community who considered the river sacred, in addition to depending on it for food and water. In April 2013, the Council of Indigenous and Popular Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), led by its founder Berta Cáceres, organized a successful road blockade of the dam area tha brought construction to a halt. "That project has been imposed with militarization, with very wicked maneuvers on the part of the company," Cáceres told Jacobin magazine. "They have threatened me with death. I have received threats by cell phone. Sexual harassment from the security guards of these companies. I have received threats against my family, against my daughters, against my son. I have been threatened with criminal charges. Accusations. Everything from the illegal possession of arms to coercion, usurpation, and continued damages." She reported 33 death threats against her including from the two DESA employees who were just arrested. The threat to her life was considered grave enough for her to be listed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights as needing special protection. In late February of this year, Cáceres held a press conference to denounce those who wanted to kill her. A week later she was murdered on March 3 in her house in La Esperanza. Two months after her death, Honduran police released a public statement on Facebook announcing that Sergio Ramón Rodriguez, a DESA engineer, and Douglas Geovanny Bustillo, the former head of DESA's private security team, were identified as a result of an in-depth investigation dubbed 'Operation Jaguar.' Two other men - Mariano Chavez and Edilson Duarte Meza - were also arrested. Despite the arrests, activists have not been thrilled with the way that Honduras has pursued this investigation. "So far the Honduran-led investigation has been a tragedy of errors – with false accusations, suspected cover-ups, and a brazen conflict of interest at the public prosecutor’s office," Billy Kyte, a senior campaigner at Global Witness, said in a press statement. "The people who ordered Berta Cáceres’ murder must be held to account, not just the triggermen." Global Witness, a human rights organization based in London, simultaneously released a set of court documents from 2014 to demonstrate how DESA had intimidated Cáceres and her organization. In the lawsuit, DESA accused Caceres and COPINH of 'usurpation, coercion and continued damage.' "The company was harmed by the protests, which were not peaceful but instead violent," Juan Sanchez Cantillano, a former lawyer for DESA told the Associated Press. "The protesters invaded the terrain of DESA and burned the machinery and the offices. ... They destroyed everything." Local activists also say that the Honduran government also has a lot to answer for. “I want it to be absolutely clear. The government of Juan Orlando Hernández is responsiblefor the death of Berta Cáceres,” Padre Melo, a local Jesuit priest and radio journalist told the New Yorker magazine. Her daughter agrees. "It is the government who awarded the dam commission and thegovernment who sent military and police to work with Desa’s private security guards, who threatened my mother," Laura Cáceres, tha daughter of Berta Cáceres told the Guardian. "If it wasn’t for our struggle and the international pressure for justice, my mother’s murder would already be extinct." Kyte says that the only way to ensure that the truth could be uncovered would be for the Honduran government to accept the offer by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to conduct an independent investigation. |
Showing posts with label World Bank. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World Bank. Show all posts
Thursday, May 5, 2016
CorpWatch: DESA Employees Arrested In Honduras For Murder Of Activist Berta Cáceres
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
CounterCurrents: Dana Durnford’s Post-Fukushima Odyssey: Documenting Ecocide on Canada’s West Coast, How America's Aristocracy Extends Its Global Control, Truth Is Washington’s Enemy, World On Fire: UN Helpless As Crises Rage In 10 Critical Hot Spots
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World On Fire: UN Helpless As Crises Rage In 10 Critical Hot Spots
By Thalif Deen
http://www.countercurrents.org/deen210415.htm
The United Nations is fighting a losing battle against a rash of political and humanitarian crises in 10 of the world’s critical “hot spots.” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says even the U.N.’s 193 member states cannot, by themselves, help resolve these widespread conflicts. “Not a single country, however powerful or resourceful as it may be, including the United States, can do it,” he warned last week. The world’s current political hotspots include Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Ukraine, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic – not forgetting West Africa which is battling the spread of the deadly disease Ebola
Blood On Their Hands: Libya’s Boat Refugees And “Humanitarian” Imperialism
By Johannes Stern & Bill Van Auken
http://www.countercurrents.org/auken210415.htm
The horrific death toll of African and Middle Eastern refugees and migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe is a damning indictment of all the major imperialist powers, and most particularly the United States
Oil Market Uncertain As US Shale Boom “Goes Bust”
By Countercurrents.org
http://www.countercurrents.org/cc210415.htm
Oil market is uncertain as the US shale oil output is expected to fall for the first time in four years, and the coming months are likely to see a continuing price war between OPEC producers. Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and HIS are now projecting that US oil production growth will now end. The global oil price rose slightly in the morning of April 14
Sex, Drugs, And Dead Soldiers : What U.S. Africa Command Doesn't Want You To Know
By Nick Turse
http://www.countercurrents.org/turse210415.htm
For years, as U.S. military personnel moved into Africa in ever-increasing numbers, AFRICOM has effectively downplayed, disguised, or covered-up almost every aspect of its operations, from the locations of its troop deployments to those of its expanding string of outposts. Not surprisingly, it's done the same when it comes to misdeeds by members of the command and continues to ignore questions surrounding crimes and alleged misconduct by its personnel, refusing even to answer emails or phone calls about them
What Happens When Mugabe Leaves: Zimbabwe In The Next 50 Years
By Tsungai Chipato
http://www.countercurrents.org/chipato210415.htm
Regional hegemony will be the norm for the next following decades; as world powers follow Obama doctrine of having a small footprint but large reach. With South Africa seeing itself in the beginning throes, of a period of decline due to internal conflict. Western powers may have no choice but to deal with whatever administration that administers Zimbabwe
Abolish The Zionist Mythological Narrative
By Ludwig Watzal
http://www.countercurrents.org/watzal210415.htm
Miko Peled, son of general Matityahu Peled and author of the highly acclaimed book "The General's Son"(1) , destroys in his lecture the historic fairy tales that the Zionist fabricated around their conquest of Palestine. The Zionist claim a "right of return" to their ancient homeland while they are denying the same right to the Palestinians who they dispersed in 1948
Truth Is Washington’s Enemy
By Paul Craig Roberts
http://www.countercurrents.org/roberts210415.htm
A government that cannot survive truth and must resort to stamping out truth is not a government that any country wants. But such an undesirable government is the government that Clinton-Bush-Cheney-Obama-Hillary-Lack-Royce have given us
How America's Aristocracy Extends Its Global Control
By Eric Zuesse
http://www.countercurrents.org/zuesse210415.htm
America's great Founders defeated the aristocracy of their time. Gradually, an American aristocracy has arisen to take its place. But, with what's now known, perhaps those people can also be defeated; and, this time, because of what is now known, it might be able to be done in a way that will prevent any future aristocracy from forming here. The situation is far from hopeless. It is bad, but progress really is possible. And progress should be the goal
World Bank Group Increases Spending On Fossil Fuels: 2014 Saw $3 Billion For Fossil Fuel
By Countercurrents.org
http://www.countercurrents.org/cc210415A.htm
Despite repeated calls for urgent action on climate crisis, the World Bank Group (WBG) increased funding for fossil fuels in its last fiscal year. The increase comes during the first full fiscal year following the World Bank’s announced commitment to limit coal financing due to climate concerns. Last year, the WBG provided more than $3bn in financing for fossil fuels
Why Cuba Won't Extradite Assata Shakur
By Matt Peppe
http://www.countercurrents.org/peppe2104115.htm
As negotiations continue between the governments of the United States and Cuba over the normalization of relations, the U.S. State Department has claimed Cuba is willing to discuss the extradition of political refugee Assata Shakur. While it may seem that Cuba would gladly make such a seemingly minor concession in return for the promise of normalized relations, this would greatly underestimate the Cuban government's commitment to upholding its principles. Shakur need not worry that Cuba will cave for expediency's sake and send her back to the country she escaped from after being harassed and persecuted for years
Dana Durnford’s Post-Fukushima Odyssey: Documenting Ecocide on Canada’s West Coast
By Robert Snefjella
http://www.countercurrents.org/snefjella210415.htm
Dana Durnford’s odyssey, in 2014 and 2015, not a fable, has been to document what has happened and is happening since Fukushima to wild life, plant and animal, in the waters and tidal zone and pools on the West Coast of Canada. His boat is a little Zodiac water craft, almost impossible to sink, but no comfort inn. He has sailed it largely alone, with his intrepid old dog Zoey, for months and for many hundreds of kilometers along the shores of British Columbia and its islands and out to the Queen Charlotte Islands
Land Acquisition Bill Takes Away Rights Of Farmers And Pits Them Against 'Make In India'
By Dr Rahul Pandey and Dr Sandeep Pandey
http://www.countercurrents.org/pandey210415.htm
Since the past several months we have seen the NDA government aggressively pushing through changes in land acquisition policy, first in the form of Ordinance in December 2014 and then, as it was passed as a Bill with nine changes in Lok Sabha but faced roadblock in Rajya Sabha, re-promulgating it before its expiry in April 2015. With the government calling the Bill pro-farmer and pro-development and most of opposition parties and social activists opposing it as anti-farmer, it is useful to sieve through the noise and look at the changes proposed and what existed earlier
Friday, February 21, 2014
World Bank Agrees to Investigate Labor Conditions at Indian Tea Company
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World Bank Agrees to Investigate Labor Conditions at Indian Tea Company
Pratap Chatterjee
February 20th, 2014
The World Bank has agreed to investigate Amalgamated Plantations Private Limited (APPL) in India for abusive working conditions on tea plantations in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam, following a formal complaint by workers. A Columbia Law School team has confirmed the workers allegations.
See http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15929
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Saturday, December 28, 2013
Democracy NOW!
Stories |
The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the
S&P 500 both hit record highs on Thursday while the NASDAQ surged to its
highest level in over 13 years. The year-end rally is expected to ... Read More →
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A
series of attacks in Iraq over Christmas left at least 42 people dead and dozens
more wounded. As Iraq faces its worst violence in years, the United States has
rushed a new shipment of Hellfire ... Read More →
|
While the Philippines struggles to rebuild
after Typhoon Haiyan, the country is being forced to continue paying out
billions of dollars in debt to the World Bank and other lenders. Haiyan, the ...
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Headlines → |
Obama Signs Pentagon, Budget Laws
Friday, December 7, 2012
A Carbon Tsunami in Doha
A Carbon Tsunami in Doha
Posted on Dec 5, 2012
By Amy Goodman
DOHA, Qatar—The 18th U.N. climate-change summit is taking place in the small but immensely wealthy Gulf emirate of Qatar, the largest per capita emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. Delegates, press, dignitaries and the legions of low-paid, foreign guest workers here at the opulent Qatar National Convention Center all pass under an enormous spider, a 30-foot-high cast-bronze statue called “Maman,” by the French-American sculptor Louise Bourgeois. It was chosen by the emir’s wife, and snapped up for a reported $10 million. The Obama administration has been accused, rightly, of derailing the UN climate negotiations in recent years, which makes the spider an appropriate symbol, as famously described by the lines from an 1808 poem by Sir Walter Scott,
“Oh! what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive!”
Here at the summit, referred to as the COP 18 (18th Conference of Parties), I met up with climate scientist Bill Hare, one of the lead authors of a new World Bank report, “Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4 Degree C Warmer World Must Be Avoided.” With the U.S. media focused on the so-called fiscal cliff, I asked Hare how the world’s historically largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the United States, could be expected to contribute to a global fund to combat climate change:
“We have a climate cliff. ... We’re facing a carbon tsunami, actually, where huge amounts of carbon are now being emitted at a faster rate than ever. And it’s that carbon tsunami that’s likely to overwhelm the planet with warming, sea-level rise and acidifying the oceans.”
Just a day after I interviewed Hare, a powerful typhoon hit the Philippines. I spoke with the lead climate negotiator from the Philippines, Naderev Sano, just minutes after the news of the typhoon broke. “It is sobering for us to know that a typhoon like this normally doesn’t hit that part of the country,” he told me. “In half a century, this is the first time that a typhoon that has crossed as far south as Bopha has.” I asked Sano what he was hoping for in Doha:
“The single biggest measure of success in Doha is, first and foremost, the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. That is something we hold very dearly, because that is the jump-off base for enhanced ambition for the whole world.”
The Kyoto Protocol is the only legally binding global treaty that forces nations to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Unless action is taken, it will lapse at the end of this month. Sano explained: “When we reach the first day of 2013, if we don’t have any success here in Doha, then we end up with nothing. We end up with a ... system where climate change faces a world that has not found the political will to address the climate crisis.”
Another participant at the summit is Kumi Naidoo, the executive director of Greenpeace International. I last interviewed him via phone as he was hanging from a Russian Gazprom oil rig in the Arctic, getting hosed down with water intended to dislodge him. Naidoo wrote before coming to COP 18: “Doha is already infamous for dead-end trade talks. One more failure and it will be forever known as the place where global deals go to die.”
At a press conference held here, Naidoo directed his own rhetorical fire hose at the Obama administration. Noting Barack Obama’s reference to climate change in his Nov. 6 victory speech, Naidoo said, naming Obama’s climate negotiators, “Todd Stern and Jonathan Pershing have come to Doha with their needle stuck in the groove of obstructing the U.N. process, an art they have perfected. It is disrespectful of President Obama to inflict on us two negative negotiators who act as if the comments he made after his election were never made. He should either pick up the phone and tell his delegates to follow his lead or alternatively call them back to Washington.” When I asked Pershing to respond to Naidoo, whether he was following President Obama’s wishes, he replied, “No comment.”
While the expectations for the Doha climate summit are low, even grim, and while attendance at this summit is a fraction of what we saw at the last three in Copenhagen, Cancun and Durban, there is here a strong core of committed people who care about the future of the planet, who are taking action to protect it from human-induced climate change. It is these people who the giant spider in the lobby also represents.
The sculpture is protecting a sac of eggs, and, as Louise Bourgeois explained: “The Spider is an ode to my mother. ... Like a spider, my mother was a weaver. Spiders are helpful and protective.”
From Typhoon Bopha in the Philippines to Superstorm Sandy in the United States, the web of climate activists is not tangled, but growing stronger, leading the way. If only the politicians would follow.
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 1,000 stations in North America. She is the author of “Breaking the Sound Barrier,” recently released in paperback and now a New York Times best-seller.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_carbon_tsunami_in_doha_20121205/
World Bank: Arab World Hit Hard By Climate Change
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