Caribbean & Central America - March 2026

On 12 January the inter-disciplinary group of independent experts (GIEI) established in February 2025 by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to investigate the 2016 murder of indigenous environmentalist Berta Cáceres [SSR-25-03], presented its final report. As the GIEI itself points out, the assassination of Cáceres, who had campaigned against the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam project on the Gualcarque River in Santa Bárbara department, must be understood not only as retaliation for her opposition to a specific project, but as part of a broader pattern of structural violence that disproportionately punishes indigenous and Afro-Honduran women who defend land, territory, and the environment in Honduras.

In its 524-page report, the GIEI concludes that the killing of Cáceres, a leader of the Lenca indigenous community, who was assassinated in her home on 2 March 2016, was “the result of an organized criminal operation, carefully planned and carried out through a criminal conspiracy”. This encompassed “hired assassins, intermediaries with military training, personnel and directors of Desarrollos Energéticos S.A. (DESA) [the local company responsible for the construction of the dam, which is owned by the Atala Zablah family, one of Honduras’ most influential families], as well as “networks of support, tolerance, and omission from different sectors of the State”.

The GIEI established that the crime was “foreseeable and preventable” and “State authorities possessed concrete, realtime information warning of the planning of the murder, including judicially authorized telephone intercepts in which the crime was explicitly discussed; payments, weapons, and logistics were referenced; and decisions made at higher levels of authority were invoked”.

Eight people have been convicted for their role in Cáceres’ murder, including Roberto David Castillo Mejía, the former executive director of Desa, while an arrest warrant was issued in December 2023 for Desa’s financial manager, Daniel Atala, whose whereabouts are unknown. However as Switzerland-headquartered NGO World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) notes, the structural conditions that made Cáceres’ murder possible persist: “the lack of full recognition and titling of the collective Lenca territory of Río Blanco; the continued validity of the Agua Zarca project concession; the absence of accountability for all intellectual, material, and financial perpetrators; and the failure to provide comprehensive, collective, and transformative reparations”.

International finance

The GIEI’s report on Cáceres’ murder also determined that funds disbursed by international development banks – mainly the Central American development bank (BCIE) and Dutch development bank (FMO) – which were formally allocated to the Agua Zarca dam, were diverted from their original purpose and used to pay for illegal surveillance, intimidation, armed operations, and ultimately Cáceres’ assassination. The GIEI’s financial investigation found that 67% of the US$18.54m disbursed in the project was “subject to diversion and/or irregular handling”.

Dangers faced by activists

Nasry Asfura’s presidential victory in the 30 November general election, which returned the conservative Partido Nacional (PN) to power after four years of left-wing government under Xiomara Castro, of the Partido Libertad y Refundación (Libre), has inspired little faith that the plight of human rights defenders will improve, in a country well known for being one of the deadliest for those defending the environment and their land.

On 29 January Asociación para una Sociedad más Justa (ASJ), the local chapter of anti-corruption NGO Transparency International released a new report noting that between 2015 and 2025, 103 murders of environmental defenders were documented – more than 30% of which occurred in the department of Colón. It highlights that these recorded murders are primarily linked to land conflicts, illegal logging, mining concessions where communities have not been consulted, and the presence of armed actors. It notes that more than 90% of these crimes remain unpunished.