7 March 2016
Unlike the illegal (by International Law) criminalization of Indigenous Human Rights Defender Berta Cáceres by the Honduras State, the murder of Cáceres has not gone unnoticed by the international community at-large. When will women no longer be the targets of the violence, domination and backlash of the models of dominance-style patriarchy, of State/governance and business? WHEN IS ENOUGH, ENOUGH?
In 2013 IOSDE’s Founder and Director, India Reed Bowers, personally delivered an IOSDE statement to the Honduras Embassy in San Francisco, California USA, that demanded an end to the judicial persecution of COPINH members Berta Cáceres, Aureliano Molina and Tomas Gómez and that Cáceres, Molina, and Gómez be exonerated of false accusations against them. IOSDE demanded that the Honduran government must respect ILO Convention 169 and respect ancestral lands and that illegal concession on the Gualcarque River must be withdrawn and construction of the dam stopped, that attacks against indigenous peoples, especially in Rio Blanco, must be ended. At the same time of that criminalizing Cáceres in 2013, the Honduran delegation at the United Nations (UN) 24th session of the Human Rights Council (HRC) stated, in-session during an Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP), that States should consult widely with Indigenous Peoples so as to have a comprehensive process before making a decision on extractive industry.
States make a mockery of Human Rights when they present one position to EMRIP, the HRC, a Special Rapporteur or otherwise in the international arena and at the same time operate differently, ie hypocritically, at home. The abusive relationship States model therein results in murders of Human Rights Defenders, and teaches the people themselves to harm each other as a model of State loyalty/citizenship. IOSDE sees the murder of Berta Cáceres as a deliberate fear-tactic and attempt to silence Human Rights-based discourse and enacting of Indigenous Rights. Such tactics are a played-out form of genocidal operatives used to maintain both State domestic and international business control for profit, violating our sisters’ right to life, peace, wisdom, dignity and knowledge. Were States not to criminalize Human Rights Defenders, women and men with true commitment to a better world for all, like Berta Cáceres, would be alive today and celebrated for being the role models they are in life not death. Women and men like Berta Cáceres are our heroes; now is the time to stop violating and murdering heroes and start modeling their support, for a better world. [1]
For document version of statement, including attachments from footnoted documents, click here.
[1] See also 2013 IOSDE Statement re the Honduras State’s Criminalization of Berta Cáceres; and IOSDE Statement on the Murder of Teduray chieftain 'meant to silence lumad struggle for rights'; Mindanao, Philippines, 9 October 2015
Unlike the illegal (by International Law) criminalization of Indigenous Human Rights Defender Berta Cáceres by the Honduras State, the murder of Cáceres has not gone unnoticed by the international community at-large. When will women no longer be the targets of the violence, domination and backlash of the models of dominance-style patriarchy, of State/governance and business? WHEN IS ENOUGH, ENOUGH?
In 2013 IOSDE’s Founder and Director, India Reed Bowers, personally delivered an IOSDE statement to the Honduras Embassy in San Francisco, California USA, that demanded an end to the judicial persecution of COPINH members Berta Cáceres, Aureliano Molina and Tomas Gómez and that Cáceres, Molina, and Gómez be exonerated of false accusations against them. IOSDE demanded that the Honduran government must respect ILO Convention 169 and respect ancestral lands and that illegal concession on the Gualcarque River must be withdrawn and construction of the dam stopped, that attacks against indigenous peoples, especially in Rio Blanco, must be ended. At the same time of that criminalizing Cáceres in 2013, the Honduran delegation at the United Nations (UN) 24th session of the Human Rights Council (HRC) stated, in-session during an Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP), that States should consult widely with Indigenous Peoples so as to have a comprehensive process before making a decision on extractive industry.
States make a mockery of Human Rights when they present one position to EMRIP, the HRC, a Special Rapporteur or otherwise in the international arena and at the same time operate differently, ie hypocritically, at home. The abusive relationship States model therein results in murders of Human Rights Defenders, and teaches the people themselves to harm each other as a model of State loyalty/citizenship. IOSDE sees the murder of Berta Cáceres as a deliberate fear-tactic and attempt to silence Human Rights-based discourse and enacting of Indigenous Rights. Such tactics are a played-out form of genocidal operatives used to maintain both State domestic and international business control for profit, violating our sisters’ right to life, peace, wisdom, dignity and knowledge. Were States not to criminalize Human Rights Defenders, women and men with true commitment to a better world for all, like Berta Cáceres, would be alive today and celebrated for being the role models they are in life not death. Women and men like Berta Cáceres are our heroes; now is the time to stop violating and murdering heroes and start modeling their support, for a better world. [1]
For document version of statement, including attachments from footnoted documents, click here.
[1] See also 2013 IOSDE Statement re the Honduras State’s Criminalization of Berta Cáceres; and IOSDE Statement on the Murder of Teduray chieftain 'meant to silence lumad struggle for rights'; Mindanao, Philippines, 9 October 2015
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