Cáceres, who was also a recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize, was murdered in 2016 by hired hitmen after years of violent threats linked to her opposition of the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam on the Gualcarque River. The River is upheld as sacred by the Indigenus Lenca people in Honduras. Despite this, the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam was approved anyway, even though it did not comply with national and international environmental policies.
Sojourner Truth Radio: July 15, 2021 – Environmental Activists & Non-Violent Moral Action
Today on Sojourner Truth:
Across the Western Hemisphere, Indigenous environmental activists are under attack. They face violence and repression as they continue to defend their water and lands from right-wing governments and extractivist multinational companies. In Chile, the Indigenous Mapuche people have been leading the charge when it comes to defending protected environmental areas from occupying forces. Back in June, Mapuche land rights defender Alberto Curamil was seriously injured in a shooting by police. Meanwhile, in Honduras, a U.S.-trained former Honduran army intelligence officer was recently found guilty over the assassination of Indigenous Lenca environmental activist Berta Caceres. Roberto David Castillo, the president of an internationally-financed hydroelectric company, was found guilty of being co-collaborator in ordering the murder. Our guest is Francisca Stuardo, a Santiago-based consultant for the international climate advocacy group Global Witness. She works on their land and environmental defenders campaign, which highlights threats against activists and pushes businesses, financiers and governments to protect them.
On Monday, July 12, the Poor Peoples Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival announced that it will launch a month of Moral Mondays, featuring peaceful civil disobedience in Washington D.C. and other state capitals, through August 2. It is being billed as the Season of Non-Violent Moral Action. This comes after the For the People Act, a groundbreaking bill in defense of voter rights, failed to pass the Senate, as Republicans voted against starting debate on it. The Poor Peoples Campaign has also been calling for the realization of the Third Reconstruction in the United States. The Third Reconstruction draws from the transformational history of the First Reconstruction following the U.S. Civil War and the Second Reconstruction of the civil rights movement of the 20th century. Our guest is the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, Co-Chair of the Poor Peoples Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival along with the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II.