The documentary shows the struggle of Berta Cáceres together with Copinh, against the Agua Zarca hydroelectricity project.
Despite the persistent death threats that she had against her, Berta maintained a fierce and tireless struggle for human rights in the indigenous communities, against the violations by the authorities and the private companies, which were pushing to enforce the building of Agua Zarca at any cost. In the end, Berta's commitment costed her her life.
Her ideals and convictions live on! Everywhere in the world, people are in solidarity and demand an independent investigation of the crime.
Berta Cáceres
On 3 March 2016 Berta Cáceres was assassinated in her home in La Esperanza, Honduras. She was the general coordinator of Copinh – Civic Council or Grassroots and Indigenous Organisations of Honduras, and was very committed in the struggle for indigenous rights and women's rights.
In the last years, Berta organised against the illegal construction of the Agua Zarca project, which was being planned to be developed on Lenca indigenous territory, and this was going to destroy their lands. The project was financed by international donors like the Holland Development Bank (FMO) and Finland's Finn-Fund. Another company implicated is the German company Siemens-Voith Hydro. In the months before the assassination, the smear campaigns by the building company Desarrollos Energéticos S.A. (DESA) against Berta Cáceres haintensified.
DOCUMENTARY FILM
Title: "The voice of the Gualcarque"
Country: Honduras
Duration: 47 min.
Production: Ocote Film,
Year: 2015
Lenguage: Spanish with English subtitles
License: Creativ Commons
Sinopsis:
Since April 2013, the Lenca indigenous communities had put into practice their opposition to the hydro-electricity dam 'Agua Zarca'. This dam is one of many private projects for the production of renewable energy that had been started in Honduras. Many such projects have started since the 2009 coup, and they have come with protests getting criminalised, repression, threats and even assassination; the state security forces and private actors work together to accomplish their projects.
The documentary follows over a one year period the Río Blanco communities in opposition to the building of the dam in their territory. They used different forms of protest to defend their rights: blockade a key road for accessing the dam, demonstrations, speaking up at national and international levels against the companies responsible and so that the financing banks know the situation. Even though this managed to stop the building for over one year and for the transnational Chinese building company SINOHYDRO to have abandoned the project, in the last months the works had restarted. As well, the repression against the communities members continues. Threatened and criminalised, the region was militarised; in July 2013 the Lenca indigenous Tomás García was assassinated during a peaceful march. He was assassinated by a soldier of the Honduran armed forces.
Despite the 'green' and 'clean' energy image that the hydroelectric projects have, in Honduras and other countries of the global South, the dams have negative consequences for the indigenous and farming communities, due to amongst other factors the form of authoritarian and violent imposition. Without guaranteeing a prior, free and informed consultation; they are a threat to the territorial sovereignty of the indigenous communities and destroy their means of subsistence.
