National Network of Women Human Rights Defenders in Honduras – Today as we begin another round of struggle for justice in this country, devastated by a dictatorship that makes a calm, fulfilling life impossible for us, we of the Women Defenders Network wish to express the following to the women and peoples of Honduras and other peoples of the world:
As of today, September 16th, we will be participating in many different actions related to the process called the Berta Cáceres Cause, which is going on in the somber courts of law in this country.
It is with great pleasure that we join in the vital force of the Lenca people and other indigenous and Black peoples, and all who are sisters and brothers of BERTA ISABEL CACERES outside this courtroom to observe and monitor these proceedings.
We wish to tell you that we come here in support of COPINH, the political project of Berta and the Lenca communities in struggle in this country, and we come as women human rights defenders to express the importance of publicly condemning the mechanisms and manner in which racist, patriarchal power in Honduras expresses itself as criminal power to subdue the communities by assassinating its leaders like Berta.
We know and understand that it will not be through judicial impartation swayed by the coup and the racist patriarchy that justice will come for our sister or for anyone else who has been killed in this country, which happens all the time given that those responsible for imparting justice are beholden to their masters who are now illegally in control of the government.
Justice for Berta Cáceres means that we are here and that together with others we will say her name out loud with all our might, and we will speak of her proposals inside and outside the court of law, so that her líving memory will overpower the proceedings designed to cover up her true assassins and only blame her executioners.
Justice for Berta means that in different spaces of action and creation, we are continuing the struggle for the emancipation of women and the peoples who experience in their own bodies and territories historical exploitation and discrimination.
And so, once again we take to the streets, the public space of the people who live in this city, with the company, strength, joy and words of many who know that even when they try to silence the name of Berta Cáceres they will only succeed in spreading her word.
It’s September, and when the streets are filled with symbols of war and an independence that never was, we will keep the spirit of Berta living on in many other women and men who, one day, will bring about a Honduras that is truly free and sovereign.
We invite you, from this space of women and feminist rebels, fighters, thinkers, artists, and workers who sustain life and true polítics each and every day, to accompany us in these days of action. As we lend new meaning to the spaces where we are not welcome, we will be the ones who ACCUSE those who killed Berta, but failed to kill her dreams of justice, happiness, dignity and peace for her people.
Tegucigalpa, September 16, 2018