MURDER OF HONDURAN ENVIRONMENTALIST BERTA CÁCERES

That this House condemns the murder of Berta Cáceras, the Honduran environmental activist and recipient of the 2015 Goldman Prize; understands that she was killed for standing up for and campaigning to protect her indigenous community’s rights to their own land; calls on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to hold an independent, international and impartial investigation into her murder; wishes to hold the Honduran government to the precautionary measures granted providing protection for members of the Council of Indigenous Peoples of Honduras, members of Berta Cáceras’ family and Gustavo Castro Soto, a Mexican activist who witnessed the assassination; and considers that this is part of a larger ongoing problem in Honduras and that Berta Cáceras was the latest of at least 109 environmental and social justice campaigners to be killed in Honduras since 2010, highlighting the growing trend of murder, violence and intimidation of people defending their indigenous land rights in Honduras and making it the world’s most dangerous country per capita to be an environmental or land defender.