Demonstration at US State Department, taken by Slowking

What’s the link between Honduras today and Amsterdam under the Nazis? When I read about the assassination of Berta Cáceres, the eminent indigenous environmental activist, I knew I couldn’t ignore it – especially after 13 years studying the Holocaust and resistance in the Netherlands. I’ve learned something about the dangers of silence, how it gives evil-doers permission to carry out everything from bullying to mass murder. All they need is for the rest of us to avert our eyes. Apart from that understanding, I’ve also been inspired by learning about those who didn’t wait to be asked, but who volunteered to work against the Nazis, often in peril of their lives.

Berta Cáceres was one of those people. As the formidable and charismatic organizer of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, she’d spent a decade organizing the resistance to the Agua Zarca dam. It threatens the sacred river of the Lenca people, disrupting both their livelihood and their religion.

Someone made a calculation about Berta Cáceres. Yes, she’d received international recognition for her work, the coveted Goldman Prize. Yes, the Inter-American Human Rights Council had pressured President Hernandez to provide police protection. Yes, she was in the public eye not just throughout the region, but worldwide.  But someone knew he could get away with assassinating her, and that someone else would pay him handsomely for it. He was right. According to Global Watch, more than 100 Honduras environmental activists and resistance workers have been murdered since 2002. Berta Cáceres is silent now.

What about us?

Only a few days before the assassination on March 2, Honduran President Hernandez was in Washington, purring around to gather continued U.S. support for his supposed improvement in mitigating the violence in his country. Now he’s calling for speedy justice for the assassins, but many don’t believe he means it, and time may well prove them right.

As long as the U.S. – and that means me and all other U.S. taxpayers – supports Honduras, we have leverage. If the President and Congress hear from us, they’ll know we care about Berta Cáceres and the rights of indigenous people to their water and their land. And they can put pressure where it will do the most good. We can also support global human rights organizations which bring these situations to light around the world.  Global Witness is a fine example.

Berta Cáceres did her work so well that many are ready to take her place. We just need to stand beside them.