Dana Frank: Rising Political Violence in Honduras Claims the Life of Indigenous Activist Berta Cáceres

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.

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Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement

"The man who predicted Trump presidential win now says Trump impeachment could happen," AM Joy with Joy Reid, MSNBC, Jan. 21, 2018
"Sketchy Kazakh money finds its way into Trump dealings," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Red flags seen in many Trump real estate deals," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
Full resource list ...

SPECIAL REPORT: "The Resistance - Women's March 2018 - Hartford, Connecticut" Jan. 20, 2018

Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris

SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018

Jen Siskind Jennifer Siskind, local coordinator for Food and Water Watch, describes the campaign to stop fracking waste in Connecticut, which so far has led to fracking waste bans in 34 towns around the state. Interviewed by Richard Hill on Mic Check, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT

SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018

Lindsay Kanaly The panel discusses Trump's long history of racism and the Republican voter suppression juggernaut confronting Democrats leading up to the 2018 elections. Special guest: Lindsay Kanaly, a lead organizer of the Women's Marches planned for Jan. 20, 2018. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill on Resistance Roundtable, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT.

SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018

Richard Wolff, Economics professor Richard Wolff declares U.S. capitalism to be beyond repair and suggests the need for a radical alternative. Interviewed by Richard Hill

SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017

Maryn McKenna, investigative journalist and author of Big Chicken, talks about the widespread use and dangers of antibiotics in commercial poultry, beef and fruit production. Interview by Bill Duesing, Richard Hill and Guy Beardsly on WPKN's Organic Farm Stand.

SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017

Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, talks about the fight ahead for progressives as she receives the Working Families Organization Award for Exceptional Leadership Towards Advancing Progress. The event was held in Meriden, CT. Produced by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017

Working Families Party of CT talks strategy and issues for 2018.
Lindsay Farrell, executive director of the Working Families Party of Connecticut, discusses the state's electoral landscape and lays out the issues and strategies that could lead to progressive victories in 2018. Interviewed by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017

Disturbing developments in the Trump/Republican Agenda
Focus on the tax bill, destruction of our public lands, North Korea and Trump's private CIA. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill. Special guest: Jo Macallero of Rise and Resist.

SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of the highly acclaimed resistance manual On Tyranny, discusses his book and offers a fresh assessment of the state of our beleaguered republic. Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale, is introduced by Stanley Heller, administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace, a Connecticut-based organization that sponsored this event at the United Church Parish House in New Haven on Nov. 28. A brief interview with Snyder conducted by WPKN radio producer, Richard Hill, follows his talk.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017

Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017

Focus on the Republican tax plan, the just-released autopsy on the Democratic Party, and Internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Youtube. Including an interview with Hilary Grant, a lead organizer with Action Together Connecticut, who discusses the local results of the recent election, with hosts Richard Hill, Scott Harris and Ruth Baumgartner WPKN producers

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Two leaders from Redneck Revolt, an anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement, talk about their work organizing with white working class people in Suffolk County, New York. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, describes the extent of -- and motives underlying -- the vast US network of military bases around the globe. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017

Joyakol, South Korean peace activist and singer, discusses the crisis on the Korean peninsula and focuses on the resistance to the U.S. huge military base being constructed on Jeju Island. The event was sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council and this audio was recorded by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.
Joyakol discusses Americans' biggest misconceptions about the conflict between North and South Korea and the U.S., Interview by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.

SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven

John Allen, founding director of the New Haven Pride Center, Connecticut, talks about his new LGBTQ television show, Out in New Haven, which presents a range of political and cultural issues to the community. Interviewed by Richard Hill on WPKN's Rainy Day Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018.

2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.

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For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video

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Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

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Indigenous Activist Berta Cáceres Slain Amid Honduras' Rising Political Violence

Posted March 9, 2016

Interview with Dana Frank, professor of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz, conducted by Scott Harris

The Central American nation of Honduras is well known for having one of the highest murder rates in the world that includes violence attributed to narco-trafficking, gang conflicts and street crime. But Honduras is also the most dangerous country for environmentalists, where 116 eco-activists were killed in 2014, many of them defending indigenous communities and lands. The March 3 murder of Berta Cáceres, winner of the 2015 Goldman environmental prize, is the latest tragic news from Honduras. Cáceres, who was shot by two unknown assailants who broke into her home, led the Council of Popular and Indigenous People's Organizations of Honduras, or COPINH, that actively opposed the construction of a proposed dam on the Gualcarque river, an area considered sacred by the Lenca people. She had previously reported receiving numerous death threats from police, soldiers and local landowners because of her work.

The escalating violence in the country is linked by many observers to the 2009 coup that ousted the democratically-elected president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya. The government which came to power after Zelaya’s overthrow – with U.S. support, has since pushed to build a controversial network of dams and mining projects on indigenous land.

Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Dana Frank, professor of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who talks about the environmental conflicts in Honduras that likely led to the assassination of Berta Cáceres and the U.S. role in the 2009 Honduras coup which likely occurred when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state.

DANA FRANK: This is the single most important political assassination since the coup, and the fact that they've killed Berta Cáceres is a sign that that now anyone could be killed. They have not gone for the top leadership of the social movements up till now. Berta was this amazing activist, one of the most alive and loving and fun people I've ever met in my life. And there's been this long, long struggle to try to stop this dam, which is going forward even though the rights of indigenous people to be consulted have been violated. There's been tremendous protests against the dam, peaceful protest and tremendous repression of the Lenca people and other activists who are trying to stop it, and Berta has been in the forefront of that. She was threatened for many years; there's been security forces that have threatened and repressed the Lenca people, another Lenca activist, Tomas Garcia, was shot dead by the military in the summer of 2013 and his son, also shot. And Berta had been receiving death threats and threats for years but especially in the last two weeks. On Feb. 20, there was a peaceful march to the site of the dam, and there was repression including by U.S.-funded special forces Tigres, very close to the U.S. embassy, and people were forced to walk back in the dark seven hours to get to their bus. Very, very dangerous situation.

But the Honduran government itself attacks Berta verbally and her activism for many years. So we all knew was going to happen. She knew it was going to happen, and this is a message to the social movements of the indigenous people and environmental movement, of the opposition. Berta is what I think of as one of the seven or eight "goddesses" of the Honduran resistance, who were so important to the resistance to the 2009 military coup that deposed democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Dana Frank, do we know who is responsible for Berta's murder?

DANA FRANK: Well, there's "who actually shot the gun" vs. "who's responsible for it" at the broad level. We don't know who the two gunmen were. There is an eyewitness who was also shot and wounded, Gustavo Castro Soto, who is being held against his will by the Honduran government. He was also shot. He was held and is still being detained within the country and he was held without food and water even though he was covered by his bloody clothes and had been wounded.

And he has already testified to outsiders through a letter that he saw evidence being destroyed. So, first of all, you have to understand that to even find out what happened, there's already a cover-up and destruction of evidence going on. So we don't know who actually fired the shots, we do know that the Honduran government wasn't providing adequate protection as mandated by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. We know that this is a government that ignored threats. We know that the U.S. embassy didn't stop or do things that they should have to stop the threats. We know that this is a government that has repeatedly attacked her and COPINH, that this is a government that's now trying to criminalize the members of COPINH, her organization, and act like they committed the crime. They have a cover-up all ready and are even saying things like it was a crime of passion, which is of course preposterous in this context.

So who's responsible? How about the top of the Honduran government which has been attacking these folks, been attacking them with state security forces; and the U.S. government for funding those security forces over and over again and increasing it in recent years, despite all this documented evidence. So who's responsible? It goes way back and it goes way high.

BETWEEN THE LINES: As many of our listeners are aware, there was a military coup in Honduras in 2009 in the first year of the Obama administration. Hillary Clinton was secretary of state of the time. And Dana, I would ask you to tell our listeners what's important for Americans to know about the role of the United States in our policies towards Honduras during the time of the coup and after the coup?

DANA FRANK: Well, first of all, I think people need to know that the U.S. – while we don't have the smoking gun showing that they prompted the coup – immediately treated the post-coup, de facto dictator President Roberto Micheletti as a legitimate president. They equated him with the deposed president and established negotiations where they treated them as equals. They never denounced the spectacular post-coup repression of the huge opposition that rose up. Now Hillary Clinton was the secretary of state during that period and you can read her emails, you can see her statements on the public record of how she treated Zelaya like a bad child for trying to return his own country, of which he was the democratically-elected president.

And so, I think people need to know this about Hillary Clinton, and they also need to understand that it was Obama who allowed her to do that. And it's Obama who's in charge right now, whose budget request for 2016, which much of it was passed was hundreds of millions of dollars for the Honduran government, including its "state security forces" and is now just out putting his budget request for 2017 increasing that even more, despite the spectacular corruption of the police and military. And you know, we're not hearing demands to suspend aid, although there have been letters from up to 90 members of Congress in the last few years saying that all police and military aid should be suspended, which is what we should be asking for right now.