On behalf of ESCR-Net, we express our firm and unwavering solidarity with the family of Berta Cáceres; with the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), a member of the Network; with the Lenca Indigenous community of Río Blanco; and with community activist and leader Gustavo Castro, who survived the attack in which our Honduran defender and compañera was assassinated. We reaffirm our respect and admiration for Berta's struggle and for that of her people in defense of territory, life, and the rights of Indigenous peoples.

We also recognize the committed accompaniment and sustained legal support provided by the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), also a member of our Network, whose work has been fundamental in the pursuit of truth, justice, and reparation for Berta, her family, and COPINH within the Inter-American System.

The report is the result of the work of an independent, interdisciplinary, and autonomous group of experts, established through a formal agreement between the Honduran State; the victims and their representatives-COPINH and CEJIL; and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, signed at the end of 2024. Its conclusions are based on a rigorous, year-long investigation grounded in judicial, financial, technical, and contextual evidence, carried out in accordance with international human rights standards.

In this release, ESCR-Net brings together the voices of members and allies who have accompanied and analyzed the progress of the case:

"The horrific murder of Berta Cáceres in 2016 shocked the world and exposed the Honduran State's failure to prevent the crime, safeguard her life, and create a safe environment for human rights defenders. The case continues to demand truth, justice, and full accountability, as well as real policy change to protect rights and those who defend them," said Gerald Staberock, Secretary General of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT). For Staberock, the government cannot return to business as usual as if nothing had happened. "Berta Cáceres's legacy demands full accountability and concrete changes to actively protect, speak out for, and unequivocally defend the right of human rights defenders to defend human rights."

The GIEI report confirms that the assassination of Berta Cáceres was not an isolated act, but the result of a planned and organized criminal operation embedded in a broader context of structural patriarchal violence, militarization, corruption, and impunity. The investigation establishes that the crime was directly linked to the imposition of the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project and to the economic interests of the Atala Zablah family and its corporate network, involving business executives, hired killers, members of the public security forces, and the use of complex financial structures to conceal and divert funds.

"Nearly ten years after the murder of human rights defender Berta Cáceres, the recent conclusions of the independent GIEI report confirm that her assassination was not fortuitous, but rather part of a criminal structure in which Honduran authorities were involved. It is essential to continue investigations to fully clarify this grave crime. We therefore urge the new Honduran government to take the necessary steps to adopt the report's recommendations aimed at combating impunity and guaranteeing conditions for the exercise of human rights defense in Honduras," said Alexis Deswaef, President of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).

Of particular gravity, the report documents that State authorities had prior knowledge of the assassination plan, failed to adopt preventive measures despite clear and timely warnings, and subsequently engaged in actions and omissions that obstructed access to justice. These acts constitute not only serious violations of the State's due diligence obligations, but also forms of institutional and gender-based violence, as they disproportionately expose women defenders to extreme risks and normalize attacks against those who challenge corporate and patriarchal power.

The report further establishes that funds from international financial institutions and public development banks, including the Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO) and the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (BCIE), were systematically diverted to finance illegal surveillance, intimidation, armed operations, and ultimately the assassination of Berta Cáceres.

These findings reveal a serious pattern of corporate, financial, and State complicity, and confirm how the corporate capture of public and financial institutions facilitates grave and systematic human rights violations. Moreover, this case constitutes a paradigmatic expression of what ESCR-Net has described as the Political Economy of Violence: a structural web in which corporate interests, political elites, financial institutions, State security forces, and criminal actors converge to impose extractive projects at the expense of collective rights, territory, and the right to life.

For Sandra Patargo, Protection Coordinator for North America, Central America, and the Caribbean at Front Line Defenders, the case of Berta Cáceres is perhaps the most emblematic and representative of the crisis of violence linked to corporate and State interests against communities and individuals who defend life in the region. "Justice for all those responsible and involved, comprehensive reparations, and the permanent cancellation of the Agua Zarca Project cannot be negotiable. Only with justice for Berta can we imagine justice for the violated and plundered peoples. The organizations that have walked closely alongside COPINH all these years will continue to do so until there is justice for Berta," said Patargo.

The structural nature of this violence is further underscored by the words of Francisco Mateo Morales, from the coordination of the Council of the Maya People (CPO):

"The report of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts on the case of Berta Cáceres confirms the criminal nature of the neoliberal extractivist economic model, which privileges corporate interests over the collective rights of peoples and the lives of individuals. This model is imposed in complicity with the State, which instead of protecting the population becomes a criminal operator for companies. The murder of our sister Berta could have been prevented, but the State allowed it."

Nearly a decade after the crime, the structural conditions that made it possible persist: the lack of full recognition and titling of the collective Lenca territory of Río Blanco; the continued validity of the Agua Zarca project concession; the absence of accountability for all intellectual, material, and financial perpetrators; and the failure to provide comprehensive, collective, and transformative reparations.

Justice for Berta Cáceres is inseparable from justice for Indigenous women, women defenders of territory, and communities that continue to face violence for defending life. For this reason, reparations and guarantees of non-repetition must be intersectional and community-centered, addressing not only individual harm but also the collective, gendered, and intergenerational impacts of violence.

ESCR-Net fully endorses the findings and recommendations of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts and urges the State of Honduras to implement them urgently and comprehensively, including:

• Investigating, prosecuting, and sanctioning all those responsible;
  
  

• Revoking all legal instruments sustaining the Agua Zarca project and dissolving DESA;
  
  

• Demarcating and titling Lenca territory;
  
  

• Establishing comprehensive reparations;
  
  

• Adopting effective guarantees of non-repetition, including binding human rights due diligence obligations for companies and financial institutions.
  
  

The legacy of Berta Cáceres lives on in the collective struggle for land, water, dignity, and the right to self-determination. ESCR-Net joins COPINH and the family of Berta Cáceres in demanding truth, justice, comprehensive reparation, and structural transformation.