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- [00:00]
Zach Goldbaum
Wondry subscribers can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad free right now. Join Wondry in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. It's just before dawn on June 28, 2009, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. A cluster of military boots marches down a darkened corridor in the presidential palace. Over a hundred soldiers, masked and heavily armed, surround every entrance and exit. When they finally arrive at their destination, the soldiers surround a bed and raise their weapons at the man they've come to see, Jose Manuel Celaya, the president of Honduras. Celaya had recently lurched ever so slightly to the left, instituting a meager minimum wage hike and a moratorium on new mining concessions. Now the military and business elite feared that Celaya was laying the groundwork to stay in office for another term. The soldiers at the palace roused Celaya from bed and then, still in his pajamas, forced him at gunpoint to board a plane to Costa Rica. It was an old fashioned military coup. In the weeks that followed, protesters from all over Honduras flooded the streets of the capital. Now, as Zelaya's supporters called for his return, they were met by tanks, tear gas, rubber bullets, and soon live ammunition.
- [01:45]
Karen Spring
I knew that a coup had happened and I knew that people were being shot in the streets and detained and beaten up in protests and accused of crimes that they didn't commit.
- [01:56]
Zach Goldbaum
Human rights worker Karen Spring was in neighboring Guatemala when she received an urgent call to come to Honduras. As a Canadian, Karen's presence could offer protection to the leaders of the protest movement.
- [02:08]
Karen Spring
The organization I was working with basically said, you need to find Berta Caceres and you need to accompany her.
- [02:17]
Zach Goldbaum
Berta Caceres is a Honduran indigenous activist with shoulder length, dark curly hair. In 2009, she was already well known for her organizing against illegal logging and had worked with President Celaya to protect ancestral land rights. But with Celaya gone and the military in power, Berta took to the streets to ensure that her home did not fall prey to wealthy prospectors, many of whom supported the coup.
- [02:42]
Karen Spring
All the people protesting the coup were gathered, blocking one of the major entrances into the city. And I remember getting into a taxi with Berta to the epicenter of the protest. We got dumped off at the point where the taxi could get us to, and I remember her just getting out of the taxi and saying, follow me. So I started just walking behind her and we walked and walked and I was just like, man, this woman is serious.
- [03:07]
Zach Goldbaum
As Berta and Karen neared the head of the protest, police fired tear gas, clearing the streets. After the gas had lifted, Berta boldly marched up to the riot police and started talking to them.
- [03:21]
Karen Spring
We just want to block the road. A coup's happened. You guys know it. You're all from poor communities. You know what we're up against. Don't repress people. Don't throw tear gas. Don't shoot at protesters. She was trying to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the blockade.
- [03:37]
Zach Goldbaum
At least 10 people were killed in the protests immediately following the coup. Many more in the months and years that followed. Thousands were detained, often without charges. But in the midst of the crackdown, a different Honduras began to emerge, one with implicit backing from the US and it was just as Bertikasaris had feared. The new government promised low interest rates, high tax breaks, and access to the country's vast natural resources. The year after Zelaya was ousted, the new government declared, honduras is open for business. Honduras was indeed open for business, and it was open season on anyone who stood in the way. From one tree. I'm Zach Goldbaum, and this is Lawless Planet. Each week we tell a new story about the true crimes fueling the climate crisis and the people fighting to save the planet or destroy it.
- [04:49]
Karen Spring
He was kind of playing with his prey, you know, kind of like how a cat plays with a mous.
- [05:16]
Zach Goldbaum
In the aftermath of the 2009 coup, foreign investment flooded Honduras. What followed was a rash of new clean energy projects. On paper, who could complain? They were renewable, green, many of them hydropower, basically just river water, giant turbines, and good old fashioned gravity doing its thing. But one of these projects, the Aguazarca Dam, was set to be built on a river that the indigenous Lenka people relied on. And Berta Caserus, who herself was Lenka, could see through the greenwashed facade. She did not want her people and their livelihoods to become collateral damage, sacrificed at the altar of development. Or so she resisted. What happened next is a story about the dirty side of clean energy and how, in the wrong hands, even well meaning development projects can harm the very people they're supposed to help. Because when Berta set out to oppose the dam, she had no idea how powerful the forces behind it were and how far they would go in the name of progress. In 2004, a young man with short dark hair and piercing eyes walks across the stage to accept his diploma at the prestigious West Point Military Academy. He's wearing the traditional white pants and cadet gray, complete with rows of gold buttons. It's a promising start to a career that will make this graduate, David Castillo, someone to remember Castillo is from Honduras and he's part of a program where US taxpayers cover the cost of international students. The idea is that they'll study at West Point and return to their home country, bringing American values with them. So that's exactly what Castillo does. Back in Honduras, he joins the army, rises through the ranks to become an intelligence officer, and finds a comfortable position with a government owned power utility. He ultimately sets out on his own, starting a company called Desaroyos Energeticos Essay, or desa. It's an entity established solely for one to build a hydroelectric dam. The timing is auspicious because shortly after DESA is formed, the new right wing government sets off a feeding frenzy. In the year following the 2009 coup, it approves 47 hydropower concessions. When David Castillo's company teams up with the Chinese engineering giant Sinohydro, it seems as though the project is destined for success. But DESA makes one gross miscalculation. They choose to build next to a tiny community called Rio Blanco, an area home to the indigenous Lenka. The Lenka are poor and powerless, so DESA expects little pushback. That's Berta Caceres speaking at a conference for frontline defenders in Mexico City. In 1993, Berta founded the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, or copinhage. Since then, she's become one of the country's most vocal human rights activists.
- [08:46]
Berta Caceres
Copinh is an organization made up of more than 100 communities. And above all, we do work to defend the rights of indigenous peoples.
- [08:55]
Zach Goldbaum
Around March of 2011, two years after the coup, Bertha received a leaked list of rivers that were going to be sold off by the Honduran Congress. Among them was the Gualcarque. The Gualcarque is a rough, winding river that runs through western Honduras. It's surrounded by lush green hills and its banks are lined with boulders that locals leap from into the cool, fresh water. For Lenka people like Berta, the river is sacred, providing fish water and medicinal plants, a life force, not a resource to exploit. Building a massive hydroelectric dam in the middle of the river was pitched as a way to supply power to a country where 45% of rural households have no electricity. But that decision was made without the consent of the local population.
- [09:49]
Karen Spring
So in the case of the Agua Zarca dam on the Gualcarque river, the local indigenous communities of Rio Blanco were not consulted.
- [09:57]
Zach Goldbaum
That's human rights worker Karen Spring.
- [09:59]
Karen Spring
Again, they didn't even know about the project. They found out about it when machines started showing up into their communities. And they're like, what is this?
- [10:07]
Zach Goldbaum
Imagine you've lived somewhere your whole life, and in fact, your family has been there for half a millennia. And the army shows up one day and says, we're going to clear the land where you live, block access to the water you drink and plow the crops that are your livelihood. And if you have an issue with that, your primitive anti progress a problem.
- [10:27]
Karen Spring
Berta always would say that it wasn't about actually developing the communities. This was a type of development that was imposed from above. This is a type of development that is envisioned by foreign financial institutions or foreign governments that work alongside the wealthy families that have long had political and economic power in Honduras.
- [10:49]
Zach Goldbaum
In multiple public meetings, the community outright rejects the dam. They do not want to privatize the river. One of these gatherings is attended by a former intelligence officer trained at West Point, La Repressa. That's David Castillo, the owner of the dam company Desa. In a video captured in a documentary from pbs, Castillo shows up to speak directly to the residents of Rio Blanco. He says, you've raised concerns because based on your criteria, our company is bad for you. And then he minimizes Rio Blanco's significance to the project, saying, you are only one community working with 12 others. The crowd doesn't like that. The town's mayor steps in to defend Castillo, saying that for years they've lived along the river but never taken advantage of it. Berta, wearing a wide, brimmed straw hat and long gold earrings, responds, there is.
- [12:10]
Berta Caceres
Life in the river. It provides water for the animals. You're telling me that's not using the river because they are using the river.
- [12:22]
Zach Goldbaum
Berta spends the next two years fighting the project, leading marches to the presidential palace and sending letters discouraging investors. But international development banks continue to pour in money. Plus, the dam has the financial and political support of the autologous clan. They're one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in Honduras, presiding over a network of banks and real estate that have made them billions in a country where more than 60% of people live in poverty. They're also part of the notorious Ten Families, a group of oligarchs who control the vast majority of the country's wealth and private businesses and who supported the military coup that ousted President Celaya in 2009. With financing secured, construction on the Agua Zarca dam begins in May of 2013. Without representation in Congress, Berta and the Lenka are left with one final option. Direct action.
- [13:23]
Berta Caceres
The liberation of the people, from our perspective, is not the work of a political party, but of the people. The only way at this moment to counter the advance of neoliberalism, the impunity of the coup, and the permanent violation of human rights is with the fight for social justice.
- [13:45]
Zach Goldbaum
In April of 2013, Berta rallied support, preparing for a new phase of protest, something more confrontational.
- [13:56]
Berta Caceres
When we started the fight for Rio Blanco, I went into the river. I could talk to the river. I felt what the river was telling me. I knew how hard it was going to be, but I knew we were going to win. The river told me so.
- [14:13]
Zach Goldbaum
Berta and Copin set up a blockade along the dirt road that leads to the Gualcarque river in Rio Blanco. Karen Spring visited the demonstration on several occasions.
- [14:23]
Karen Spring
It was just this beautiful landscape of mountains covered with trees. It was like they were going right up into the sky. But as you're going through this beautiful scenery, you could see where Desa, the dam company, had their headquarters. And you could see sort of how they had to clear cut the area in order to build their offices.
- [14:47]
Zach Goldbaum
Men from Rio Blanco, wearing cowboy hats and loose denim, moved boulders into the street to block traffic. A makeshift kitchen with a near constant supply of simmering rice, beans and plantains is erected nearby. And the blockade is protected by a rotating group of men, women and children from Rio Blanco. Working in 12 hour shifts, they barricade the entrance to the construction site.
- [15:10]
Karen Spring
To get to that region, you have to go through all these windy dirt roads. And so when it's raining heavily during the rainy season, it's really difficult to get in there. There's basically no cell signal. So if something happens to you or if you have a flat tire or something, there's no way to make phone calls.
- [15:28]
Zach Goldbaum
A documentary filmmaker captured Berta driving on one of those bumpy dirt roads to Rio Blanco. Her relationship with Desa was growing increasingly volatile.
- [15:40]
Berta Caceres
The guards will come out again soon, saying, here comes the witch again.
- [15:47]
Zach Goldbaum
In May of 2013, Bertha is traveling along those same roads. Roads. She's heading to a community meeting in Rio Blanco when she stopped at a military checkpoint. Fifteen soldiers surround her car. Berta is forced out. Standing with her hands on her head, Soldiers claim to find a revolver in the car. Berta says it was planted by the military, but they arrest her. She's released the following morning, but is facing firearm charges. And a few weeks later, Berta gets a mysterious phone call. It's from David Castillo, the owner of the dam company. He makes a surprisingly friendly offer. He can help stall the case so she can attend her daughter Bertita's college graduation in Cuba. How, Berta wonders, could he possibly have known about the graduation? For 106 days, the blockade continued. The military remained a constant presence at the site, which put people on edge. In the 1980s, the Honduran army ran death squads that killed political dissidents. The coup and its violent aftermath had stirred memories of that dark chapter. Now that same army was tasked with protecting the dam, and the situation was deteriorating. Soldiers burned one local farmer's coffee crop. Sometimes they raided the encampment. Then, on July 15, 2013, the protesters decide to take their grievances directly to Dessa's office.
- [17:24]
Karen Spring
Copinh and the communities wanted to tell the company that they were against the dam and they wanted to basically do a show of force that this is how many people are not okay with your presence here? Please leave.
- [17:37]
Zach Goldbaum
Roughly 200 community members decide to approach the offices carved into the dense forests around the gualcarque.
- [17:44]
Karen Spring
There were several offices, and they would have air conditioning units attached to them. On the outside, it was very clear that you were approaching an area that was well guarded, well secured, and I believe there was always an armed individual being military or private security guard right at the gate.
- [18:03]
Zach Goldbaum
The demonstration starts to get heated, and the protesters break through the gated entrance of the compound. They're demanding to speak with representatives from the company. It's a little unclear what happens next, but soldiers say they were provoked and begin to fire shots into the air. Then one soldier directs his assault rifle at the protesters and opens fire. An indigenous activist named Tomas Garcia, a father of six, is killed. His son is shot in the chest, and the bullet enters his lung, but he miraculously survives.
- [18:41]
Karen Spring
It was very much a demonstration of the violence that the state was willing to employ against people that were protesting this dam. It showed the collusion of interests that the state was one and the same with this private dam company.
- [18:57]
Zach Goldbaum
That day, David Castillo gets a text message saying the military has killed an indio. It's from the company's chief financial officer, Daniel Atala, a member of the powerful Atala family. They're worried about the fallout and with good reason. Citing conflict with the local community, the Chinese construction company Sinohydro pulls out of the project. It's a small victory in the wake of a terrible tragedy. But this is not the end of the aguazarca Dam. It's April 20, 2015. Bertha is at the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House, where she's being presented with the Goldman environmental prize, basically the Nobel prize for environmentalists. Activists from across the globe are honored each year, and tonight Berta is receiving the award for her work defending the Gualcarque.
- [19:58]
Berta Caceres
The Gualcarque river has called upon us, as have other seriously threatened rivers.
- [20:05]
Zach Goldbaum
Berta stands at the podium beneath the white marble proscenium. She's wearing a sparkling mauve dress.
- [20:14]
Berta Caceres
We must answer their call. Mother Earth has been militarized, fencing and poisoned. It's a place where basic rights are systematically violated. It demands that we take action. Let us build societies that coexist in a just and dignified way that protects life. Wake up. Wake up, humanity. We're out of time.
- [20:50]
Zach Goldbaum
But when the excitement and the glamour of the award had passed, Berta returned home to a grave situation. By 2016, she was still leading protests and she was still receiving regular threats. She was aware that her last life was in danger, but it wasn't new. Here's Berta in an interview from a few years earlier.
- [21:15]
Berta Caceres
Yes, we are afraid in Honduras. It's not easy. It's a country where you see brutal violence and a very real, very close thing that I can even say I feel is the risk of losing my life, because it's not the same to be a female leader as it is to be a male leader. But let them know that even if that happens, I am absolutely convinced that the Lenka people and the resistance of the Honduran people will grow. I believe we'll get through.
- [22:21]
Zach Goldbaum
It's around 4pm on March 2, 2016, when a pair of phones begins to ping repeatedly off a cell tower in La Esperanza. It's a remote village in the forested hills of western Honduras, four hours from the capital of Tegucigalpa. The digital record produced by this flurry of calls reveals something ominous. Whoever owns these phones are inching closer and closer to a small green and yellow bungalow that belongs to Berta Casares. Berta's house is just 150 meters from a security gate guarded 24 hours per day. But tonight, Berta's friend, the visiting Mexican environmentalist Gustavo Castro Soto, is still concerned about how isolated her home is. He's come to La Esperanza to take part in an environmental workshop with Copinh, and he offers to spend the night. That night, Berta and Gustavo are out on her porch looking at the silhouettes of mountains and a small lake illuminated by the moon. That's Gustavo who says it was totally silent as Berta sat there smoking. Around 11, Gustavo says they decide to get some rest. He's in his room. Berta in hers. Then, around 11:30, he hears a loud bang. The rickety wooden back door swings open. Berta calls out, who's there? Before Gustavo can answer, a man is standing at his door, pointing a pistol at him from just over six feet away. Gustavo lifts his hands and turns his head as the man fires. The bullet makes contact. Gustavo falls to the ground, limp. Then there are more gunshots from the direction of Berta's room. And just 30 seconds after they'd entered, the gunmen disappear. Gustavo opens his eyes. He touches his ear, which is bleeding, but the bullet only grazed him. He was playing dead until the gunman left.
- [24:37]
Karen Spring
I was in my house in Tegucigalpa in the capital city, and I went to bed just like I do every night around 11 o'. Clock.
- [24:47]
Zach Goldbaum
That's Karen Spring, the human rights worker who first met Berta during the post coup demonstrations in 2009.
- [24:54]
Karen Spring
Around one o' clock in the morning, my phone vibrated and then I saw that the caller had left a voice message. And so I went into my voicemail and. And it was a friend who lives in Mexico and the message was, karen, Berta has been murdered and Gustavo is in her house in La Esperanza and he really needs help.
- [25:16]
Zach Goldbaum
Karen couldn't believe what she was hearing. Berta was larger than life. She couldn't be dead. So she called Gustavo. It's been roughly 90 minutes since the intruders kicked down the door.
- [25:28]
Karen Spring
And when Gustavo picked up, he was in a whisper and he was sobbing. They killed Berta. They killed Berta. I'm in the house, I'm really scared. What should I do? What should I do? And he's like, should I call the police? And I said, no, don't call the police. Don't call the police.
- [25:43]
Zach Goldbaum
In a country with so much corruption, Karen had learned not to trust law enforcement.
- [25:51]
Karen Spring
Around 3:04am I got into my car and drove to Les Pack and went right to where Berta lived.
- [26:00]
Zach Goldbaum
By the time Karen makes the three hour drive to La Esperanza, Gustavo had been shuttled to a safe house. The authorities had finally been alerted since copinh leaders had arrived and were there to monitor the early stages of the investigation.
- [26:14]
Karen Spring
There was yellow tape, police patrol cars and people that had come to the scene to see what was happening.
- [26:22]
Zach Goldbaum
Police are trampling all over the crime scene. They start to ask about Berta's personal life, about disputes with other copinh leaders, about an angry ex. They get the name of Berta's former boyfriend, Lito.
- [26:35]
Karen Spring
The public prosecutors immediately started going to people in copi trying to take fingerprints and taking their testimonies, and started confiscating their shoes. I was fighting with the prosecutors, saying, why are you confiscating their shoes?
- [26:49]
Zach Goldbaum
The police were focused on one piece of available evidence, A footprint on Berta's back door.
- [26:56]
Karen Spring
I went back to the center of La Esperanza, and that's when I found a big crowd of copinh people gathering around this pickup truck. And in the pickup truck was Berta's body with, like, a black tarp over it.
- [27:11]
Zach Goldbaum
No one trusted the government to conduct a legitimate investigation, let alone a proper autopsy. So as the sun rose that morning, the truck with Berta in the back took off toward Tegucigalpa for an independent autopsy. Then members of copinh brought Karen to see Gustavo.
- [27:31]
Karen Spring
He was in a small room with one table, an old tv, and then this small bed. And when he saw me, he got up and gave me a hug. He was bleeding from the back of his hand and his ear, and this chunk had been off his ear. So he had, like, a bandage or like a cloth around it.
- [27:49]
Zach Goldbaum
Karen wanted to capture Gustavo's testimony of the night while it was still fresh. So she pulls out her phone and begins to record. That's the recording of Gustavo you were hearing earlier. His voice quakes, and in a whisper, he recounts what he saw after he was shot. He went to Bertha's room. He saw a lot of blood, and he cradled Berta in his arms as she died. He grabbed her phone. I felt so alone, he says. I didn't know who to turn to, what to do. Eventually, Gustavo is asked to describe his attacker to a forensic sketch artist sent by the authorities. I was looking at his eyes and the barrel of a gun, he says. He describes someone who is dark skinned and not very tall. The sketch artist draws someone entirely different. It seems like the artist isn't interested in drawing the person who Gustavo describes. Honduran indigenous and environmental organizer Berta Caceres has been assassinated in her home. Berta was laid to rest on March 5, 2016. Mourners carried her white coffin through the streets as support raised photos of her in the air. That night, demonstrators lit candles and marched through La Esperanza. Then Berta's young daughter Laura, addressed the crowd. My mother fought and organized, and my mother can't be murdered, she says. The crowd chants, berta lives. But even as they mourn their mother's death, Berta's daughters waste no time identifying who they believe are the real suspects. The dam Desa Desa's leadership knows they have a problem on their hands. The company's manager, David Castillo, calls an emergency meeting and sends a message to shareholders saying, this is a crisis for us. But Daniel Atala, Desa's financial manager and a member of one of the country's most powerful families, is less concerned. He writes to another colleague, you're so negative. Everything will be fine, you'll see. Even though Berta's family is beginning to publicly accuse Dessa of being involved, Daniela Tala knows the police are focused elsewhere. They think it's a crime of passion or a disgruntled COPINH colleague. He knows this because the company is receiving regular updates from the chief of police.
- [31:35]
Karen Spring
I would later find out that my phone, as well as several other people's phones that were close to Berta, immediately had their phones tapped, ordered by a judge as part of this so called investigation, which again showed how they tried to build the case that we were involved in her murder.
- [31:51]
Zach Goldbaum
By March 6, four days after the murder, Gustavo Castro Soto, the only witness, is ready to leave Honduras to return to Mexico. But when he arrives at the airport, the police are waiting for him. They forbid him from leaving the country for the next 30 hours. And while he's waiting, a judge decides he must stay in Honduras for 30 days. This is how Gustavo discovers that along with Berta's ex boyfriend and COPINH leaders, he is also a main suspect.
- [32:28]
Karen Spring
The response nationally at that moment was just like absolute shock. And there was immediate protests. Individuals in Tegucigalpa, from students to women's organizations to people that just knew her. And it sort of built from there. They had to raise a national and international stink over her murder. Otherwise we knew that, you know, the people that were the most likely to have murdered her would get away with it.
- [32:53]
Zach Goldbaum
As the international outcry intensified, it became more difficult for the police to get away with a sham investigation. Meanwhile, two more Honduran activists were killed in separate incidents, one of whom was a member of copinh. And within two weeks of Bertha's murder, two of the Agua Zarca Dam's financial backers pulled their funding for the project. Then in May, two months after the murder, soldiers carried out Operation Jaguar. The raid nets five arrests, including, including two with direct ties to Desa, the community and engagement manager, and the former security chief, Douglas Postillo. While being arrested, one suspect says, you've got the wrong man. It's the manager of DESA you want. Once the arrests are made, a pattern begins to emerge. Almost immediately, the Company has deep ties to the Honduran military. Of the recently arrested men, Douglas Bustillo, the former security chief, was once a lieutenant in the Honduran army. Another man was a recently retired army captain, and one was an active duty soldier. And of course the manager of the dam, David Castillo, was a former military intelligence officer. And the two trigger men, a 21 year old known as El Comanche and a 22 year old nicknamed Coca, were also ex military. Then there was a piece of evidence, a muddy footprint from a soldier's boot on Bertha's back door. So people begin to remember the military death squads from the 1980s. And they start to wonder, are they back? There was a report in the Guardian that noted environmental activist Berta Caceres was killed by Honduran government for forces, some might say death squads. This is a U.S. state Department press conference from June 23, 2016. Days earlier, the Guardian had alleged that a high level whistleblower who had defected from the Honduran army had seen a military hit list with names of activists, including Berta. What's more, this unit was trained by the U.S. government. State Department spokesperson John Kirby responds.
- [35:12]
John Kirby
The U.S. government has not previously heard any credible allegation of hit list of deaths ordered by the military and we do not have any information which would substantiate this report.
- [35:22]
Zach Goldbaum
You have not, you've not heard of these kill lists?
- [35:25]
John Kirby
We haven't heard of any credible allegation of hit lists of deaths and we do not have any information that would substantiate this report.
- [35:35]
Zach Goldbaum
The US's relationship with Honduras has always been complicated. After President Celayo was forcibly exiled to Costa rica during the 2009 coup, then President Barack Obama publicly criticized his removal. But behind the scenes, the administration pushed for new elections run by the military without Zelaya. In fact, they refused to even call it a military coup because legally that would have forced the cutoff of US military aid. And we were sending a lot of it, about $200 million between 2009 and 2015. The whistleblower said that his squad received military training from U.S. marines and FBI agents in a program much like the one DESA manager David Castillo had participated in at West Point. Now, with accusations flying that American tax dollars were being used to fund Human Rights Inc. Abuses, would the US take any responsibility?
- [36:34]
John Kirby
If there is, if there's evidence that that proves that there are human rights violations and abuses by, by security forces that we are supporting, whether that's through training, material, equipment, we absolutely have a responsibility to alter that relationship and to hold them to account for those human rights abuses.
- [36:54]
Zach Goldbaum
A month after the Guardian replaced, a group of US lawmakers called for the country to stop sending funds to Honduras until there were clear actions taken to end the human rights violations in the country. After Operation Jaguar, the Honduran army seemed to think they could just ride it out, that the arrests they'd made would satisfy the public. But they were wrong.
- [37:17]
Karen Spring
We marched to the public prosecutor's office. COPINH people had all gathered. And that's when my phone rang and I was standing next to Tomas, who was one of the leaders of COPINH, and it was a representative from the U.S. embassy. And that's when Tomas started demanding, okay, no, we want an independent investigation that includes international bodies. We do not trust the Honduran state.
- [37:40]
Zach Goldbaum
Finally, nine months after Berta's murder in November of 2016, Copinhe and Bertha's family's demands are met. A team of international attorneys from three countries agreed to impartially investigate the case. They have limited access to the government's evidence, but they focused their investigation on Desa. And what they found was shocking. The local authorities had gathered explosive evidence but had been sitting on it for months. The attorneys review over 40,000 text messages and cell phone data, and what they uncover is a sprawling conspiracy orchestrated by a team of former and current military personnel, aided and abetted by the dam's international financiers and a government who was going to push forward with development no matter the cost. The plot began as early as November 2015. The lawyers find that a DESA executive messaged the former head of security, Douglas Bustillo. He wanted to meet at a restaurant in Tegucigalpa, at Chili's to be precise. Then DESA employees begin to surveil Berta at her home in La Esperanza. At COPINH headquarters, a month before Berta was killed, Bustillo sent a message to the same high level DESA executive who had asked to meet him at Chile's in November. The message read, mission aborted Today. It was not possible yesterday. During this time, Berta was scared. She'd reported 33 separate credible threats in the years leading up to her murder. The government deployed security forces to protect the Agua Zarca dam from protesters. But when Berta asked for protection, she got nothing. Finally, on March 1, 2016, another message is sent on the DESA group chat. It says a group of approximately 15 persons went to Esperanza for a radio training. This was the confirmation they needed. Berta would be isolated in her home. That night in October 2017. The independent investigators published their findings. On Tuesday, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, a team of international lawyers released a new report that shows how the plot to murder Caceres was months in the making.
- [40:06]
John Kirby
The existing proof is conclusive regarding the participation of numerous state agents, high ranking executives and employees of DESA in the planning, execution and cover up of the assassination.
- [40:17]
Zach Goldbaum
The lawyers don't mention by name the one DESA executive that was receiving these regular updates. But soon it would come out that the man at the center of the plot to murder Berta Caceres was the promising young manager and founder of the company, David Castillo. On March 2, 2018, the two year anniversary of Berta's murder, David Castillo is arrested. He's picked up at a Honduran airport, about to board a flight to Houston, Texas, where after the murder, he'd purchased a $1.4 million home. As he's getting handcuffed, Castillo is overheard saying to the agent, we were friends. While Castillo awaits trial, seven hitmen are found guilty. When he does finally see his day in court, he's accused of providing logistics and resources to carry out Berta's murder. In other words, the mastermind. Castillo's scheme began long before the murder, back when he was building his company on a lie. Here's what came out during the trial. When David Castillo started desa, he was still working his government job at the National Energy company. Then he pushed for an expansion of the project while it was still in the planning phase, even though an environmental risk study found that if his proposal was accepted, the Gualcarque river could run dry. But once he identified Berta as the opposition, Castillo used his training as a military intelligence officer to engage in a targeted harassment campaign. He surveilled Berta, collected opposition research, tried to stay one step ahead of her every move. Like the time he offered to stall Bertha's case so she could attend her daughter's graduation.
- [42:16]
Karen Spring
He was following her. He would try and meet with her. He would even try and flirt with her. He was kind of playing with his prey, you know, kind of like how a cat plays with a mouse.
- [42:27]
Zach Goldbaum
In July 2021, after years of delay, David Castillo is found guilty of collaborating in the murder of Berta Casaris. He's sentenced to 22 and a half years. But Copinh and Bertha's family continue to fight. A week after David's sentencing, Copin filed a criminal complaint against fmo, the Dutch development bank that funded Aguazarca. Payments from FMO made to A shell company belonging to David Castillo may have indirectly funded the plot to be murder. Berta FMO later said the death of Berta Casares in 2016 marks a dark page in our 50 plus years of history. If we had known then what we know today, we would have made different choices. At the same time, prosecutors did something that would have once been unthinkable. They pursued a case against Daniela Tala. He was Desa's chief financial officer, the the one who had been in contact with the chief of police early in the investigation. But he was also a member of the powerful Attala family among an oligarchy in Honduras that for years seemed to operate with their own set of rules. But during the trial of David Castillo, Daniel Atala was forced to testify.
- [43:45]
Karen Spring
And of course, once he took the stand, he pleaded the Honduran version of the fifth, basically saying that he didn't want to testify because he might incriminate himself. And the public prosecutor's office made it clear in that moment that he was in fact under investigation for potential involvement in her murder.
- [44:03]
Zach Goldbaum
In December of 2023, an arrest warrant was issued for Daniela Tala, but he was nowhere to be found. To this day, he remains a fugitive. As for the Aguazarca dam, it's effectively dead. Bertha's murder and Copinh's sustained resistance turned the project into a liability. Its financiers and contractors have bowed out and construction has been abandoned. The suspension of the project is a stunning victory, a rare win that Bertha did not live to see. But the halting of the dam and the justice in the trial are outliers. In Honduras. Most crimes like Berta's murder go unpunished and several other dams that were approved alongside the Aguazarca have been completed, including inside Lenka territory.
- [44:59]
Karen Spring
Berta Caceres is one individual in this small country. She is one of many land defenders, environmentalists, human rights defenders that have have not only an alternative vision of how poor countries should develop, but also an alternative vision about how to take care of our environment and our planet.
- [45:27]
Berta Caceres
Understanding our ancestors power is key for us to hold on and to have hope.
- [45:54]
Zach Goldbaum
Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad free right now by joining Wondry plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey@wondry.com survey on the next episode of Lawless Planet, the story of one man's lonely fight to keep the lights on in Gaza and the ways that electricity and energy have been used as a weapon of war. Really, electricity or power is life. The faster you can bring the electricity to the people in Gaza, the faster you can have water. Better hospitals, sewage, all the key life issues are linked. We use a lot of sources when reporting these episodes and for today we relied heavily on Nina Lakhani's book who Killed Dams, Death Squads and An Indigenous Defenders Battle for the Planet. And special thanks to Gustavo Castro Soto and Karen Spring. Make sure to check out her excellent podcast Honduras Now. Lawless Planet is written, produced and hosted by me, Zach Goldbaum. Our senior producer and senior story editor is Derek John. Senior producers for Wondry are Peter A.R. cooney and Andy Herman. Our senior managing producer is Nick Ryan. Our managing producer is Sarah Kenny Corrigan. Our associate producer is Lexi Peary. Sound design by Kyle Randall. Music by Kenny Kuziak. Our music supervisor Scott Velasquez for Frison Sync Voice acting by Laura Vialta. Special thanks to Freddie Beckley. Fact check by Brian Punyant. Our legal counsel is Deb Droze. Executive producers are Marshall Louie, Aaron o' Flaherty N and Jenny Lauer. Beckman for Wondery. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week. Wonder.