A decade after the murder of Berta Cáceres, calls for guarantees of non-repetition

This year, 2026, marks ten years since the murder of Indigenous environmental activist Berta Cáceres. In its final report, the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) concluded that the crime was an organized criminal operation and that the State of Honduras has the responsibility to guarantee justice and reparation.

In 2025, the IACHR set up the GIEI in Honduras to investigate who masterminded the crime against Indigenous activist and human rights defender Berta Cáceres, as well as other related crimes. The group of experts carried out its technical work independently for around eleven months in accordance with international human rights standards.

The GIEI was created under an agreement signed by the IACHR, the State of Honduras and the petitioners’ representatives, COPINH (Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras, the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras) and the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL).

On January 12, the interdisciplinary group delivered its final report at an official ceremony in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. The presentation of this document opens a decisive moment: turning its conclusions and recommendations into concrete actions that lead to truth, justice, comprehensive reparation and guarantees of non-repetition.

Who was Berta Cáceres?

Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores was an Indigenous woman from the Lenca community and a human rights activist. She defended the territory and rights of her community, an ethnic group that occupies part of the territory of Honduras and El Salvador.

Cáceres herself described herself as an activist waging a double struggle, that of belonging to an Indigenous people and also being a woman, which, for her, heightened her vulnerability. She also identified as a feminist fighting against capitalism, patriarchy and racism.

On March 3, 2016, Berta Cáceres was murdered in her home in La Esperanza. On November 30, 2018, Honduras’s National Criminal Court convicted seven men of the murder of the environmental and Indigenous leader; it also determined that they had been hired by executives of DESA, the company that was building a hydroelectric dam in Lenca territory, which involved the forced displacement of Lenca communities in the areas surrounding the Gualcarque River, a project that Cáceres opposed.

What does the report say?

The GIEI report states that the activist’s murder was a corporate, financial and political crime, carried out through a complex criminal architecture that brought together economic interests, international financing, security structures, institutional corruption and serious state omissions, forming a modus operandi sustained over time.

The document states that the murder of Berta Cáceres was entrusted to a professional group of hitmen hired exclusively for that purpose and to put an end to her struggle against the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project.

The Group of experts set up by the IACHR maintained that the activist’s murder was financed with resources from the Agua Zarca project, specifically those from international banks, including the Central American Bank and the Netherlands Development Bank.

The GIEI noted that Cáceres’s murder was preventable and foreseeable because the Honduran State had concrete, real-time information about the planning, including phone intercepts detailing weapons, payments and logistics, but did not act to protect the Indigenous activist.

The experts’ report also includes a comprehensive reparation plan for the Indigenous communities affected by the crime and by the injustices arising from the territorial conflict related to the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project.

The GIEI’s work on the Berta Cáceres murder case represents not only progress in identifying the masterminds of an emblematic crime, but also highlights the need for more efficient justice systems and international bodies that stand by victims in the face of economic and political power structures that threaten their fundamental rights.

The team of experts points out that guarantees of non-repetition involve structural transformations that go beyond the criminal resolution of the case. These include reviewing the mechanisms for granting concessions, strengthening protection systems for activists and adopting policies that ensure respect for the rights of Indigenous peoples.

With the presentation of this Final Report, the IACHR incorporates renewed and updated elements that will allow it to continue monitoring the case of Berta Cáceres, as well as those of other human rights defenders who face attacks and reprisals for their activism. The IACHR also acknowledges the support provided by the Honduran State for the GIEI’s work, as well as the tireless struggle of Berta Cáceres’s family members, whose sustained commitment has been essential to keeping alive the pursuit of memory, justice, truth and historical reparation.

Guillermo Whpei

President of Fundación para la Democracia