Political Quotes

“it has been 4 months and 8 days since Berta Caceres, an internationally respected indigenous Honduran environmental activist, was shot and killed in her home. Ms. Caceres had led her Lenca community in a campaign over several years against the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project financed in part by a Honduran company, Desarrollos Energeticos, DESA, on the Gualcarque River, which the Lenca people consider to be sacred. Honduran police officers tampered with the crime scene, and they and some Honduran government officials sought early on to falsely depict the killing as a crime of passion. But that dishonest strategy failed, and five individuals were subsequently arrested, including a DESA employee and active duty and retired army officers, for which Honduran Attorney General Oscar Fernando Chinchilla and investigators provided by the U.S. Embassy deserve credit. It is widely believed, however, that the intellectual authors of that horrific crime remain at large. While the attorney general's investigation is continuing, as it should, I and others have repeatedly called on the Honduran Government to also support a thorough, independent, international investigation of the Caceres case under the auspices of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission. Given Honduras's history of impunity for such crimes and the public's understandable distrust of the justice system, it is imperative that such an inquiry be conducted expeditiously. Ms.…”