Global Justice Ecology Project’s Anne Petermann spoke about the one year anniversary of the assassination of Berta Cáceres on the Sojourner Truth Radio Show for this week’s Earth Minute segment. Sojourner Truth airs every week on KPFK-FM in Los Angeles and streaming around the world.

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The transcript is below: 

Berta Cáceres, a Honduran environmental activist and winner of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, was shot dead one year ago over her opposition to a hydroelectric dam.

The UK Guardian recently reported that leaked court documents indicate Berta’s murder was an extrajudicial assassination linked to the country’s US–trained special forces.

The US is the main provider of military and police support to Honduras. This support is focused on Honduran special forces units, originally created during the dirty war of the 1980s when nearly 200 leftists and others were disappeared or murdered.

Critics accuse these US-back elite forces of commonly target community leaders.

A source for the Guardian explained, “It’s inconceivable that someone with Berta’s high profile, whose campaign had made her a problem for the state, could be murdered without at least implicit authorisation of military high command.”

After her murder, demands were raised for the US to revoke military aid to Honduras.  Hillary Clinton and the Obama Administration, however, refused to take any action.

For the Earth Minute and the Sojourner Truth show, this is Anne Petermann, from Global Justice Ecology Project.