Our Mother Earth: militarized, fenced-in, and poisoned,

A place where basic rights

Are systematically violated,

Demands that we take action

I dedicate this award to all forms of rebellion

And to all the martyrs

in the the fight to defend nature

To my mother

To the Lenca People

 

Berta Cáceres acceptance speech for the 2015 Goldman Prize Recipient, South and Central America

My Mother Fought

And my mother can’t be murdered

My mother can only be planted, to be born and reborn

This is what they wanted to extinguish,

This fire, the people’s fight

But all they did was make it grow

Because they thought they could

Extinguish a fire with gasoline.

Miriam Miranda, leader of the Garífuna people

Berta and I talked a lot

What life Means for Humanity,

For Human Beings.

What we need here is to increase

Our capacity to share.

And that is the problem!

Some people hoard as much they can

In huge warehouses-paper

If someone just throws a match, it burns.

There is another pressing need to preserve the

Commons, our natural resources.

You think that Humanity is served by that transformation? [the expansion of palm oil, crude oil…]

They just want more cash, more cash

And we have to eat it.

We are just a number to them,

We aren’t human beings.

The construction of real Humanity

Starts from what we are collectively.

This are the things we used to talk about, together

And that is why we will always remember her.

They are aware of what their

Mother meant…what she means.

Their mother… lying there…

And them facing the world…

Saying…

“here we are..we will continue the fight”.

We vigorously condemn her murder,

And we demand justice.

BERTA VIVE

—

These are a few extracts from THE MUST SEE documentary Berta VIVE of Katia Lara produced by TERCO Producciones and OXFAM Honduras.

On March 2016, the assasination of Berta Cáceres shook the world. Gustavo Castro, Mexican environmental activist witnessed the crime and survived the horror of that night but was then trapped in Honduras. The defense against the construction of a dam at the Gualcarque River is the preface to this story. We follow Miriam Miranda, leader of the Garífuna people as well as a friend and comrade of Berta. Both women share the struggle for decolonization in a country that is being sold to transnational capital and where death is delivered in so many different ways.