I read this important book with three questions in mind. Firstly, and most importantly, did it help me understand one of the most horrific political assassinations of the second decade of the twenty-first century? Honduran activist Berta Cáceres won the prestigious Goldman environmental award in 2015 for her environmental activism and efforts to stop the construction of a hydroelectric dam (the Agua Zarca Dam) on the Gualcarque River. The river is sacred to the Lenca people who feared the serious threat to their water supplies, land and way of life. On 2 March 2016 Cáceres was assassinated.
The second question (which I will discuss at the end of this review) is what does this assassination, alongside evidence of criminality reaching the highest levels of the Honduran state – which some have called a narco-state since the 2009 coup – tell us about the political trajectory of Central America following the revolutionary upheavals of the 1970s and 1980s? Central America is a region I have worked in since that revolutionary impetus shook it, beginning with the successful 1979 Nicaraguan Revolution. Despite the acclaimed Peace Accords of 1992 and 1996 which brought civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala respectively to a formal close, and the peaceful transfer of power from the Sandinistas to opposition candidate Violeta Chamorro in Nicaragua in 1990, these same countries have faced new disturbing challenges from violence, criminality and authoritarian government. There is evidence of questionable electoral processes, growing military power, illegal economies penetrating states through corrupt politicians, and a deeply problematic misuse/abuse of the judiciary, amongst many other issues. While Honduras did not have an armed uprising in the 1980s like these other countries, it was the base for US counter-insurgency operations. In Lakhani's book, we find that Robert David Castillo Mejía, finally convicted by a high court in July 2021 (after the book was published) as one of the intellectual authors of Cáceres’ assassination, was a former US-trained army intelligence officer. Two others of the nine in total who were arrested and convicted for her murder had received training at Fort Benning, Georgia, the former School of the Americas, now renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC). This School has been connected to many murders and human-rights violations in the Cold War – and now post-Cold War − history of Latin America. Castillo was also executive director of Desarrollos Energéticos (Energy Developments, DESA), the company that managed the building of the dam and which is owned by the powerful Atala Zablah family. Economic and political power continues to be concentrated in Central America. Does the assassination of Cáceres throw light on these wider regional trends?
The third question, with which I will begin this review, is what this book tells us about the value of a journalistic versus an academic lens on key events. While the academic in me would have appreciated more references and the book is not aimed directly at some of the big conceptual issues I am raising here, it is nevertheless an extremely well-researched and well-written account. Indeed, the author, an experienced journalist in the region, had not only met Cáceres and got to know the movement she co-founded, the Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras (Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organisations of Honduras, COPINH), but she returned to interview those accused of the murder, to attend the court hearings and put herself at personal risk. She was denounced in social media and vilified. In the process of following the life and death of Cáceres, Lakhani gives us unique insights into this extraordinary woman, as a person as well as an activist. Not only does Cáceres' deep commitment to social justice emerge, but also her intelligent and strategic as well as courageous mindset. She and her partner at the time had in their youth gone to El Salvador to support the struggle there at the end of the 1980s; Cáceres’ mother was also an activist, sheltering many Salvadorean refugees. Cáceres saw the dark side of armed struggle, however, and returned to Honduras hopeful that peace processes in the region would open the possibilities for democratic resistance. COPINH was set up in 1993. What emerges is Cáceres’ embrace of the wider social and political struggles of the Central American region (and beyond), beginning with Indigenous rights of the Lenca community she was born into. She also supported feminist and LGBT rights. I have always been struck by the deep social roots of the feminist struggle in Honduras, even in the poorest communities, particularly since I went to study it in the late 1980s. Lakhani's work gives us the full picture of Cáceres the woman, the activist and the political thinker in the broadest sense.
As the story unfolds, it is a gripping and frightening tale of how the Honduran state and military responded to activists, particularly following the 2009 coup. It brings in the economic elites, and the role of corporations such as DESA and how the corporation worked to divide, bribe and intimidate those challenging the building of dams, aimed at providing ‘alternative energy’. The latter made me reflect on how the progressive aspects of such energy can also be linked to oppressive actions, when it is in the hands of powerful elites who feel they have the right to the land that Indigenous people have lived on for centuries. Despite international acceptance of the right to consultation with Indigenous communities when their land is to be used for extractive and other projects, the company ignored or manipulated their way around this. Lakhani's synthesis of the complex story enables us to follow the intricacies of corporate, government and military manipulations and the involvement of informants and hired guns/assassins in the attempts to halt the Indigenous resistance which was growing in strength and receiving increasing international attention.
Cáceres was aware in 2013 of a military hit list with her name at the top. Turning to my first question, and the book's contribution to our understanding of her assassination, it traces the process through which the decision to assassinate her was taken and gives us great insight into the system which enabled it. Lakhani's interviews with the accused prior to the trial, and her attendance at the trial, piece together the story as it unfolds. The author is herself not entirely convinced that the full story ever emerges, in particular the role of the Honduran army command, given that army hit list. There is also the question of the elite family who owned DESA, who have not as yet been implicated. The key role of the company president (Castillo, eventually convicted for coordinating the assassination) as well as DESA's manager for community, social and environmental issues, does become clear. The early attempts to put the blame on COPINH activists themselves, and even Cáceres’ friend Gustavo Castro, who was shot and wounded alongside her, amongst many other extraordinary efforts to thwart justice, point to the systemic obstacles to democratic development in Honduras. The extent to which Cáceres was personally a thorn in the flesh of the company confirms the strength and intelligence with which she worked with the land movement and other activist groups. However, it is the system that made this assassination possible and that is the key issue.
The way in which the judicial system, for instance, responded to the prosecutions is one of the outstanding themes of the text. This included the judges ousting the private lawyers representing Cáceres’ family, who had accused the judges presiding over the case of abuse of authority and a cover-up. The family had to accept a public prosecutor. The fact that a conviction was achieved at all has led many to claim progress in the Honduran legal and political system. However, it is not entirely clear from the text how these convictions were finally possible, except through international pressure. So, what kind of internal and external pressure can successfully achieve justice in contexts where corruption and wealth accumulation through violence are embedded?
This leads to my second question and final reflection. What can we learn about the wider aspects of democratic evolution in the Central American region? Lakhani shows the impact of the 2009 coup in Honduras, enabling corruption and drug trafficking, already rife in the country, to become embedded in the state. The election of Xiomara Castro in 2021, the wife of the ousted President Zelaya in that coup, will help us to better understand the systemic barriers to democracy and social change in Honduras and what room for manoeuvre she has to tackle these barriers. At present, that election stands out as offering democratic potential in the region. However, Presidents Ortega in Nicaragua, Bukele in El Salvador and Giammattei in Guatemala all reflect the ongoing erosion of hopes for democratic development following the peace processes of the early 1990s. Two factors leap out from the Honduran case study. The structure of power challenged by the revolutionary moments and by the post-revolutionary resistance movements represented by Cáceres may have mutated but it remains concentrated and underpinned by military and security apparatuses. And secondly, neoliberal reforms and the opening up of the regional economies have given a boost to illegal accumulation which has deeply penetrated the state, albeit in distinct ways in each country. A third factor could be added. The United States did not withdraw financial support from the Honduran government after the coup and has been keenest to persuade the region's governments to control migration flows. The vicious circle is that those migration flows stem precisely from the violent accumulation and criminalised politics which the 2009 Honduran coup exemplified and which ultimately cost the life of Cáceres.
