.
Aleppo: image via baraa al halabi @baraaalhalabi, 2 March 2016
A home damaged by government shelling in the rebel-controlled area of Idlib Province, Syria: photo by Khalil Ashawi/Reuters, 4 March 2016
A home damaged by government shelling in the rebel-controlled area of Idlib Province, Syria: photo by Khalil Ashawi/Reuters, 4 March 2016
Residents and activists hold a giant a pre-Baath Syrian flag, now used by the Syrian opposition, during an anti-regime protest in the rubble of destroyed buildings in the neighbourhood of Jobar, on the eastern outskirts of the capital Damascus: Amer Almohibany/AFP, 4 March 2016![TOPSHOT - Residents and activists hold a...TOPSHOT - Residents and activists hold a giant a pre-Baath Syrian flag, now used by the Syrian opposition, during an anti-regime protest in the rubble of destroyed buildings in the neighbourhood of Jobar, on the eastern outskirts of the capital Damascus, on March 3, 2016. / AFP / AMER ALMOHIBANYAMER ALMOHIBANY/AFP/Getty Images]()
Residents and activists hold a giant a pre-Baath Syrian flag, now used by the Syrian opposition, during an anti-regime protest in the rubble of destroyed buildings in the neighbourhood of Jobar, on the eastern outskirts of the capital Damascus: Amer Almohibany/AFP, 4 March 2016
A Palestinian man rushes to a boy who had been injured during clashes clashes with Israeli security forces near Nablus in the occupied West Bank: photo by Jaafar Ashtiyeh/Agence France-Presse, 4 March 2016
A Palestinian man rushes to a boy who had been injured during clashes with Israeli security forces near Nablus in the occupied West Bank: photo by Jaafar Ashtiyeh/Agence France-Presse, 4 March 2016
A child wears a plastic rain hood while waiting to cross the border from Greece to Macedonia, near Idomeni, Greece: photo by Louisa Gouliamaki/Agence France-Presse, 4 March 2016
A child wears a plastic rain hood while waiting to cross the border from Greece to Macedonia, near Idomeni, Greece: photo by Louisa Gouliamaki/Agence France-Presse, 4 March 2016
The two-line protective fence set along the border between Macedonia and Greece, near the southern Macedonian town of Gevgelija: photo by Visar Kryeziu/AP, 4 March 2016
Macedonian soldiers patrol beside the two-line protective fence set along the border between Macedonia and Greece, near the southern Macedonian town of Gevgelija: photo by Visar Kryeziu/AP, 4 March 2016
The murder of Berta Cáceres
"#HillaryClinton must answer for her role in Honduran coup which led to murder of #BertaCaceres.": image via Kathryn Johnson @KatJohnsonDC, 4 March 2016
#Honduras: We condemn the assassination of the well-known #indigenous rights defender Berta Cáceres on 3 March: image via UN Human Rights Verified account @UNHumanRights, 4 March 2016
Remembering #BertaCáceres, a fighter for rights who refused to give up and leave #Honduras: image via Lotte Leicht @LotteLeicht1, 4 March 2016
1000+ orgs demand justice for murdered activist in open letter to government of #Honduras: image via Mike Hudema @Mike Hudema, 4 March 2016
Students clash with riot police Thursday during a protest in Tegucigalpa against the murder of indigenous activist Berta Cáceres: photo by Orlando Sierra/AFP, 4 February 2016
Asesinato Líder Indígena #Honduras Berta Cáceres es horrendo crimen y golpe DDHH del pueblo. Q se esclarezca crimen ya: image via Luis Almagro @Almagro_OEA2015, 3 March 2016 A riot police officer stands inside the University of Tegulcigapa during a protest by students against the murder of indigenous activist Berta Caceres, in La Esperanza, Honduras: photo by Orlando Sierra/Agence France-Presse, 4 March 2016
A riot police officer stands inside the University of Tegulcigapa during a protest by students against the murder of indigenous activist Berta Caceres, in La Esperanza, Honduras: photo by Orlando Sierra/Agence France-Presse, 4 March 2016
When it's going bad, it's going bad and you know it
..cascading off the roof into that big plastic
......bucket...bang
drains blocked, rain glutted earth giving way
to the exposed roots
beneath the old listing hulk
old trees weeping leaning giving up
... the ghost...black
swan ride through a dying
and the woman who wanted the suits
to stop stealing the water
...................and the land
that belong to everyone
was killed in the night, when the moon
was down, and it felt like things
were starting to slide
![]()
Mourning Berta Cáceres, the assassinated indigenous activist, in La Esperanza, Honduras, on Thursday: photo by. Orlando Sierra/Agence France-Presse, 4 March 2016
Mourning Berta Cáceres, the assassinated indigenous activist, in La Esperanza, Honduras, on Thursday: photo by. Orlando Sierra/Agence France-Presse, 4 March 2016
Another bought patch of green
![Path up to Agua Zarca | by John Donaghy]()
Path up to in Agua Zarca (Agua Zarca, Concepción, Copán, Honduras): photo by John Donaghy, 1 March 2013
Agua Zarca, Concepción, Copán, Honduras: photo by John Donaghy, 1 March 2013
Church in Agua Zarca (Agua Zarca, Concepción, Copán, Honduras): photo by John Donaghy, 1 March 2013
Church in Agua Zarca (Agua Zarca, Concepción, Copán, Honduras): photo by John Donaghy, 1 March 2013
Siemens HV 2014. Protest gegen Turbinenlieferung an Grosstaudämme (Agua Zarca in Honduras): photo by urgewald, 28 January 2015
Siemens HV 2014. Protest gegen Turbinenlieferung an Grosstaudämme (Agua Zarca in Honduras): photo by urgewald, 28 January 2015 SoS #Clinton Allied w/Worst Sectors of Honduran Society #BertaCaceres Gunned Down, Killed: image via Daniela @SomeBlueDevilFL, 4 March 2016 ![Berta_Caceres_otu_img]()
Berta Cáceres: photo courtesy of the Goldman Environmental Prize
The Clinton-Backed Honduran Regime Is Picking Off Indigenous Leaders: The names of Berta Cáceres’s murderers are yet unknown. But we know who killed her: Greg Grandin, The Nation, 3 March 2016
Hillary Clinton will be good for women. Ask Berta Cáceres. But you can’t. She’s dead. Gunned down yesterday, March 2, at midnight, in her hometown of La Esperanza, Intibuca, in Honduras.
Cáceres was a vocal and brave indigenous leader, an opponent of the 2009 Honduran coup that Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, made possible. In The Nation, Dana Frank and I covered that coup as it unfolded. Later, as Clinton’s emails were released, others, such as Robert Naiman, Mark Weisbrot, and Alex Main, revealed the central role she played in undercutting Manuel Zelaya, the deposed president, and undercutting the opposition movement demanding his restoration. In so doing, Clinton allied with the worst sectors of Honduran society.
Despite the fact that he was a rural patriarch, Zelaya as president was remarkably supportive of “intersectionality” (that is, a left politics not reducible to class or political economy): He tried to make the morning-after pill legal. (After Zelaya’s ouster, Honduras’s coup congress -- the one legitimated by Hillary Clinton -- passed an "absolute ban on emergency contraception," criminalizing “the sale, distribution, and use of the ‘morning-after pill’ -- imposing punishment for offenders equal to that of obtaining or performing an abortion, which in Honduras is completely restricted.”) He supported gay and transgender rights. Zelaya apologized for a policy of “social cleansing” -- that is, the murder and disappearance of street children and gang members -- executed by his predecessors. And he backed rural peasant and indigenous movements, such as the one Cáceres led, in the fight against land dispossession, mining, and biofuels. Zelaya, as president, was by no means perfect. But he was slowly trying to use the power of the state on behalf of the best people in Honduras, including Berta Cáceres.
Since Zelaya’s ouster, there’s been an all-out assault on these decent people -- torture, murder, militarization of the countryside, repressive laws, such as the absolute ban on the morning-after pill, the rise of paramilitary security forces, and the wholesale deliverance of the country's land and resources to transnational pillagers. That’s not to mention libertarian fantasies, promoted by billionaires such as PayPal’s Peter Thiel and Milton Friedman’s grandson (can’t make this shit up), of turning the country into some kind of Year-Zero stateless utopia.
Such is the nature of the "unity government" Clinton helped institutionalize. In her book, Hard Choices, Clinton hold up her Honduran settlement as a proud example of her trademark clear-eyed, “pragmatic” foreign policy approach.
Berta Cáceres gave her life to fight that government. She was the general coordinator of the COPINH (Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras), a group that has had many of its leadership murdered in the last few years. Last year, Cáceres was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for her work opposing a major dam project:
Since the 2009 coup, Honduras has witnessed an explosive growth in environmentally destructive megaprojects that would displace indigenous communities. Almost 30 percent of the country’s land was earmarked for mining concessions, creating a demand for cheap energy to power future mining operations. To meet this need, the government approved hundreds of dam projects around the country, privatizing rivers, land, and uprooting communities. Among them was the Agua Zarca Dam, a joint project of Honduran company Desarrollos Energéticos SA (DESA) and Chinese state-owned Sinohydro, the world’s largest dam developer. Agua Zarca, slated for construction on the sacred Gualcarque River, was pushed through without consulting the indigenous Lenca people -- a violation of international treaties governing indigenous peoples’ rights. The dam would cut off the supply of water, food and medicine for hundreds of Lenca people and violate their right to sustainably manage and live off their land.
Berta Cáceres, a Lenca woman, grew up during the violence that swept through Central America in the 1980s. Her mother, a midwife and social activist, took in and cared for refugees from El Salvador, teaching her young children the value of standing up for disenfranchised people. Cáceres grew up to become a student activist and in 1993, she co-founded the National Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) to address the growing threats posed to Lenca communities by illegal logging, fight for their territorial rights and improve their livelihoods. In 2006, community members from Rio Blanco came to COPINH asking for help. They had witnessed an influx of machinery and construction equipment coming into their town. They had no idea what the construction was for or who was behind the project. What they knew was that an aggression against the river -- a place of spiritual importance to the Lenca people -- was an act against the community, its free will, and its autonomy.
The names of Cáceres’s murderers are yet unknown. But we know who killed her. According to one email circulating about her death: “Berta Cáceres and COPINH have been accompanying various land struggles throughout western Honduras. In the last few weeks, violence and repression towards Berta, COPINH, and the communities they support had escalated. In Rio Blanco on February 20th, Berta, COPINH, and the community of Rio Blanco faced threats and repression as they carried out a peaceful action to protect the River Gualcarque against the construction of a hydroelectric dam by the internationally financed Honduran company DESA. As a result of COPINH’s work supporting the Rio Blanco struggle, Berta had received countless threats against her life and was granted precautionary measures by the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights. On February 25th, another Lenca community supported by COPINH in Guise, Intibuca, was violently evicted and destroyed.” I’m tempted to end this post with a call on Bernie bros and sisters to hold Hillary Clinton responsible and to ask, when possible in town halls and meet and greets, if she ever met Cáceres, or if she is still proud of the hell she helped routinize in Honduras. But, really, Cáceres’s assassination shouldn’t be reduced to the idiocy of American electoral politics. All people of goodwill should ask Hillary Clinton those questions.
Which is more effective when approaching #Clinton: confrontation or conversation?: image via The Root Verified account @TheRoot, 4 March 2016
Ex #Clinton staffer began cooperating with FBI/DOJ last year = INDICTMENT = #Bernie2016 wins: image via ken luskin #kenluskin1, 4 March 2016
Murder of activist Berta Cáceres sparks violent clashes in Honduras: Students clashed with riot police Thursday night amid anger over failure to protect a high-profile campaigner who had repeatedly received threats on her life: Jonathan Watts, Latin America correspondent, The Guardian, 4 March 2016
The murder of environmental and indigenous rights activist Berta Cáceres has sparked violent clashes in Honduras despite promises by President Juan Orlando Hernández to swiftly find and punish the killers.
Rock-throwing students clashed with riot police firing tear gas in the University of Honduras on Thursday night amid anger over the authorities’ failure to protect a high-profile campaigner who had repeatedly received threats on her life.
International NGOs called for foreign investors and engineering companies to withdraw from the Agua Zarca hydropower project that Cáceres had been opposing at the time of her death.
The US government also came under fire for supporting a government that came to power in a coup and has since pushed forward with the controversial cascade of dams and failed to prevent Honduras from becoming the most murderous country in the world for environmental campaigners.
Amid growing criticism, President Hernández said local investigators were working with officials from the US and other countries to find the culprits and he promised the full force of the law would come down on the killers.
“Our commitment is to the truth of the facts and to serve justice, no matter who it might involve. No one is above the law. This death will not go unpunished,” he said in a televised speech.
Local media later reported that a suspect is being questioned by police in connection with the murder, which occurred early on Thursday morning when at least two gunmen broke into the home of Cáceres and fired four shots at her sleeping body.
But supporters of Cáceres fear a possible cover-up. Dozens gathered to demand justice outside the morgue where Cáceres’ body is being examined. Some held banners reading “no more impunity”.
The police initially reported the case as an attempted robbery, but the victim’s family believe the killing was an assassination ordered by people behind the dam project. Cáceres and other members of the group she founded – the Council of Indigenous Peoples of Honduras (Copinh) – have been in conflict with the operators Desa, the local mayor, police and soldiers. Last week, members of the group were detained and threatened, Copinh said in a statement.
The dangers faced by Cáceres were well known. Last year, the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR) raised concerns about Cáceres’s safety with the Honduran president Hernández, and formally called on the government to apply “precautionary measures”. There were reiterated in November by the United Nations special rapporteur for indigenous rights, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz.
But the authorities failed to protect the country’s most famous campaigner, who was last year awarded the Goldman Environment Prize.
In her acceptance speech, Cáceres appeared to foreshadow her own death, when she noted that “giving our lives in various ways for the protection of rivers is giving our lives for the well-being of humanity and of this planet”.
Environmental activists are more likely to be killed in Honduras than any other country, according to a study by the NGO Global Witness. More than 80% of murders go unpunished. Part of the problem, according to the InterIACHR, is that the military has taken on roles that should be left to a civilian police. They tend to work in conjunction with powerful interests, while human rights activists are criminalised.
“Honduras should protect defenders when they encounter risks to their life and personal integrity, by adopting an effective and comprehensive prevention strategy, with the goal of preventing attacks, and should take the necessary measures so that they can carry out their work without hindrance or risk,” the commission said last month.
The utter failure to ensure the security of Cáceres has sparked international condemnation.
“The cowardly killing of Berta is a tragedy that was waiting to happen. For years, she had been the victim of a sustained campaign of harassment and threats to stop her from defending the rights of indigenous communities,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas Director at Amnesty International.
The US government added its voice to the calls for justice. “We strongly condemn this despicable crime. The United States of America calls for a prompt and thorough investigation into this crime and for the full force of the law to be brought to bear against those responsible,” US Ambassador James Nealon said in a condolence message.
But Washington’s role is also controversial because the US backed the current government, which took power after a 2009 coup that ousted the democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya. The US is now providing fund for the Honduran police force.
International Rivers, an NGO that worked with Cáceres, suggested the US government should shoulder some of the blame for the climate of violence against activists.
“We must note that during the 2009 military coup in Honduras, the US government, with Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, worked behind the scenes to keep Honduras' elected government from being reinstated. Additionally, the US government continues to fund the Honduran military, despite the sharp rise in the homicide rate, political repression, and the murders of political opposition and peasant activists,” the group said in a statement.
It also called for action against foreign participants in the dam project, including Siemens, Voith-Hydro, Dutch FMO and Finnfund, and said the US government, World Bank and other financial institutions should suspend loans to Honduras until justice is done.
As the political fallout widened, tributes to the dead activist continued to flow in from across the globe.
Oxfam lamented the loss of an “inspiring woman, mother, wife, activist and human rights defender”.
Jagoda Munic, chair of Friends of the Earth International, said: “This is a sad day for Honduras and the world ... international pressure is needed to bring the murderers to justice and protect those brave enough to speak out on behalf of their fellow citizens and the environment."
#Clinton’s NAFTA/Colombian Free Trade Agreement has been devastating to Michigan #Bernie2016: image via ken luskin #kenluskin1, 4 March 2016
Hildebeest Rampant, queen
of a million corporate suits
and victorious trampler
upon inconvenient indigenes
shrieks goggle eyed
from the campaign ad on the margin
("I'm with Her!")
of the bought page
upon which the "content"
explains -- almost apologetically,
after all
this dame
is meant to be
our only hope now
-- that if, really,
you were with her
when her little friends
arranged it so that
Berta Cáceres
would never be able
to get in their faces again
over their stealing of the land
and the water
of the people, then hey
BREAKING: Inmate has escaped #Clinton insane asylum, seen here wearing blue nightgown walking dog in middle of day: image via Nick Short @PoliticalShort, 4 March 2016
Reaction of Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt., Ranking Member, Senate Appropriations Subcommittee On The State Department And Foreign Operations) On The Assassination Of Berta Caceres In Honduras
“Berta Caceres spent her life fighting for indigenous rights, and this horrific crime demonstrates that no one, not even an internationally known social activist, is safe in Honduras if they speak out against corruption or abuse of authority.
“Ms. Caceres was an inspiration to people around the world, and her death is a great loss for all the people of Honduras. The immediate question is what President Hernandez and his government -- which has too often ignored or passively condoned attacks against Honduran social activists -- will do to support an independent investigation, prosecution, and punishment of those responsible for this despicable crime.
“And beyond that, what steps will the government take to protect the many other Hondurans who have been deemed in need of protection, and to stand up for the rights of people like Berta who risk their lives in peacefully defending the environment and their livelihoods.
“The answers to those questions will weigh heavily on the Congress’s support for future assistance for that government.”
![A tractor prepares the asparagus fields ...A tractor prepares the asparagus fields with plastic film against the frost near Beelitz in Brandenburg, eastern Germany, on March 4, 2016. / AFP / dpa / Ralf Hirschberger / Germany OUTRALF HIRSCHBERGER/AFP/Getty Images]()
A tractor prepares the asparagus fields with plastic film to protect crops against frost, Brandenburg, Germany: photo by Ralf Hirschberger/AFP, 4 March 2016
A tractor prepares the asparagus fields with plastic film to protect crops against frost, Brandenburg, Germany: photo by Ralf Hirschberger/AFP, 4 March 2016
#ElNino fueling rain and snow in U.S. west this weekend says @NWS: image via NOAA Verified accont @NOAA, 4 March 2016
French President Francois Hollande embraces German Chancellor Angela Merkel as he welcomes her upon her arrival at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris: photo by Stephane De Sakutin/AFP, 4 March 2016
French President Francois Hollande embraces German Chancellor Angela Merkel as he welcomes her upon her arrival at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris: photo by Stephane De Sakutin/AFP, 4 March 2016
Oklahoma City Thunder’s Kevin Durant drives to the basket against Golden State Warriors’ Harrison Barnes during the second half of an NBA basketball game in Oakland, California: photo by Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP, 4 March 2016
Oklahoma City Thunder’s Kevin Durant drives to the basket between Golden State Warriors’ Harrison Barnes, left, and Shaun Livingston during the second half of an NBA basketball game in Oakland, California: photo by Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP, 4 March 2016
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany arrives in Paris for a meeting about Syria with President François Hollande of France: photo by Christophe Ena/Associated Press, 4 March 2016
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany arrives in Paris for a meeting about Syria with President François Hollande of France: photo by Christophe Ena/Associated Press, 4 March 2016
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall pose for a photograph outside Spencer House after getting married in London: photo by Stefan Wermuth/Reuters, 4 March 2016
![Media mogul Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall pose for a photograph in London...Media mogul Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall pose for a photograph in London, Britain March 4, 2016. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth]()
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall pose for a photograph outside Spencer House after getting married in London: photo by Stefan Wermuth/Reuters, 4 March 2016
Love (Turkey Foot, Virginia): photo by efo, 2016
Whenever anything really awful happens
gun sales go up
and that's because of love
and fear and hate and cruelty
in every new home
up and down the block
New Homes (California Central Valley): photo by efo, 31 January 2016
![Saturdays volunteers on the 1st of May, Kremlin [s.d.] | by The Graduate Institute, Geneva](http://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3914/14827313132_bf8d24a120_h.jpg)
![Portrait of Leon Trotsky, by Yury Annenkov, [s.d.] | by The Graduate Institute, Geneva](http://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3854/14427712126_c9028d550f_b.jpg)
![Demonstration of the War Invalids, Petrograd [April 1917] | by The Graduate Institute, Geneva](http://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3900/14576336083_dc61b2407b_b.jpg)
