{"id":64555,"date":"2021-03-05T04:58:27","date_gmt":"2021-03-05T04:58:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/?p=114119"},"modified":"2021-03-05T04:58:27","modified_gmt":"2021-03-05T04:58:27","slug":"from-the-murder-of-berta-caceres-to-dam-disaster-in-uttarakhand-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/03\/05\/from-the-murder-of-berta-caceres-to-dam-disaster-in-uttarakhand-2\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Murder of Berta C\u00e1ceres to Dam Disaster in Uttarakhand"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

March 2, 2021 was the five year anniversary of the murder of Berta C\u00e1ceres, who opposed the Agua Zarca dam in Honduras.\u00a0 That date was less than one month after the deaths of dozens of people from Tehri Dam disaster in Uttarakhand, India.\u00a0 The two stories together tell us far more about consequences of the insatiable greed of capitalism for more energy than either narrative does by itself.<\/p>\n

In addition to being sacred to the indigenous Lenca people<\/a> of Honduras, the Gualcarque River is a primary source of water for them to grow their food and harvest medicinal plants.\u00a0 Dams can flood fertile plains and deprive communities of water for livestock and crops.\u00a0 The Lenca knew what could happen if the company Desarrollos Energ\u00e9ticos<\/em> SA (DESA) were to build the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam on the Gualcarque<\/a>.\u00a0 As Nina Lakhani describes in Who Killed Berta C\u00e1ceres?<\/em>, the La Aurora<\/em> Dam, which started generating electricity in 2012 \u201cleft four miles of the El Zapotal<\/em> River bone dry and the surrounding forest bare.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2015, C\u00e1ceres won the Goldman Environmental Prize for organizing opposition to the Agua Zarca.\u00a0 She had been a co-founder of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH).\u00a0 The following year, thousands of Lenca marched to the capital Tegucigalpa demanding schools, clinics, roads and protection of ancestral lands.\u00a0 Indigenous groups uniting with them included Maya, Chorti, Misquitu, Tolupan, Tawahka and Pech.\u00a0 Lakhani describes that \u201cFrom the north coast came the colorfully dressed, drumming Garifunas: Afro-Hondurans who descend from West and Central African, Caribbean, European and Arawak people exiled to Central America by the British after a slave revolt in the late eighteenth century.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Garifuna leader, Miriam Miranda remembered that Berta stopped to sketch anti-imperialist murals on the US airbase in Palmerola.\u00a0 As Berta and Miranda became close during the more than two decades of joint work Berta began to identify with the Garifuna.\u00a0 She loved going with Miranda to the town of Vallecito to join Garifuna rituals with drums, smoke and dancing while enjoying herb-infused liquor.<\/p>\n

She knew that the Garifuna suffered landgrabs parallel to rivergrabs the Lencas experienced.\u00a0 Lakhani relates how the government ignored the ancestral land claims of the Garifuna as it gave land to \u201csettlers\u201d who sold them to palm oil magnates.\u00a0 In less than a decade lands held by Garifuna communities plummeted from 200,000 to 400 hectares.<\/p>\n

Similarly, in the Bajo Agu\u00e1n region the government allowed construction of a resort on ancient Garifuna burial sites and ancestral lands. The community was not consulted prior to the landgrab and 150 people died resisting it.<\/p>\n

Manufacturing Impressions <\/strong><\/p>\n

The dam-building elite had a thorn in its side that threatened the megaprojects.\u00a0 Due in no small part to 1995 efforts of Berta\u2019s mother Do\u00f1a Austra, Honduras had signed onto the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention of the International Labor Organization (known as ILO 169).\u00a0 It guarantees the right of indigenous communities to have \u201cfree, prior and informed consultations\u201d for any development affecting their land, culture or way of life.<\/p>\n

The first tactic of the elite for getting around this obstacle was to promise enormous benefits such as building roads and schools<\/a>.\u00a0 Or else, they claimed that the project would bring electricity for homes, a health clinic, an ambulance, and a flood of jobs.\u00a0 By the time the project was completed, few or no benefits had materialized.\u00a0 Who Killed Berta C\u00e1ceres?<\/em> documents what happened in communities that did not fall for empty promises.\u00a0 For the Honduran Los Encimos<\/em> dam, the power brokers bused in hundreds of people from neighboring El Salvador to sign a decree favoring the project.\u00a0 Following an October 2011 town hall meeting when residents voted 401 to 7 against the Agua Zarca dam, the mayor curried favor of the elite by issuing a permit for it two months later.<\/p>\n

Representatives of the company owning the future dam, DESA, repeated the absurd claim that they only bought land from willing sellers.\u00a0 Dam proponents then denounced Berta\u2019s COPINH organization as causing the division.\u00a0 In other words, the developers were skilled at shouting that project opponents were doing what they, the dam pushers, were, in fact, doing.\u00a0 Outside observers would then have difficulty distinguishing fact from fiction.\u00a0 If these impression management tricks failed to overcome Earth defenders, the method of threats and violence remained.<\/p>\n

Threats and Hit Lists<\/strong><\/p>\n

Berta was rare as she \u201ccould understand and analyze local struggles in a global context and had the capacity to unite different movements<\/a>, urban and rural, teachers and campesinos<\/em>, indigenous groups and mestizos.\u201d\u00a0 More than any other reason, this meant that Berta would be targeted by the cabal of business owners, government heads, military brass and foreign investors.<\/p>\n

Berta had told Lakhani that \u201cSeventy million people were killed across the continent for our natural resources.\u201d\u00a0 When a researcher for the Goldman prize committee visited Berta in Tegucigalpa, she asked him what would happen if she died before receiving the prize money<\/a>, a question no recipient had asked before.\u00a0 She had been warned not to stay in the same hotel<\/a> two nights in a row.<\/p>\n

Nina Lakhani documents how widespread and intensely grisley the murders in Honduras were.\u00a0 \u201cOlvin Gustavo Garc\u00eda Mej\u00eda was widely feared by COPINH.\u201d\u00a0 He boasted of having a personal hit list with Berta\u2019s name on it.\u00a0 In March 2015, Olvin used his machete to chop off the fingers of a dam opponent.<\/p>\n

Even more revealing were eyewitness reports to Lakhani from First Sergeant Rodrigo Cruz who saw a military hit list which included Berta.\u00a0 Cruz had survived a specialist training so grueling that only 8 of 200 completed it. The graduation ceremony included killing a dog, eating the raw meat, and getting a hug from the commander.<\/p>\n

On one mission Cruz reported being \u201cordered to shovel decomposing human remains into sacks which they took to an isolated forest reserve, doused them in diesel, petrol and rubbish and burned.\u201d\u00a0 At Corocito he saw \u201ctorture instruments, chains, hammers and nails, no people, but fresh clots of blood.\u201d\u00a0 During his Trujillo mission \u201cnaval colleagues handed over plastic bags containing human remains.\u00a0 Later that night they tossed them into a river heaving with crocodiles.\u201d\u00a0 After seeing Berta\u2019s name on a hit list belonging to his lieutenant, Cruz was sent on an extensive leave.\u00a0 When he heard that Berta was dead, he fled from Honduras fearing that he himself would be murdered.<\/p>\n

The Honduran elite discovered another weapon for its arsenal against environmental defenders: criminalization.\u00a0 During a 2020 interview with InSight Crime<\/em>, Lakhani reported a pattern suggestively similar to that practiced in the US and many other countries: \u201cPeople are still being killed but really the main weapon being used currently is criminalization<\/a>.\u00a0 There\u2019s so much fear involved, and it can really break up and silence a movement. All of your energy and resources go to trying to stay out of prison.\u201d<\/p>\n

2009 Coup as a Game Changer<\/strong><\/p>\n

On January 27, 2006 Manuel Zelaya was inaugurated as president of Honduras as an advocate of modest reforms such as reforestation, small business assistance, reduction of fossil fuels and an end to open pit mining.\u00a0 But even these baby steps were too much for the country\u2019s increasingly corrupt elites, who had the military march him out of his home in pajamas and into exile on June 28, 2009.\u00a0 As bad as the situation was before 2009, the coup intensified the violence.<\/p>\n

Though Barack Obama acknowledged that the coup was a coup, his underling Hillary Clinton quickly altered the official rhetoric, claiming that it was not a coup.\u00a0 She explained \u201cin her 2014 memoir, Hard Choices<\/em>, the US ensured that elections could take place before the ousted president, Manuel Zelaya<\/a>, was restored to office.\u201d\u00a0 This helped the coup ensure that Zelaya and his tiny improvements would not show their face again.<\/p>\n

The economic consequences of the coup were an avalanche of projects attacking the country’s land, water, air and indigenous cultures.\u00a0 The congress rushed to approve them without studies or oversight required by Honduran law.\u00a0 During the next eight years, almost 200 mining projects<\/a> received a nod.\u00a0 Lakhani records how, during one late night session in September 2010 congressional president Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez \u201csanctioned 40 hydroelectric dams without debate, consultation or adequate environmental impact studies.\u201d\u00a0 John Perry wrote in CounterPunch<\/em> that \u201cC\u00e1ceres received a leaked list of rivers<\/a>, including the Gualcarque, that were to be secretly \u2018sold off\u2019 to produce hydroelectricity. The Honduran congress went on to approve dozens of such projects without any consultation with affected communities. Berta\u2019s campaign to defend the rivers began on July 26, 2011 when she led the Lenca-based COPINH in a march on the presidential palace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dubious Partners of Green Energy <\/strong><\/p>\n

So-called \u201cgreen\u201d energy companies profited at least as much as other corporations from the great sell-off of Honduran treasures.\u00a0 Lakhani\u2019s research reveals that on June 2, 2010, the National Electric Company approved contracts for eight renewable energy corporations, including DESA, the owners of the Agua Zarca dam project.\u00a0 Though it had no track record of constructing anything, it received permits, a sales contract, and congressional approval.\u00a0 A 50-year license for the dam sailed through without any free, prior or informed consent from the Lenca people.\u00a0 Lakhani also documents that January 16, 2014 was a particularly good day<\/p>\n

\u2026 for solar and wind entrepreneurs as congress approved 30 energy contracts for 21 companies in one quick sitting.\u00a0 There was no bidding process\u2026 After the rivers were all sold, they started on wind and solar contracts\u2026\u00a0 Honduras boasts more than 200 tax exemption laws, which cost state coffers around $1.5 bn each year.\u00a0 Renewable energy entrepreneurs have benefited enormously, saving a whopping $1.4 bn between 2012 and 2016.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even the World Bank had its finger in the pie, despite its requirement to give socially responsible loans.\u00a0 It sought to cover up its role in Agua Zarca by channeling funds through intermediaries.<\/p>\n

Lakhani also relates stories of (a) how six members of congress embezzled $879,000 using a fake environmental group, Planeta Verde<\/em> (Green Planet); (b) connections between a criminal family and the solar company Proderssa; and, (c) the link between the solar plant in Choluteca and Douglas Bustillo, who was sentenced to 30 years for his role in the murder of Berta.<\/p>\n

Jorge Cu\u00e9llar writes that:<\/p>\n

DESA\u2019s Agua Zarca hydroelectric project, like similar megaprojects, effectively reconfigures communities into sacrifice zones<\/a> for insatiable energy needs. “Alternative\u201d energy (Alt E) is just one more category of energy which is added to the mix with fossil fuels.\u00a0 Increases in Alt E are not replacing fossil fuels, but are mainly being used to create feelings of do-goody.\u00a0 In cases where there is a preference for Alt E, it is due to short term profit.\u00a0 As Lakhani explains, \u201cAfrican palms were the most profitable crops because the oil was sold to North America and Europe for biofuel and could be traded in the carbon credit market.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A Farcical Trial<\/strong><\/p>\n

On March 2, 2016 Berta C\u00e1ceres was brutally murdered in her hometown of La Esperanza in western Honduras.\u00a0 The trial that followed was a transparent cover up.\u00a0 As Vijay Prashad notes, none of the executives of DESA<\/a>, the dam company responsible for the murder, were charged with the crime. \u00a0Lakhani reported in the InSight Crime<\/em> interview that \u201cThe crime was never framed as political murder, as gender-based violence or a hate crime against indigenous people despite the vitriolic and racist language that was used in phone chats about the Lenca people. There was a decision to make sure that anybody political, and the military and police as institutions, would be completely left out<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adam Isacson hit the nail on the head in his blog when describing those found guilty as \u201c\u2026 just trigger-pullers<\/a>, mid-level planners, or scapegoats\u2026 They are employed by Honduras\u2019s elite, but they aren\u2019t of the elite. They\u2019re on the make, and have found a rare path to social mobility in Honduras, beyond gang membership and drug trafficking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lakhani\u2019s own account reflects how bizarre and contrived the trial was.\u00a0 She recalls that \u201cMy request to read the admitted documents was denied. \u2018Yes, it\u2019s a public trial, yes, the documents are public, no, you can\u2019t read them,\u2019 said the court archivist.\u201d\u00a0 She heard international observers being told \u201cDon\u2019t worry, people will be convicted\u201d as if it was common knowledge that the outcome had been prescripted.\u00a0\u00a0 It was yet another exercise in impression management.<\/p>\n

US Role<\/strong><\/p>\n

Though there is no evidence that the US directly planned and executed the 2009 coup, its role has been to ensure that the coup remains intact.\u00a0 As Isacson asks, \u201cWhy did 1 in every 37 citizens<\/a> of Honduras end up detained at the US-Mexico border in 2019, after fleeing all the way across Mexico? Why did 30,000 more Hondurans petition for asylum in Mexico that same year?\u201d\u00a0 People are fleeing Honduras in such numbers in large part because the coup gang has shown that if it can get away with murdering someone as well known as Berta, it can murder anyone.<\/p>\n

In the New York Journal of Books<\/em>, Dan Beeton observes that \u201cauthors of the assassination have yet to be brought to justice<\/a>. The US government could insist that this happen; it could pressure Honduran authorities to find and arrest them, but it has not\u2026\u201d\u00a0 In fact, Lakhani points out that the US is doing the opposite by persecuting those trying to escape from the violence: \u201c\u2026 in 2010 US border patrol detained 13,580 Honduran nationals.\u00a0 The numbers jumped to over 91,000 in 2014 under Deporter-in-Chief Barack Obama.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though the US insists that it does not train the executioners in the Honduran militarized police, it does not deny that it trains the trainers \u2013 many of torturers in Central America attended the notorious School of the Americas.\u00a0 Even if the US were to withdraw its support from individual criminals in Honduras, they would be replaced by clones who would preserve the post-coup structure and power.\u00a0 Control was successfully passed from a mildly reformist Zelaya government to a criminal extractionist network which permeates state and corporate institutions.\u00a0 With aide and comfort from the US, the Honduran energy mob has reinvented itself.<\/p>\n

Coming to Uttarakhand <\/strong><\/p>\n

The story of dams in India may seem highly different from events on the other side of the globe.\u00a0 But lurking deep beneath surface appearances an eerie consistency links the two.\u00a0 One similarity between the widely separated areas is that, as in Honduras, the Indian government has aggressively pursued a development strategy of mines, logging and hydro-power.\u00a0 This often results in tribal people suffering<\/a> the disruption of their farming systems and relocation.<\/p>\n

On February 7, 2021 a deluge washed away two power plants of the Tehri Dam on the Bhagirathi River in the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand, India.\u00a0 At least 32 people were found dead and more than 150 were missing.\u00a0 The event barely made it to US media but has been extensively covered by the progressive Indian online publication Countercurrents<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 With 34 people trapped, \u201cRescue workers<\/a> armed with heavy construction equipment, drones and even sniffer dogs were struggling to penetrate the one-and-a-half-mile long tunnel that filled with ice-cold water, mud, rocks and debris.\u201d<\/p>\n

Years before construction of the Tehri Dam began, there was controversy regarding if it should even be built.\u00a0 Bharat Dogra, a regular contributor to Countercurrents<\/em>, wrote that \u201cthe Environmental Appraisal Committee<\/a> (River Valley Projects) of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India \u2026 has come to the unanimous conclusion that the Tehri Dam Project, as proposed, should not be taken up as it does not merit environmental clearance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The region has a history of dam disasters<\/a>:<\/p>\n

At least 29 workers were killed in a serious accident at the Tehri dam site (in Uttarakhand) on August 2 2004\u2026 On 14 February 2010 six workers died and 16 were seriously injured in Kinnaur district (Himachal Pradesh) when stones and boulders destabilized by the blasting work carried out for dam construction\u2026 Over 154 workers were killed in a span of 12 years, as over one worker was killed every month during the construction of the Nagarjunasagar dam.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Actually Existing Dangers in the Himalayas\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Several factors compound dangers of dams which are built in hazard-prone region of the Himalayas.\u00a0 First is the observation by seismologist Prof. James N. Brune that \u201cNo large rock-fill dam of the Tehri type has ever been tested by the shaking that an earthquake in this area could produce<\/a>\u2026 Given the number of persons who live downstream, the risk factor is also extreme.\u201d\u00a0 Second, the reservoirs created by the dams<\/a> can themselves increase the likelihood of quakes, a phenomenon called reservoir induced seismicity.\u00a0 Third is the huge tectonic plate below India called the \u201cIndian Plate.\u201d<\/p>\n

As economist Bharat Jhunjhunwala explains, \u201cThe rotation of the earth<\/a> is causing this plate to continually move northward just like any matter moves to the top in a centrifugal machine. The Indian Plate crashes into the Tibetan Plate as it moves to the north. The pressure between these two plates is leading to the continual rise of the Himalayas and also earthquakes in Uttarakhand in particular.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 The result is an earthquake in the region roughly every 10 years.<\/p>\n

Which of these was the primary cause of the February 2021 dam disaster?\u00a0 None of them.\u00a0 According to public health specialist Dr. Anamika Roy, the most likely cause was \u201cretreating glaciers which result in the formation of proglacial lakes<\/a>, which are often bounded by their sediments and stones, and therefore any breach in the boundaries may lead to a large stream of water rushing down the streams and lakes resulting in a flood down streams.\u201d\u00a0 Dr. Roy thinks that climate change is a leading factor in the formation of proglacial lakes.<\/p>\n

Professor of glaciology and hydrology Dr. Farooq Azam suggests that a hanging glacier falling<\/a> from 5600 meters could have caused a rock and ice avalanche, leading to the dam accident.\u00a0 Taken together, these factors indicate that the Himalayan region is a very bad place to build a dam.\u00a0 We might even say that the reason for the Tehri dam disaster was that the dam was built.<\/p>\n

Social Problems of Dam Disasters\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Bharat Dogra details a host of problems for those constructing dams in very remote areas<\/a> such as the Himalayas:<\/p>\n