What do you think?
Rate this book
Who Killed Berta Caceres?: Dams, Death Squads, and an Indigenous Defender's Battle for the Planet
A deeply affecting–and infuriating–portrait of the life and death of a courageous indigenous leader
The first time Honduran indigenous leader Berta Cáceres met the journalist Nina Lakhani, Cáceres said, ‘The army has an assassination list with my name at the top. I want to live, but in this country there is total impunity. When they want to kill me, they will do it.’ In 2015, Cáceres won the Goldman Prize, the world’s most prestigious environmental award, for leading a campaign to stop construction of an internationally funded hydroelectric dam on a river sacred to her Lenca people. Less than a year later she was dead.
Lakhani tracked Cáceres remarkable career, in which the defender doggedly pursued her work in the face of years of threats and while friends and colleagues in Honduras were exiled and killed defending basic rights. Lakhani herself endured intimidation and harassment as she investigated the murder. She was the only foreign journalist to attend the 2018 trial of Cáceres’s killers, where state security officials, employees of the dam company and hired hitmen were found guilty of murder. Many questions about who ordered and paid for the killing remain unanswered.
Drawing on more than a hundred interviews, confidential legal filings, and corporate documents unearthed after years of reporting in Honduras, Lakhani paints an intimate portrait of an extraordinary woman in a state beholden to corporate powers, organised crime, and the United States.
The first time Honduran indigenous leader Berta Cáceres met the journalist Nina Lakhani, Cáceres said, ‘The army has an assassination list with my name at the top. I want to live, but in this country there is total impunity. When they want to kill me, they will do it.’ In 2015, Cáceres won the Goldman Prize, the world’s most prestigious environmental award, for leading a campaign to stop construction of an internationally funded hydroelectric dam on a river sacred to her Lenca people. Less than a year later she was dead.
Lakhani tracked Cáceres remarkable career, in which the defender doggedly pursued her work in the face of years of threats and while friends and colleagues in Honduras were exiled and killed defending basic rights. Lakhani herself endured intimidation and harassment as she investigated the murder. She was the only foreign journalist to attend the 2018 trial of Cáceres’s killers, where state security officials, employees of the dam company and hired hitmen were found guilty of murder. Many questions about who ordered and paid for the killing remain unanswered.
Drawing on more than a hundred interviews, confidential legal filings, and corporate documents unearthed after years of reporting in Honduras, Lakhani paints an intimate portrait of an extraordinary woman in a state beholden to corporate powers, organised crime, and the United States.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published June 2, 2020
42 people are currently reading
949 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
November 30, 2020
El libro Who kill Berta Cáceres? (Verso, 2020) de Nina Lakhani, Periodista de The Guardian, cuyo título presenta una pregunta tan importante para la Historia de Honduras, desafortunadamente carece de respuestas. Especula, sí y mucho, pero falla en las expectativas de lo que debió ser una investigación más seria.
Lakhani ha hecho una carrera investigando temas ambientales y de Derechos Humanos a través del mundo. Actualmente y según sus palabras, es la corresponsal de The Guardian en la ciudad de Nueva York, luego de haber vivido en México por varios años. Como ella indica en el libro, hizo muchos viajes a Honduras antes y después del asesinato de Berta Cáceres, a quien entrevistó en su casa en 2013, cuando la campaña contra la represa Agua Zarca le dio el premio Golman 2015.
Su libro, sin embargo, parece un documento creado para hablar a sus amigos cercanos, activistas todos convencidos de esa verdad, que ella nunca busca cuestionar, aunque esta sea tan parcial como la que mantiene la parte acusada.
Lakhani usa para construir los capítulos más importantes de su libro, la información revelada en el juicio que reconoce incompleta, pues se queja cuando las condiciones del sistema jurídico hondureño no le permite el acceso que ella quisiera a la información de la fiscalía y cierra siempre con un “nunca sabremos”. Carece de fuentes que construyan un relato más completo de los acontecimientos que llevaron al crimen y a aquellos que pudieron darle una visión más panorámica de los mismos (familiares y gente cercana a los ahora juzgados responsables del crimen) y cuando se acerca a ellos, los acosa con opiniones personales que lejos de ayudarle en la investigación la alejan, porque la repelen. Poca información se puede sacar en una entrevista de una fuente que de entrada acusa a la entrevistadora de parcializada y mentirosa. Cita entonces únicamente a las fuentes cercanas a la víctima: amigos y familiares que mantienen en unísono un relato maniqueo a través del libro, como que una sola fuente sirviera para dar respuesta a la pregunta: ¿Quién mató a Berta Cáceres?
Los familiares de la víctima, los activistas hondureños, el pueblo en general, tienen todo el derecho del mundo de tener la visión tan parcializada de las cosas como ellos quieran tener. Los familiares como víctimas pueden señalar a quién su razón y corazón indiquen como responsables sin preocuparse por dar prueba alguna. Es su derecho y nadie puede juzgarlos por eso, después de todo, la pérdida de una madre, una hermana, una hija o una amiga y compañera como Berta es irreparable. Pero Nina Lakhani no. Ella, como periodista, como corresponsal de un medio internacional es responsable de sus palabras, porque esas pueden ser usadas para herir, incluso, a gente inocente.
Nina Lakhani no se conforma con la verdad jurídica del juicio, como los familiares y el movimiento popular de Honduras lo acusan de parcializado. Ella pretende ir más allá y señalar en su libro a los “verdaderos” autores intelectuales del asesinato, pero, nuevamente, no se preocupa por presentar prueba alguna.
Lakhani, aunque en su libro dedica tres cuartas partes para hablar de Historia hondureña ni siquiera intenta explorar las razones profundas de tan compleja realidad y quizás, siendo auto críticos, no sea esa su responsabilidad, dadas las características de periodismo de espectáculo paracaidista que ella y todos los corresponsales extranjeros ejercen cuando aterrizan en el Toncontin para “reportar” desde “el país más violento del mundo”.
Con un tono casi didáctico, Lakhani cuenta en su libro una versión de la Historia hondureña que la hace ver bien a ella, la periodista valiente perseguida por las mismas fuerzas oscuras que mataron a Berta, aunque sus descripciones carezcan de contexto o incluso, a veces pequen de irresponsables.
Situaciones tan complejas como la crisis agraria del Bajo Aguán, Lakhani la reduce a un western americano, a una situación de buenos campesinos y malos terratenientes. Se atreve incluso a señalar con nombre y apellido, sin prueba alguna, a líderes conocidos del movimiento agrario, inmersos en la completa situación de violencia en la zona, como responsables de “haber vendido al movimiento campesino” sin saber que sus palabras puedan traer la muerte a quienes quizás no son responsables de las acciones que alguien le comentó a ella, y obvia indicar el parentesco con el exdiputado de Libre Rafael Alegría, del campesino vinculado a la banda de asesinos “infiltrados” en el MUCA, Célio Rodríguez, porque quizás esa relación “pueda afectar al movimiento social del país”.
Da la impresión entonces que, en la Honduras de Lakhani, la solución de todos los problemas se redujeran a sacar del poder a un grupo perverso, inhumano y criminal, responsables del saqueo de los recursos naturales de los pueblos indígenas, sin ir más allá, al fondo, a unas relaciones capitalistas internacionales en donde el país está inmerso en un mercado para el cual nada tiene que ofrecer, sino sus recursos naturales y su gente.
Los activistas del partido libre y del movimiento social pueden usar la tesis del narco estado o estado fallido en sus discursos, después de todo están en un juego político en donde la verdad es estirada a conveniencia de grupo. Pero, nuevamente, ella no, ella debió ir más a fondo de lo que nos está contando. La versión de Honduras para principiantes que Nina Lakhani nos presenta en su libro no nos basta.
Lakhani habla de narcotráfico y narco estado, con la misma facilidad con que nos habla del Bajo Aguan, nuevamente sin contexto, reduciendo la compleja realidad de cuarenta años de Historia regional a solo unas decenas de páginas repletas de opiniones personales sin fuentes que nos permitan, como lectores, contrastar las tesis que pobremente expresa a lo largo del libro. Honduras es un narco estado, dice ella y sí, quizás sea cierto, pero la respuesta a una realidad tan compleja no puede reducirla a un partido político o a una persona determinada.
A través de más de 20 páginas, la autora nos retrata lo que parece ser una conspiración al más alto nivel, entre la familia Atala y altos ejecutivos del gobierno, que se pusieron de acuerdo para eliminar a una persona que les estaba saliendo demasiado cara para sus inversiones. Decir eso cualquiera lo puede hacer, no se necesita ser corresponsal de ningún medio internacional para decirlo, cientos de páginas en Facebook están dedicadas a “desnudar” a los “autores intelectuales” del crimen de Berta Cáceres, pero no Nina Lakhani, ella no necesita presentar ninguna prueba para un juicio tan complejo, porque sabe, en la realidad alterna que se vive en las redes sociales, que ella lo diga es ya prueba irrefutable de que es cierto.
¿Quién mató a Berta Cáceres?, el libro de Ninfa Lakhani es, lamentablemente, un libro más de teorías de conspiración, que poco servirá para conocer la verdad, porque viene a decirnos más de los que ya hemos escuchado, sin darnos nada nuevo.
Lakhani ha hecho una carrera investigando temas ambientales y de Derechos Humanos a través del mundo. Actualmente y según sus palabras, es la corresponsal de The Guardian en la ciudad de Nueva York, luego de haber vivido en México por varios años. Como ella indica en el libro, hizo muchos viajes a Honduras antes y después del asesinato de Berta Cáceres, a quien entrevistó en su casa en 2013, cuando la campaña contra la represa Agua Zarca le dio el premio Golman 2015.
Su libro, sin embargo, parece un documento creado para hablar a sus amigos cercanos, activistas todos convencidos de esa verdad, que ella nunca busca cuestionar, aunque esta sea tan parcial como la que mantiene la parte acusada.
Lakhani usa para construir los capítulos más importantes de su libro, la información revelada en el juicio que reconoce incompleta, pues se queja cuando las condiciones del sistema jurídico hondureño no le permite el acceso que ella quisiera a la información de la fiscalía y cierra siempre con un “nunca sabremos”. Carece de fuentes que construyan un relato más completo de los acontecimientos que llevaron al crimen y a aquellos que pudieron darle una visión más panorámica de los mismos (familiares y gente cercana a los ahora juzgados responsables del crimen) y cuando se acerca a ellos, los acosa con opiniones personales que lejos de ayudarle en la investigación la alejan, porque la repelen. Poca información se puede sacar en una entrevista de una fuente que de entrada acusa a la entrevistadora de parcializada y mentirosa. Cita entonces únicamente a las fuentes cercanas a la víctima: amigos y familiares que mantienen en unísono un relato maniqueo a través del libro, como que una sola fuente sirviera para dar respuesta a la pregunta: ¿Quién mató a Berta Cáceres?
Los familiares de la víctima, los activistas hondureños, el pueblo en general, tienen todo el derecho del mundo de tener la visión tan parcializada de las cosas como ellos quieran tener. Los familiares como víctimas pueden señalar a quién su razón y corazón indiquen como responsables sin preocuparse por dar prueba alguna. Es su derecho y nadie puede juzgarlos por eso, después de todo, la pérdida de una madre, una hermana, una hija o una amiga y compañera como Berta es irreparable. Pero Nina Lakhani no. Ella, como periodista, como corresponsal de un medio internacional es responsable de sus palabras, porque esas pueden ser usadas para herir, incluso, a gente inocente.
Nina Lakhani no se conforma con la verdad jurídica del juicio, como los familiares y el movimiento popular de Honduras lo acusan de parcializado. Ella pretende ir más allá y señalar en su libro a los “verdaderos” autores intelectuales del asesinato, pero, nuevamente, no se preocupa por presentar prueba alguna.
Lakhani, aunque en su libro dedica tres cuartas partes para hablar de Historia hondureña ni siquiera intenta explorar las razones profundas de tan compleja realidad y quizás, siendo auto críticos, no sea esa su responsabilidad, dadas las características de periodismo de espectáculo paracaidista que ella y todos los corresponsales extranjeros ejercen cuando aterrizan en el Toncontin para “reportar” desde “el país más violento del mundo”.
Con un tono casi didáctico, Lakhani cuenta en su libro una versión de la Historia hondureña que la hace ver bien a ella, la periodista valiente perseguida por las mismas fuerzas oscuras que mataron a Berta, aunque sus descripciones carezcan de contexto o incluso, a veces pequen de irresponsables.
Situaciones tan complejas como la crisis agraria del Bajo Aguán, Lakhani la reduce a un western americano, a una situación de buenos campesinos y malos terratenientes. Se atreve incluso a señalar con nombre y apellido, sin prueba alguna, a líderes conocidos del movimiento agrario, inmersos en la completa situación de violencia en la zona, como responsables de “haber vendido al movimiento campesino” sin saber que sus palabras puedan traer la muerte a quienes quizás no son responsables de las acciones que alguien le comentó a ella, y obvia indicar el parentesco con el exdiputado de Libre Rafael Alegría, del campesino vinculado a la banda de asesinos “infiltrados” en el MUCA, Célio Rodríguez, porque quizás esa relación “pueda afectar al movimiento social del país”.
Da la impresión entonces que, en la Honduras de Lakhani, la solución de todos los problemas se redujeran a sacar del poder a un grupo perverso, inhumano y criminal, responsables del saqueo de los recursos naturales de los pueblos indígenas, sin ir más allá, al fondo, a unas relaciones capitalistas internacionales en donde el país está inmerso en un mercado para el cual nada tiene que ofrecer, sino sus recursos naturales y su gente.
Los activistas del partido libre y del movimiento social pueden usar la tesis del narco estado o estado fallido en sus discursos, después de todo están en un juego político en donde la verdad es estirada a conveniencia de grupo. Pero, nuevamente, ella no, ella debió ir más a fondo de lo que nos está contando. La versión de Honduras para principiantes que Nina Lakhani nos presenta en su libro no nos basta.
Lakhani habla de narcotráfico y narco estado, con la misma facilidad con que nos habla del Bajo Aguan, nuevamente sin contexto, reduciendo la compleja realidad de cuarenta años de Historia regional a solo unas decenas de páginas repletas de opiniones personales sin fuentes que nos permitan, como lectores, contrastar las tesis que pobremente expresa a lo largo del libro. Honduras es un narco estado, dice ella y sí, quizás sea cierto, pero la respuesta a una realidad tan compleja no puede reducirla a un partido político o a una persona determinada.
A través de más de 20 páginas, la autora nos retrata lo que parece ser una conspiración al más alto nivel, entre la familia Atala y altos ejecutivos del gobierno, que se pusieron de acuerdo para eliminar a una persona que les estaba saliendo demasiado cara para sus inversiones. Decir eso cualquiera lo puede hacer, no se necesita ser corresponsal de ningún medio internacional para decirlo, cientos de páginas en Facebook están dedicadas a “desnudar” a los “autores intelectuales” del crimen de Berta Cáceres, pero no Nina Lakhani, ella no necesita presentar ninguna prueba para un juicio tan complejo, porque sabe, en la realidad alterna que se vive en las redes sociales, que ella lo diga es ya prueba irrefutable de que es cierto.
¿Quién mató a Berta Cáceres?, el libro de Ninfa Lakhani es, lamentablemente, un libro más de teorías de conspiración, que poco servirá para conocer la verdad, porque viene a decirnos más de los que ya hemos escuchado, sin darnos nada nuevo.
July 6, 2020
Between 2002 and 2017 some 1,500 activists were killed for their roles in protecting water, land, natural resources and the communities that rely on them. The death rate among environmental activists during the period was higher than for UK soldiers deployed to combat zones. One of those murdered campaigners was Berta Cáceres, a Honduran campaigner who had won the Goldman Environmental prize in 2015. A year later she was shot to death in her own home.
Journalist Nina Lakhani's work has focused on Honduras and activists like Berta Cáceres. This detailed book is the story of the murder and the struggle to for justice. At the end of it, several individuals are found guilty and are imprisoned. But what makes Lakhani's book so important is that the murder (and the role of those convicted) is put into the wider context of Honduran history and current political situation.
Full review: http://resolutereader.blogspot.com/20...
Journalist Nina Lakhani's work has focused on Honduras and activists like Berta Cáceres. This detailed book is the story of the murder and the struggle to for justice. At the end of it, several individuals are found guilty and are imprisoned. But what makes Lakhani's book so important is that the murder (and the role of those convicted) is put into the wider context of Honduran history and current political situation.
Full review: http://resolutereader.blogspot.com/20...
June 15, 2020
This is a well-written and detailed account of the killing of Berta Caceres, an award-winning environmentalist and crusader of indigenous rights. Berta worked tirelessly for the Lenca people of Honduras. She was a true hero that did whatever it took to protect their lifestyle and their homes. In this account, the author portrays just how far her opposition went in order to get rid of her and proceed with building their dam.
Lakhani doesn't hold back as she names prominent names, places and dates surrounding Berta's death, names I recognize, even that of the current president of Honduras. She writes in nitty-gritty detail of the history, the lead-up to the murder, the trial and the convictions. The corruption, lawlessness and greed play heavily in the author's account playing into Honduras' reputation as being one of the most dangerous countries of the world.
As an expat living in Honduras, I can vividly recall the sadness and shock surrounding Berta's murder. After her death and during the one-year anniversary, demonstrators shouted Berta's name as they paraded along Tegucigalpa's streets holding up her over-sized photos.. Graffiti on buildings in the city still bear her name and that of COPINH, the organization she belonged to that honored the rights of the indigenous.
One of the things that makes this book so exceptional is that despite her notoriety in Honduras and around the world, Berta was still not protected from basic thugs. A brave and profound portrayal of a woman and country at odds with basic human rights, all in the name of money and development. Lakhani's vivid accounts of Berta's life's work will forever resonate with me now that I have had the opportunity to read about her life and her mission.. I highly recommend this book.
Thank you to Netgalley, publisher and Nina Lakhani for the opportunity to read and review this book.
Lakhani doesn't hold back as she names prominent names, places and dates surrounding Berta's death, names I recognize, even that of the current president of Honduras. She writes in nitty-gritty detail of the history, the lead-up to the murder, the trial and the convictions. The corruption, lawlessness and greed play heavily in the author's account playing into Honduras' reputation as being one of the most dangerous countries of the world.
As an expat living in Honduras, I can vividly recall the sadness and shock surrounding Berta's murder. After her death and during the one-year anniversary, demonstrators shouted Berta's name as they paraded along Tegucigalpa's streets holding up her over-sized photos.. Graffiti on buildings in the city still bear her name and that of COPINH, the organization she belonged to that honored the rights of the indigenous.
One of the things that makes this book so exceptional is that despite her notoriety in Honduras and around the world, Berta was still not protected from basic thugs. A brave and profound portrayal of a woman and country at odds with basic human rights, all in the name of money and development. Lakhani's vivid accounts of Berta's life's work will forever resonate with me now that I have had the opportunity to read about her life and her mission.. I highly recommend this book.
Thank you to Netgalley, publisher and Nina Lakhani for the opportunity to read and review this book.
July 6, 2020
Berta Cáceres was a Honduran political activist, fighting for environmental and indigenous rights. She was murdered in 2016 by hired assassins.
Guardian journalist Nina Lakhani has been following her story for a number of years. In Who Killed Berta Cáceres?, she skilfully threads together the disparate elements of this story: the political context in Honduras, Berta’s life and campaigning, and the aftermath of her death and the investigation.
Berta was an internationally known figure, winner of the Goldman Prize in 2015 for her environmental work with indigenous organisations, opposing the construction of four giant dams. Despite that she was still murdered.
While a number of men were convicted of her murder and the court confirmed that Desa, the company building the dam, was responsible for ordering her murder, the people who hired the hitmen have still not faced justice.
Lakhani draws on her long-established relationships with Berta, her allies and her family to tell the personal story of Berta alongside the political developments. She presents a nuanced account of Berta, and shows how her conviction and commitment impacted on those around her, and the dangers she confronted every day.
The book is underpinned by a detailed understanding of the political context. As a general reader, I felt a bit overwhelmed at times by all the organisations and their acronyms, but Lakhani’s knowledge and commitment shines through.
For anyone with an interest in environmentalism, corporate corruption or the politics of the region, this is a comprehensive and powerful account.
*
I received a copy of Who Killed Berta Cáceres? from Verso.
Guardian journalist Nina Lakhani has been following her story for a number of years. In Who Killed Berta Cáceres?, she skilfully threads together the disparate elements of this story: the political context in Honduras, Berta’s life and campaigning, and the aftermath of her death and the investigation.
Berta was an internationally known figure, winner of the Goldman Prize in 2015 for her environmental work with indigenous organisations, opposing the construction of four giant dams. Despite that she was still murdered.
While a number of men were convicted of her murder and the court confirmed that Desa, the company building the dam, was responsible for ordering her murder, the people who hired the hitmen have still not faced justice.
Lakhani draws on her long-established relationships with Berta, her allies and her family to tell the personal story of Berta alongside the political developments. She presents a nuanced account of Berta, and shows how her conviction and commitment impacted on those around her, and the dangers she confronted every day.
The book is underpinned by a detailed understanding of the political context. As a general reader, I felt a bit overwhelmed at times by all the organisations and their acronyms, but Lakhani’s knowledge and commitment shines through.
For anyone with an interest in environmentalism, corporate corruption or the politics of the region, this is a comprehensive and powerful account.
*
I received a copy of Who Killed Berta Cáceres? from Verso.
February 23, 2025
Human rights and environmental justice defenders are under constant threat of violence. Especially for women and indigenous leaders this threat is often deadly. This book illustrates how repressive violence is organised by unweaving the tightly knit web of state violence, impunity, rampant capitalism and machismo surrounding the murder of Berta Caceras. However, as someone less familiar with the political situation of Honduras, I found myself losing track often. I could've benefited from a slightly slower pace. Nevertheless, an important book.
December 18, 2025
I read the French version and I think the translation may have been a bit dry. However!
Lakhani's investigation is incredibly detailed and her investment in Berta's case shines through. The most interesting bit was her exploration of how DESA benefitted from the 2009 US-backed coup, which unleashed a flood of foreign investment and neoliberal development projects with no regard for indigenous ownership of natural resources or the consequences of extractive industry on local communities. Very classic. But then, Honduras has been uniquely vulnerable to US intervention since the 70/80s when it served as the US's base against the Sandinistas. It was also completely unsurprising to learn that DESA was tight with the School of the Americas, where we train all our proxy terrorists to unleash the latest and greatest US counterinsurgency tactics in the third world. Also classic! All my homies hate the School of the Americas.
Lakhani also paints a very moving portrait of Berta as all she was -- an activist, a guerrilla, a mother, a daughter, a lover, a dreamer.
Lakhani's investigation is incredibly detailed and her investment in Berta's case shines through. The most interesting bit was her exploration of how DESA benefitted from the 2009 US-backed coup, which unleashed a flood of foreign investment and neoliberal development projects with no regard for indigenous ownership of natural resources or the consequences of extractive industry on local communities. Very classic. But then, Honduras has been uniquely vulnerable to US intervention since the 70/80s when it served as the US's base against the Sandinistas. It was also completely unsurprising to learn that DESA was tight with the School of the Americas, where we train all our proxy terrorists to unleash the latest and greatest US counterinsurgency tactics in the third world. Also classic! All my homies hate the School of the Americas.
Lakhani also paints a very moving portrait of Berta as all she was -- an activist, a guerrilla, a mother, a daughter, a lover, a dreamer.
September 10, 2025
An expose of the systemic corruption that fuels Honduran politics and of the American policies that encourage such corruption. While the book is repetitive at times, it demonstrates the enormous (and often lethal) obstacles that environmental activists like Cáceres face.
June 10, 2020
“They build dams and kill people.” These words, spoken by a witness when the murderers of environmental defender Berta Cáceres were brought to trial in Honduras, describe Desarrollos Energéticos SA (DESA), the company whose dam project Berta opposed. DESA was created in May 2009 solely to build the Agua Zarca hydroelectric scheme, using the waters of the Gualcarque River, regarded as sacred by the Lenca communities who live on its banks. As Nina Lakhani makes clear in her book Who Killed Berta Cáceres?, DESA was one of many companies to benefit from the 2009 coup d’état in Honduras, when the left-leaning President Manuel Zelaya was deposed and replaced by a sequence of corrupt administrations. The president of DESA and its head of security were both US-trained former Honduran military officers, schooled in counterinsurgency. By 2010, despite having no track record of building dams, DESA had already obtained the permits it needed to produce and sell electricity, and by 2011, with no local consultation, it had received its environmental licence.
Much of Honduras’s corruption derives from the drug trade, leading last year to being labelled a narco-state in which (according to the prosecution in a US court case against the current president’s brother) drug traffickers “infiltrated the Honduran government and they controlled it.” But equally devastating for many rural communities has been the government’s embrace of extractivism – an economic model that sees the future of countries like Honduras (and the future wealth of their elites) in the plundering and export of its natural resources. Mega-projects that produce energy, mine gold and other minerals, or convert forests to palm-oil plantations, are being opposed by activists who, like Cáceres, have been killed or are under threat. Lakhani quotes a high-ranking judge she spoke to, sacked for denouncing the 2009 coup, as saying that Zelaya was deposed precisely because he stood in the way of this economic model and the roll-out of extractive industries that it required.
The coup “unleashed a tsunami of environmentally destructive ‘development’ projects as the new regime set about seizing resource-rich territories.” After the post-coup elections, the then president Porfirio Lobo declared Honduras open for business, aiming to “relaunch Honduras as the most attractive investment destination in Latin America.” Over eight years, almost 200 mining projects were approved. Cáceres received a leaked list of rivers, including the Gualcarque, that were to be secretly “sold off” to produce hydroelectricity. The Honduran congress went on to approve dozens of such projects without any consultation with affected communities. Berta’s campaign to defend the rivers began on July 26, 2011 when she led the Lenca-based COPINH (“Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras”) in a march on the presidential palace. As a result, Lobo met Cáceres and promised there would be consultations before projects began – a promise he never kept.
Lakhani’s book gives us an insight into the personal history that brought Berta Cáceres to this point. She came from a family of political activists. As a teenager she read books on Marxism and the Cuban revolution. But Honduras is unlike its three neighbouring countries where there were strong revolutionary movements in the 1970s and 1980s. The US had already been granted free rein in Honduras in exchange for “dollars, training in torture-based interrogation methods, and silence.” It was a country the US could count on, having used it in the 1980s as the base for its “Contra” war against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Its elite governing class, dominated by rich families from Eastern Europe and the Middle East, was also unusual. One, the Atala Zablah family, became the financial backers of the dam; others, such as Miguel Facussé Barjum, with his palm oil plantations in the Bajo Aguán, backed other exploitative projects.
At the age of only 18, looking for political inspiration and action, Berta left Honduras and went with her future husband Salvador Zúñiga to neighbouring El Salvador. She joined the FMLN guerrilla movement and spent months fighting against the US-supported right-wing government. Zúñiga describes her as having been “strong and fearless” even when the unit they were in came under attack. But in an important sense, her strong political convictions were tempered by the fighting: she resolved that “whatever we did in Honduras, it would be without guns.”
Inspired also by the Zapatista struggle in Mexico and by Guatemala’s feminist leader Rigoberta Menchú, Berta and Salvador created COPINH in 1993 to demand indigenous rights for the Lenca people, organising their first march on the capital Tegucigalpa in 1994. From this point Berta began to learn of the experiences of Honduras’s other indigenous groups, especially the Garífuna on its northern coast, and saw how they fitted within a pattern repeated across Latin America. As Lakhani says, “she always understood local struggles in political and geopolitical terms.” By 2001 she was speaking at international conferences challenging the neo-liberal economic model, basing her arguments on the exploitation experienced by the Honduran communities she now knew well. She warned of an impending “death sentence” for the Lenca people, tragically foreseeing the fate of herself and other Lenca leaders. Mexican activist Gustavo Castro, later to be targeted alongside her, said “Berta helped make Honduras visible. Until then, its social movement, political struggles and resistance were largely unknown to the rest of the region.”
In Río Blanco, where the Lenca community voted 401 to 7 against the dam, COPINH’s struggle continued. By 2013, the community seemed close to winning, at the cost of activists being killed or injured by soldiers guarding the construction. They had blocked the access road to the site for a whole year and the Chinese engineering firm had given up its contract. The World Bank allegedly pulled its funding, although Lakhani shows that its money later went back into the project via a bank owned by the Atala Faraj family. In April 2015 Berta was awarded the Goldman Prize for her “grassroots campaign that successfully pressured the world’s largest dam builder to pull out of the Agua Zarca Dam.”
Then in July 2015, DESA decided to go ahead by itself. Peaceful protests were met by violent repression and bulldozers demolished settlements. Threats against the leaders, and Berta in particular, increased. Protective measures granted to her by the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights were never properly implemented. On February 20 2016, a peaceful march was stopped and 100 protesters were detained by DESA guards. On February 25, 50 families had to watch the demolition of their houses in the community of La Jarcia.
The horrific events on the night of Wednesday March 2 are retold by Nina Lakhani. Armed men burst through the back door of Berta’s house and shot her. They also injured Gustavo Castro, who was visiting Berta; he waited until the men had left, found her, and she died in his arms. Early the following morning, police and army officers arrived, dealing aggressively with the family and community members who were waiting to speak to them. Attempted robbery, a jilted lover and rivalry within COPINH were all considered as motives for the crime. Eventually, investigators turned their attention to those who had threatened to kill her in the preceding months. By the first anniversary of Berta’s death the stuttering investigation had led to eight arrests, but the people who ordered the murder were still enjoying impunity. Some of the accused were connected to the military, which was not surprising since Lakhani later revealed in a report for The Guardian that she had uncovered a military hit list with Berta’s name on it. In the book she reports that the ex-soldier who told her about it is still in hiding: he had seen not only the list but also one of the secret torture centers maintained by the military.
Nina Lakhani is a brave reporter. She had to be. Since the coup in Honduras, 83 journalists have been killed; 21 were thrown in prison during the period when Lakhani was writing her book. She poses the question “would we ever know who killed Berta Cáceres?” and sets out to answer it.
Despite her diligent and often risky investigation, she can only give a partial answer. Those arrested and since convicted almost certainly include the hitmen who carried out the murder, but it is far from the clear that the intellectual authors of the crime have been caught. In 2017 Lakhani interviewed or attempted to interview all eight of those imprisoned and awaiting trial, casting a sometimes-sympathetic light on their likely involvement and why they took part.
It took almost two years before one of the crime’s likely instigators, David Castillo, the president of DESA, was arrested. Lakhani heads back to prison to interview him, too, and finds that Castillo disquietingly thinks she is the reason he’s in prison. “There is no way I am ever sitting down to talk to her,” he says to the guard. Nevertheless they talk, with Castillo both denying his involvement in the murder and accusing Lakhani of implicating him. Afterwards she takes “a big breath” and writes down what he’s said.
In September 2018, the murder case finally went to trial, and Lakhani is at court to hear it, but the hearing is suspended. On the same day she starts to receive threats, reported in London’s Press Gazette and duly receiving international attention. Not surprisingly she sees this as an attempt to intimidate her into not covering the trial. Nevertheless, when it reopens on October 25, she is there.
The trial reveals a weird mix of diligent police work and careful forensic evidence, together with the investigation’s obvious gaps. Not the least of these was the absence of Gustavo Castro, the only witness, whose return to Honduras was obstructed by the attorney general’s office. Castillo, though by then charged with masterminding the murder, was not part of the trial. Most of the evidence was not made public or even revealed to the accused. The Cáceres family’s lawyers were denied a part in the trial.
“The who did what, why and how was missing,” says Lakhani, “until we got the phone evidence which was the game changer.” The phone evidence benefitted from an expert witness who explained in detail how it implicated the accused. She revealed that an earlier plan to carry out the murder in February was postponed. She showed the positions of the accused on the night in the following month when Berta was killed. She also made clear that members of the Atala family were involved.
When the verdict was delivered on November 29 2018, seven of the eight accused were found guilty, but it wasn’t until December 2019 that they were given long sentences. That’s where Nina Lakhani’s story ends. By then Honduras had endured a fraudulent election, its president’s brother had been found guilty of drug running in the US, and tens of thousands of Hondurans were heading north in migrant caravans. David Castillo hasn’t yet been brought to trial, and last year was accused by the School of Americas Watch of involvement in a wider range of crimes. Lakhani revealed in The Guardian that he owns a luxury home in Texas. He’s in preventative detention, but according to COPINH enjoys “VIP” conditions and may well be released because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Two of those already imprisoned may also be released. Daniel Atala Midence, accused by COPINH of being a key intellectual author of the crime as DESA’s chief financial officer, has never been indicted.
The Agua Zarca dam project has not been officially cancelled although DESA’s phone number and email address are no longer in service. Other environmentally disastrous projects continue to face opposition by COPINH and its sister organisations representing different Honduran communities. And a full answer to the question “Who Killed Berta Cáceres?” is still awaited.
Much of Honduras’s corruption derives from the drug trade, leading last year to being labelled a narco-state in which (according to the prosecution in a US court case against the current president’s brother) drug traffickers “infiltrated the Honduran government and they controlled it.” But equally devastating for many rural communities has been the government’s embrace of extractivism – an economic model that sees the future of countries like Honduras (and the future wealth of their elites) in the plundering and export of its natural resources. Mega-projects that produce energy, mine gold and other minerals, or convert forests to palm-oil plantations, are being opposed by activists who, like Cáceres, have been killed or are under threat. Lakhani quotes a high-ranking judge she spoke to, sacked for denouncing the 2009 coup, as saying that Zelaya was deposed precisely because he stood in the way of this economic model and the roll-out of extractive industries that it required.
The coup “unleashed a tsunami of environmentally destructive ‘development’ projects as the new regime set about seizing resource-rich territories.” After the post-coup elections, the then president Porfirio Lobo declared Honduras open for business, aiming to “relaunch Honduras as the most attractive investment destination in Latin America.” Over eight years, almost 200 mining projects were approved. Cáceres received a leaked list of rivers, including the Gualcarque, that were to be secretly “sold off” to produce hydroelectricity. The Honduran congress went on to approve dozens of such projects without any consultation with affected communities. Berta’s campaign to defend the rivers began on July 26, 2011 when she led the Lenca-based COPINH (“Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras”) in a march on the presidential palace. As a result, Lobo met Cáceres and promised there would be consultations before projects began – a promise he never kept.
Lakhani’s book gives us an insight into the personal history that brought Berta Cáceres to this point. She came from a family of political activists. As a teenager she read books on Marxism and the Cuban revolution. But Honduras is unlike its three neighbouring countries where there were strong revolutionary movements in the 1970s and 1980s. The US had already been granted free rein in Honduras in exchange for “dollars, training in torture-based interrogation methods, and silence.” It was a country the US could count on, having used it in the 1980s as the base for its “Contra” war against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Its elite governing class, dominated by rich families from Eastern Europe and the Middle East, was also unusual. One, the Atala Zablah family, became the financial backers of the dam; others, such as Miguel Facussé Barjum, with his palm oil plantations in the Bajo Aguán, backed other exploitative projects.
At the age of only 18, looking for political inspiration and action, Berta left Honduras and went with her future husband Salvador Zúñiga to neighbouring El Salvador. She joined the FMLN guerrilla movement and spent months fighting against the US-supported right-wing government. Zúñiga describes her as having been “strong and fearless” even when the unit they were in came under attack. But in an important sense, her strong political convictions were tempered by the fighting: she resolved that “whatever we did in Honduras, it would be without guns.”
Inspired also by the Zapatista struggle in Mexico and by Guatemala’s feminist leader Rigoberta Menchú, Berta and Salvador created COPINH in 1993 to demand indigenous rights for the Lenca people, organising their first march on the capital Tegucigalpa in 1994. From this point Berta began to learn of the experiences of Honduras’s other indigenous groups, especially the Garífuna on its northern coast, and saw how they fitted within a pattern repeated across Latin America. As Lakhani says, “she always understood local struggles in political and geopolitical terms.” By 2001 she was speaking at international conferences challenging the neo-liberal economic model, basing her arguments on the exploitation experienced by the Honduran communities she now knew well. She warned of an impending “death sentence” for the Lenca people, tragically foreseeing the fate of herself and other Lenca leaders. Mexican activist Gustavo Castro, later to be targeted alongside her, said “Berta helped make Honduras visible. Until then, its social movement, political struggles and resistance were largely unknown to the rest of the region.”
In Río Blanco, where the Lenca community voted 401 to 7 against the dam, COPINH’s struggle continued. By 2013, the community seemed close to winning, at the cost of activists being killed or injured by soldiers guarding the construction. They had blocked the access road to the site for a whole year and the Chinese engineering firm had given up its contract. The World Bank allegedly pulled its funding, although Lakhani shows that its money later went back into the project via a bank owned by the Atala Faraj family. In April 2015 Berta was awarded the Goldman Prize for her “grassroots campaign that successfully pressured the world’s largest dam builder to pull out of the Agua Zarca Dam.”
Then in July 2015, DESA decided to go ahead by itself. Peaceful protests were met by violent repression and bulldozers demolished settlements. Threats against the leaders, and Berta in particular, increased. Protective measures granted to her by the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights were never properly implemented. On February 20 2016, a peaceful march was stopped and 100 protesters were detained by DESA guards. On February 25, 50 families had to watch the demolition of their houses in the community of La Jarcia.
The horrific events on the night of Wednesday March 2 are retold by Nina Lakhani. Armed men burst through the back door of Berta’s house and shot her. They also injured Gustavo Castro, who was visiting Berta; he waited until the men had left, found her, and she died in his arms. Early the following morning, police and army officers arrived, dealing aggressively with the family and community members who were waiting to speak to them. Attempted robbery, a jilted lover and rivalry within COPINH were all considered as motives for the crime. Eventually, investigators turned their attention to those who had threatened to kill her in the preceding months. By the first anniversary of Berta’s death the stuttering investigation had led to eight arrests, but the people who ordered the murder were still enjoying impunity. Some of the accused were connected to the military, which was not surprising since Lakhani later revealed in a report for The Guardian that she had uncovered a military hit list with Berta’s name on it. In the book she reports that the ex-soldier who told her about it is still in hiding: he had seen not only the list but also one of the secret torture centers maintained by the military.
Nina Lakhani is a brave reporter. She had to be. Since the coup in Honduras, 83 journalists have been killed; 21 were thrown in prison during the period when Lakhani was writing her book. She poses the question “would we ever know who killed Berta Cáceres?” and sets out to answer it.
Despite her diligent and often risky investigation, she can only give a partial answer. Those arrested and since convicted almost certainly include the hitmen who carried out the murder, but it is far from the clear that the intellectual authors of the crime have been caught. In 2017 Lakhani interviewed or attempted to interview all eight of those imprisoned and awaiting trial, casting a sometimes-sympathetic light on their likely involvement and why they took part.
It took almost two years before one of the crime’s likely instigators, David Castillo, the president of DESA, was arrested. Lakhani heads back to prison to interview him, too, and finds that Castillo disquietingly thinks she is the reason he’s in prison. “There is no way I am ever sitting down to talk to her,” he says to the guard. Nevertheless they talk, with Castillo both denying his involvement in the murder and accusing Lakhani of implicating him. Afterwards she takes “a big breath” and writes down what he’s said.
In September 2018, the murder case finally went to trial, and Lakhani is at court to hear it, but the hearing is suspended. On the same day she starts to receive threats, reported in London’s Press Gazette and duly receiving international attention. Not surprisingly she sees this as an attempt to intimidate her into not covering the trial. Nevertheless, when it reopens on October 25, she is there.
The trial reveals a weird mix of diligent police work and careful forensic evidence, together with the investigation’s obvious gaps. Not the least of these was the absence of Gustavo Castro, the only witness, whose return to Honduras was obstructed by the attorney general’s office. Castillo, though by then charged with masterminding the murder, was not part of the trial. Most of the evidence was not made public or even revealed to the accused. The Cáceres family’s lawyers were denied a part in the trial.
“The who did what, why and how was missing,” says Lakhani, “until we got the phone evidence which was the game changer.” The phone evidence benefitted from an expert witness who explained in detail how it implicated the accused. She revealed that an earlier plan to carry out the murder in February was postponed. She showed the positions of the accused on the night in the following month when Berta was killed. She also made clear that members of the Atala family were involved.
When the verdict was delivered on November 29 2018, seven of the eight accused were found guilty, but it wasn’t until December 2019 that they were given long sentences. That’s where Nina Lakhani’s story ends. By then Honduras had endured a fraudulent election, its president’s brother had been found guilty of drug running in the US, and tens of thousands of Hondurans were heading north in migrant caravans. David Castillo hasn’t yet been brought to trial, and last year was accused by the School of Americas Watch of involvement in a wider range of crimes. Lakhani revealed in The Guardian that he owns a luxury home in Texas. He’s in preventative detention, but according to COPINH enjoys “VIP” conditions and may well be released because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Two of those already imprisoned may also be released. Daniel Atala Midence, accused by COPINH of being a key intellectual author of the crime as DESA’s chief financial officer, has never been indicted.
The Agua Zarca dam project has not been officially cancelled although DESA’s phone number and email address are no longer in service. Other environmentally disastrous projects continue to face opposition by COPINH and its sister organisations representing different Honduran communities. And a full answer to the question “Who Killed Berta Cáceres?” is still awaited.
January 13, 2025
Un libro fundamental si te interesa la región centroamericana o si pretendes ir a visitarla (aunque sea de turismo). Si bien habla de Honduras, aunque con salvedades, es extrapolable al resto de países (incluso sudamericanos en muchos casos).
Historia desgarradora pero rutinaria para defensores y defensoras del territorio y los recursos naturales frente a megaproyectos y empresas transnacionales con todos los recursos humanos y materiales para llevar a cabo sus proyectos de destrucción en todos los sentidos.
Es un libro para conocer los entresijos de las relaciones internacionales, los estados, las empresas y la población más vulnerabilizada.
Interesante cuando hablas con agentes de esta region el cambio de enfoque, desde Europa se vive como algo catastrófico, terrible. Desde la región y la lucha, como algo diario y con un enfoque de resistencia, comunidad y alegría, sino imposible sobrellevarlo y continuar.
Historia desgarradora pero rutinaria para defensores y defensoras del territorio y los recursos naturales frente a megaproyectos y empresas transnacionales con todos los recursos humanos y materiales para llevar a cabo sus proyectos de destrucción en todos los sentidos.
Es un libro para conocer los entresijos de las relaciones internacionales, los estados, las empresas y la población más vulnerabilizada.
Interesante cuando hablas con agentes de esta region el cambio de enfoque, desde Europa se vive como algo catastrófico, terrible. Desde la región y la lucha, como algo diario y con un enfoque de resistencia, comunidad y alegría, sino imposible sobrellevarlo y continuar.
July 25, 2020
Berta Caceres was an Indigenous woman and environmentalist who was killed because her activism threatened the profits of a destructive dam project being build of stolen land. Lakhani's work highlights the corruption in the Honduran government that allowed, and maybe facilitated this murder. Her reporting humanized Caceres, considering her identities as both a woman and an Indigenous person, while also diving deep into the pathways of extortion that go unpunished by the state.
I knew almost nothing about recent Central American history when I picked this up and this book is successful in painting a picture of the current political climate of Honduras and how the U.S. has enabled this violent and corrupt system to thrive.
The writing is very journalistic, with certain sections reading more dry than others but even in those sections which were a bit too dry for my liking ('follow the money'), it always showed how deep and detailed Lakhani's investigation was.
This book is excellent intersectional anti-capitalist reading.
I knew almost nothing about recent Central American history when I picked this up and this book is successful in painting a picture of the current political climate of Honduras and how the U.S. has enabled this violent and corrupt system to thrive.
The writing is very journalistic, with certain sections reading more dry than others but even in those sections which were a bit too dry for my liking ('follow the money'), it always showed how deep and detailed Lakhani's investigation was.
This book is excellent intersectional anti-capitalist reading.
June 14, 2020
Thank you to Verso Books & NetGalley for the Advanced Reader's Copy!
Often when I read about incredible activists, the journey almost seems surreal, their bravery and willingness to risk life and limb for what is right. Nina Lakhani's expose "Who Killed Berta Caceres?" is no different.
Through detailed interviews, police reports, transcriptions, and eyewitness reports, Lakhani meticulously details the rise and ultimate demise of the great environmentalist. Starting in 1993, when she founded the Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Indígenas Populares (COPINH) to 2016 when she was ultimately murdered by the state, Berta Caceres has been a relentless voice for the Lenca and other indigenous groups in Honduras.
What is remarkable about Lakhani's book is the way Caceras is humanized. She is a woman who had difficulty communicating with her family, a woman who was determined to defend her people's land, a woman who was quick witted and humorous. She was another powerful woman silenced by the state.
Often when I read about incredible activists, the journey almost seems surreal, their bravery and willingness to risk life and limb for what is right. Nina Lakhani's expose "Who Killed Berta Caceres?" is no different.
Through detailed interviews, police reports, transcriptions, and eyewitness reports, Lakhani meticulously details the rise and ultimate demise of the great environmentalist. Starting in 1993, when she founded the Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Indígenas Populares (COPINH) to 2016 when she was ultimately murdered by the state, Berta Caceres has been a relentless voice for the Lenca and other indigenous groups in Honduras.
What is remarkable about Lakhani's book is the way Caceras is humanized. She is a woman who had difficulty communicating with her family, a woman who was determined to defend her people's land, a woman who was quick witted and humorous. She was another powerful woman silenced by the state.
September 20, 2020
This book beautifully contextualizes the extraordinary life and wrenching death of beloved human rights defender Berta Cáceres by situating her story within a long history of imperialism, avaricious capitalism, corruption, and impunity in Honduras. I thought the historical context portions of the book were especially strong, while parts of Berta’s own story and the aftermath of her killing were a bit disjointed and harder to follow - perhaps intentionally so, given that, as Lakhani discovers in her own investigation, the tentacles of the state and the motives for the murder run disturbingly deep and wide. Given the author’s background as an environmental justice correspondent, I wished there was more overt a critique of so-called clean energy projects, including the dam that ultimately cost Berta her life. Ultimately, a good read for anyone interested in mutating imperialism in Central America and the treacherous struggles faced by land and environmental developers against powerful business interests.
May 4, 2021
I first learned about Berta in grad school from one of my professors who was good friends with her. Berta’s struggle and this book show how dangerous it is to be an environmental activist, especially in Central America. The United States’ horrendous foreign policy decisions in combination with the power held by the US government and transnational extractivist industries are to blame for creating this violent system in which environmental activists become political targets to be executed with impunity. What Berta accomplished in her life as an activist is awe inspiring. The fact that Berta was so feared by the forces that would eventually take her life is a stark testament to how successful her approach was. There is no environmental justice without justice for indigenous communities in the shape of restored water and land rights. And as always for a movement to have teeth, it must be intersectional.
June 16, 2021
Definitely an eye opener if you aren’t up to speed on US imperialist meddling in Central America, the narcotics trade, militarism and its relationship to Cold War era death squads, neo-liberalism being expressed by environmental degradation via extractive industries and how corruption is the binding thread between all three. If you are, the main focus will be the story of Berta Caceres, a multigenerational activist who fought for the rights of the Lenca peoples in Rio Blanco and in particular against the Agua Zarca dam project. Both narratives interweave with each other and provide a comprehensive portrait of third world development corrupted by venality, callousness and expedience.
However, while the zeal in wanting to be comprehensive was admirable, I did get lost in names, dates and figures. However, the thrust of the book and the highlighting that justice isn’t really served until the DESA sponsored architects of her murder are brought to justice does resonate.
However, while the zeal in wanting to be comprehensive was admirable, I did get lost in names, dates and figures. However, the thrust of the book and the highlighting that justice isn’t really served until the DESA sponsored architects of her murder are brought to justice does resonate.
February 21, 2022
This book does a really admirable job of putting Berta's murder in context, from the socio-political (the coup, the corporations, the drug trafficking), to the more micro (an indigenous woman as a particular threat to machismo). There's an incredible amount of information here and a lot of remarkable access to key players over the years. It's the type of book that should be required reading in college LatAm courses.
Several case that I, and my previous organizations, worked on made it into this book, which is always cool to see. And admittedly, I've met Bertita and worked on publications adjacent to this case. I hope this book can help be one more piece of the struggle for truth and justice, for Berta and for the Lenca community.
Several case that I, and my previous organizations, worked on made it into this book, which is always cool to see. And admittedly, I've met Bertita and worked on publications adjacent to this case. I hope this book can help be one more piece of the struggle for truth and justice, for Berta and for the Lenca community.
June 10, 2021
a must read, to know the story of Berta Cáceres a Honduran political activist, fighting for environmental justice and indigenous rights, murdered in 2016 by hired assassins through a corrupt government indirectly supported by the USA and our capitalistic mindset! Guardian journalist Nina Lakhani has been researching this story for years and even had threats on her own life from this work. The writing wasn't the best especially the first few chapters but the end was better. its journalistic writing and as a librarian I wanted her to give me sources and not just notes but overall a must read!
June 30, 2020
Some of the editing and narrative throughline in this book was really messy and hard to follow - but, even despite that, it was all worth reading to get a complex picture of Honduran politics and how one woman’s assassination illuminates the whole rotten picture.
“Today, security forces are still deployed to protect foreign and national business interest, but belligerent community leaders are tarnished as anti-development criminals and terrorists, rather than as leftist guerrillas.”
“Today, security forces are still deployed to protect foreign and national business interest, but belligerent community leaders are tarnished as anti-development criminals and terrorists, rather than as leftist guerrillas.”
January 25, 2023
super informative. but i fear i dislike history books. i do think the writing of it was easier to get through than most books like these tho. i want to learn more to become a better leftist and stuff so this definitely did that, it was just super hard to get through bc the way history books get written isn’t my thing :(
would definitely recommend though if you’re into leftist politics and want to learn more. i didn’t know enough about honduras so this helped me so much.
would definitely recommend though if you’re into leftist politics and want to learn more. i didn’t know enough about honduras so this helped me so much.
June 19, 2020
An excellent work of reporting that skillfully contextualizes the brazen murder of Berta Cáceres. Lakhani structures the book in a way that gives readers insight not just into the murder investigation itself, but also into some of the social complexities within Honduras and the wider struggle between indigenous communities and corporate encroachment.
October 19, 2020
I won this copy from Amnesty Book Club --thank you!!
It's a heartbreaking true story of ultimate deadly violence land defenders face. This is a chronic systemic problem the author went to great personal risk to share. Read this book and discover that this is not an isolated incident. It continues. We need to raise more awareness.
It's a heartbreaking true story of ultimate deadly violence land defenders face. This is a chronic systemic problem the author went to great personal risk to share. Read this book and discover that this is not an isolated incident. It continues. We need to raise more awareness.
February 6, 2025
This is a very well-researched account of Berta Caceres's life and work. She is dedicated to protecting the lands of the native people. She fought against the illegal takeover of the lands vital to the survival of the local people. She was callously murdered, and justice was not done.
July 22, 2020
This is a look at an event few people may have ever heard. I certainly knew almost nothing about Berta Cacerés and the environmentalists in Honduras. This is all nonfiction and collected from personal experiences, including events experienced by the author herself. This is what happens when the cameras turn off, when doors are closed, and when money and power are the only forms of currency. This isn't history. It's modern international relations with powerful enemies publicly denouncing the voices of those who protect locals and their homes.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
June 20, 2021
Important story. Difficult writing style. I'm not sure I would have persisted if I weren't reading it for a book club.
March 17, 2024
Totally speechless.
"We have power, compañeros, and that is why we still exist"
"We have power, compañeros, and that is why we still exist"
May 25, 2025
Important story that highlights a lot of the issues with Honduras and US intervention in Latin America. A bit dense and read like a college poli sci book.
Read
March 9, 2023Giving this book a star rating feels like kind of a waste of energy. Nina Lakhani has written an incredibly detailed and deeply-reported book about the infamous murder of land rights defender Berta Caceres. While telling the nitty-gritty details of the murder investigation and profiling the huge number of people of interest in the case, she also weaves in the bigger picture about corruption in Honduras and the various crises that came as a result of the US-supported coup in 2009, such as the selling off and outright theft of indigenous land for the profit of energy companies.
The first half of this book was the most important to me. While Lakhani's style is a bit disorganized and fails to find a central narrative, she does an amazing job of packing a lot of history and political context into a small space. I knew some of the story of Berta Caceres, but never realized how important and what a badass she was. From her origins as a guerilla fighter to her fearless fight for indigenous rights, she was tough as nails and had a seemingly unwavering moral compass. The US bears a huge amount of responsibility for their pressure to keep Honduras as a sort of neoliberal banana republic, and the complete disregard for democracy and indigenous rights that that policty necessarily entails. Lakhani does a good job of connecting names and dates for all these ideas, never putting forward some abstract idea or accusation without a whole lot of hard evidence to support it.
I have to say, and this is why the star rating system seems inadequate to the task for me, that the book was difficult to get through, and I was a bit disappointed with the second half. If I had read this book for the writing I would have given it two stars, but I didn't.
My main problem with the book I think boils down to the writing style itself, which is all over the place. She jumps between a lot of different ideas and places and times within a chapter or even a single paragraph, following a string of names around and connecting them tangentially rather than finding a narrative to follow. I understand that as a reporter she follows the big events as they happen and gets involved with all the principle players, but in doing this she falls into the same trap that she accuses the prosecutors of, focusing on minute details and the material actors rather than the big picture and the people pulling the strings, the larger forces at play.
She talks about these people and groups in the first half of the book but then loses them to play the tough crime reporter dodging death threats in the court room. She has amazing access to all of the defendants in Caceres' trial, as well as family members and friends, but at times she interrogates them as if she is the prosecutor herself, rather than using that access to get at more interesting details of the story. There are moments, for example, where she refers back to the Agua Zarca dam project and I don't even remember why any of it was important in the first place.
I would have loved to read something that went deeper into the lived reality of the communities that Berta was attempting to protect and the way that her murder and this trial affected her. I think that would have been a more fitting tribute to her life. Instead, she loses the story for the story about the story. For her unwillingness to commit to a story she ends up distrusting everyone and everything in a contradictory way. She pokes holes in every narrative she's offered, which makes sense if you are a reporter, but not after the fact when you are trying to write a book about the thing, which came off as a lack of confidence in Lakhani's own understanding of the situation she found herself in.
This comes off as overly critical, but I do think if you are looking for writing about Caceres or even a broader understanding of Honduras' current political situation (which is quickly changing thanks to people like Caceres and a recent election) and migration from the region then it's hard to find a better book for the task than this one and I'm grateful for it.
The first half of this book was the most important to me. While Lakhani's style is a bit disorganized and fails to find a central narrative, she does an amazing job of packing a lot of history and political context into a small space. I knew some of the story of Berta Caceres, but never realized how important and what a badass she was. From her origins as a guerilla fighter to her fearless fight for indigenous rights, she was tough as nails and had a seemingly unwavering moral compass. The US bears a huge amount of responsibility for their pressure to keep Honduras as a sort of neoliberal banana republic, and the complete disregard for democracy and indigenous rights that that policty necessarily entails. Lakhani does a good job of connecting names and dates for all these ideas, never putting forward some abstract idea or accusation without a whole lot of hard evidence to support it.
I have to say, and this is why the star rating system seems inadequate to the task for me, that the book was difficult to get through, and I was a bit disappointed with the second half. If I had read this book for the writing I would have given it two stars, but I didn't.
My main problem with the book I think boils down to the writing style itself, which is all over the place. She jumps between a lot of different ideas and places and times within a chapter or even a single paragraph, following a string of names around and connecting them tangentially rather than finding a narrative to follow. I understand that as a reporter she follows the big events as they happen and gets involved with all the principle players, but in doing this she falls into the same trap that she accuses the prosecutors of, focusing on minute details and the material actors rather than the big picture and the people pulling the strings, the larger forces at play.
She talks about these people and groups in the first half of the book but then loses them to play the tough crime reporter dodging death threats in the court room. She has amazing access to all of the defendants in Caceres' trial, as well as family members and friends, but at times she interrogates them as if she is the prosecutor herself, rather than using that access to get at more interesting details of the story. There are moments, for example, where she refers back to the Agua Zarca dam project and I don't even remember why any of it was important in the first place.
I would have loved to read something that went deeper into the lived reality of the communities that Berta was attempting to protect and the way that her murder and this trial affected her. I think that would have been a more fitting tribute to her life. Instead, she loses the story for the story about the story. For her unwillingness to commit to a story she ends up distrusting everyone and everything in a contradictory way. She pokes holes in every narrative she's offered, which makes sense if you are a reporter, but not after the fact when you are trying to write a book about the thing, which came off as a lack of confidence in Lakhani's own understanding of the situation she found herself in.
This comes off as overly critical, but I do think if you are looking for writing about Caceres or even a broader understanding of Honduras' current political situation (which is quickly changing thanks to people like Caceres and a recent election) and migration from the region then it's hard to find a better book for the task than this one and I'm grateful for it.
March 5, 2022
This book will stick with me. It was sobering AF and I’m still digesting what it means for me personally and how I understand social power, violence, capitalism, and environmental Justice. Social movements in the North have a lot to learn from the analysis, tactics and challenges of movements in the global South. Excellent investigative reporting. Berta vive, la lucha sigue.
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews