On this day in 2016, a death squad trained at the School of the Americas assassinated the Honduran Indigenous activist Berta Cáceres. The murder was planned by the US-backed Honduran government and DESA, a Honduran energy company working with USAID. 
The Guardian reported, “The murder of Berta Cáceres has all the characteristics of a well-planned operation designed by military intelligence, where it is absolutely normal to contract civilians as assassins."
Guardian continued: "It’s inconceivable that someone with her high profile, whose campaign had made her a problem for the state, could be murdered without at least implicit authorization of military high command.”
A former Honduran soldier said he had seen Cáceres’s name on a hit-list that was passed to US-trained units.
theguardian.com/world/2016/jun…
theguardian.com/world/2016/jun…
Cáceres was organizing to stop a dam’s construction. Violence against Honduran social activists skyrocketed after a US-backed coup ousted president Manuel Zelaya in 2009. Since then, at least 124 environmental campaigners have been killed.
Nine men have been arrested in connection with the murder, including one serving and two retired military officers, a DESA manager & the executive president of DESA at the time of the assassination.
