Ten years after the murder of Berta Cáceres: GIEI report reveals corporate interests and failed oversight.
Ten years after the murder of Berta Cáceres: GIEI report reveals corporate interests and failed oversight.
PBI calls on the international community to ensure the safety of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH)
Almost ten years after the murder of Honduran human rights and environmental activist Berta Cáceres, a new international investigation report sheds light on the structures that made her death possible. On January 13, 2026, the final report of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) was published, concluding that Cáceres’ murder was the result of an organized crime motivated by corporate interests that was “predictable and preventable.” The report points to the responsibility of the Honduran state, corporate actors, and financial institutions.
Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores was an Indigenous Lenca leader and co-founder of the organization COPINH (Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras). She gained international fame for her opposition to the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project, a dam that was built without the free, prior, and informed consent of the local Lenca communities. Her activism brought her into repeated conflict with both companies and the Honduran authorities. On the night of March 2-3, 2016, she was shot dead in her home by armed men.
Impunity and unanswered questions
Although Berta Cáceres’ murder was condemned internationally and several perpetrators were convicted in the years following her death, the official investigation remained incomplete. The focus was mainly on the direct perpetrators, while crucial questions about those who ordered the murder, the role of companies and financiers, and the possible involvement of state actors remained largely unanswered. Cáceres’ family and human rights organizations repeatedly pointed to serious shortcomings in the criminal investigation, including the disregard or withholding of evidence and the failure to investigate financial and institutional responsibilities. An international team of experts concluded as early as 2017 that the Honduran authorities had sufficient evidence to identify those responsible for ordering the murder, but that no action was taken. The lack of full justice and the continuing risks to other activists reinforced calls for an independent, internationally supported investigation, to which the Honduran state ultimately committed itself.
Later, the GIEI determined that the criminal investigation had been deliberately obstructed from the very first hours after the murder. This included spreading false narratives, criminalizing people from Berta Cáceres’ immediate circle, and adding misleading evidence to the case file. Furthermore, there was no in-depth investigation into the role of the shareholders of the Agua Zarca project, the management of DESA, and the responsibility of the state.
Independent investigation
The GIEI was established on the basis of an agreement between the Honduran state, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), and representatives of the victims, including COPINH and CEJIL. Since February 2025, the commission has been investigating not only the murder of Cáceres, but also related crimes and the question of how reparations and compensation should be structured.
The commission consisted of three international experts:
Roxana Altholz, professor of international and human rights law at the University of California, Berkeley
Pedro Biscay, expert in financial crime and former director at the Argentine Central Bank
Ricardo Guzmán, lawyer with more than 25 years of experience in investigating organized crime, drug trafficking, and violence in Central America
The investigators were granted full access to court files in Honduras and conducted additional research in the Netherlands and elsewhere.
Findings: Misuse of development funding
The GIEI report shows that a significant portion of the international funding for the Agua Zarca project was diverted to activities that were not intended for the construction of the dam, but to systems that contributed to violence, intimidation, and ultimately the murder of Berta Cáceres. According to investigators, funds from sources such as the Dutch development bank FMO were used in a manner that was not in line with the project’s objectives and social and environmental protection standards.
FMO was one of the main financiers of Agua Zarca through loans to DESA, the company responsible for implementing the project. Analysis of financial data shows that large sums of money ended up in accounts that did not correspond to the contractual description of the transaction, indicating inadequate control of cash flows. In some cases, payments were made to companies linked to project developers shortly before significant escalations in the conflict.
The GIEI also identified structures in which members of the Atala family, with close ties to DESA, were directly or indirectly involved in coordinating actions against Cáceres and COPINH. These structures combined financial resources and organizational networks to gather information, establish contact between security actors, and observe opponents of the project.
The report emphasizes that FMO was insufficiently transparent about its involvement and that, despite repeated requests from the commission for data, the bank did not disclose all information relevant to the investigation. At the same time, national and international documentation has shown that there have been concerns for years about FMO’s monitoring of the social and environmental aspects of its investments, and that this has led to criticism, including complaints and lawsuits for negligence in monitoring risks of human rights violations.
Inadequate oversight and broader consequences
All of this fits into a broader pattern in which international financiers and public institutions are criticized for their inadequate control mechanisms surrounding large infrastructure projects and the associated risks of corruption and violence. Human rights and environmental organizations, for example, have long argued that investments in Agua Zarca have continued despite warnings about violence against local communities and violations of their rights.
According to the GIEI report, true justice for Berta Cáceres can only be achieved if all parties involved are fully transparent about their role, if steps are taken towards redress for the victims, and if international financing practices are adapted in such a way that human rights are given greater weight in investment decisions, with clear safeguards against the misuse of funds and the undermining of local rights.
Persistent risks and the role of the international community
PBI Honduras warns that since the murder of Berta Cáceres in 2016, members of COPINH and the Lenca community of Río Blanco have been subjected to ongoing surveillance, intimidation, smear campaigns, and harassment. This points to a structural pattern of attacks aimed at obstructing truth, justice, and reparation for the victims.
On June 16, 2025, during the ongoing GIEI investigation, COPINH denounced the leaking of sensitive information about their protection measures. This incident once again exposed the structural deficiencies of the National Protection Mechanism in Honduras, deficiencies that have also been identified by the GIEI.
At the same time, the structural causes of the conflict remain unresolved. These include the lack of recognition of the ancestral Lenca territory of Río Blanco, the disputed hydroelectric concession for Agua Zarca, and the continuing impunity of those responsible for the intellectual and financial aspects of the project. These factors increase the risk for human rights defenders working within COPINH and the community of Río Blanco.
The GIEI also reported that its experts faced pressure, intimidation, and monitoring during the investigation. Among other things, it reported communication via lawyers acting on behalf of Daniel Atala and his family, aimed at obstructing the work of the investigative commission.
Call to action
PBI therefore calls on the international community to widely disseminate the GIEI’s final report and key findings, to actively monitor the safety of COPINH members, the Río Blanco community, and the GIEI experts, and to speak out strongly against any new threats. In addition, it calls for the GIEI’s comprehensive recovery plan to be included in bilateral relations with Honduras and for regulations on human rights and environmental due diligence to be strengthened in order to prevent the involvement of international companies and financial institutions in serious human rights violations.
Ten years after her death, the Berta Cáceres case continues to highlight the complexity of international development financing in controversial projects. The murder shows that economic interests, combined with weak oversight, structural inequalities, and violence against human rights defenders, can converge in tragic and systemic violations of rights.