In less than a decade, Berta Cáceres has gone from being a woman persecuted and murdered for defending her peoples’ territories and the natural environment to being officially recognized by the Honduran State as a symbol of struggle whose legacy should be known by present and future generations.
This shift is striking, particularly in today’s context, and even more so because it coincides with the publication of an international report that documents the involvement of Honduran authorities in the 2016 assassination of Berta Cáceres.
The very State that persecuted and criminalized her, failed to prevent her murder, and did not properly investigate it, now publicly honors her and promotes recognition of her struggle.
State Recognition
On January 20, 2026, the Central Bank of Honduras authorized the circulation of a new 200-lempira banknote honoring Bertha Isabel Cáceres Flores, a renowned Lenca Indigenous leader, environmental activist, and defender of Indigenous rights in Honduras.
According to the Central Bank, the new banknote is part of a broader modernization of the country’s monetary system, which includes the recognition of historically significant figures as a way of promoting public education about their legacy.
The redesigned 200-lempira bill retains its nominal value while incorporating enhanced security features.
Its release coincided with the commemoration of Honduran Women’s Day on January 25, marking the date in 1955 when women gained the right to vote. Featuring Berta Cáceres’ image, the bill commemorates that milestone and marks the first time a woman has appeared on Honduran currency. According to the president of the Central Bank, Honduras now joins 56 countries worldwide that have incorporated women’s images into their national currency.
Beyond Cáceres’ portrait, the banknote includes an artistic depiction of the Gualcarque River, the site of the April 2013 El Roble occupation, an action that became a turning point in the Lenca community of Río Blanco’s resistance to the unconsulted construction of the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam.
The reverse side features a panoramic view of La Esperanza, Intibucá —Cáceres’ hometown— alongside her iconic call to action: “Let us wake up, humanity. There is no more time”.
The design also incorporates traditional Lenca textile patterns in tribute to the culture and territorial defense of the Lenca people. Under ultraviolet light, the bill reveals a reference to the Goldman Environmental Prize awarded to Berta Cáceres in 2015.
Despite the significance of this recognition, it remains deeply paradoxical that it is expressed through a banknote —a symbol of wealth and economic power— at the very moment an international report exposes the direct responsibility of Honduran corporations in her persecution and assassination.
The Report on Her Assassination
Just days earlier, on January 12 —two months before the tenth anniversary of her murder— the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) released its report on the killing of Berta Cáceres and the subsequent investigations.
The GIEI was formally established on February 14, 2025, following an agreement between the Honduran State, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), and the victims who were beneficiaries of precautionary measures issued by the Commission. The group was created as an extraordinary, independent mechanism with full technical autonomy to clarify the assassination of Berta Cáceres and related crimes connected to the Agua Zarca project.
Its creation responded to the need to move beyond a fragmented criminal investigation focused mainly on the material perpetrators and to examine the crime’s structural, corporate, financial, and state dimensions in an integrated manner.
Background of the GIEI
The IACHR first intervened in Berta Cáceres’ case on June 29, 2009, granting precautionary measures after military forces surrounded her home. At the time, Cáceres was a Lenca leader, a member of COPINH, and a prominent environmental defender. The Commission urged the Honduran State to take the necessary steps to protect her life and physical integrity.
In July 2013, the IACHR confirmed it would continue monitoring her situation under case MC-405-09.
In March 2016, Berta Cáceres was murdered in her home in La Esperanza, Intibucá.
In December 2022, at the request of the beneficiaries of Precautionary Measures No. 112/16, the Honduran State formally asked the IACHR for international technical assistance to investigate the intellectual authorship and related crimes associated with her murder.
In November 2024, Honduras’ Supreme Court upheld convictions against seven of the eight perpetrators, imposing sentences ranging from 30 to 50 years in prison.
David Castillo —former president of DESA, former military intelligence officer, and co-author of the crime— received a reduced sentence of 22 years and six months after the Court modified aggravating factors, plus an additional five-year sentence for fraud linked to the Agua Zarca project.
Despite these advances, COPINH, Cáceres’ family, and private prosecutors continue to demand accountability for the intellectual authors of the crime. To date, only Daniel Atala Midence, DESA’s former financial manager, has been formally charged; he remains a fugitive.
The Assassination and Its Context
Berta Cáceres was murdered on the night of March 2, 2016, when four armed individuals broke into her home and executed her. She was accompanied by Mexican activist Gustavo Castro Soto, who survived the attack and remains the sole eyewitness.
According to the GIEI, the assassination must be understood within a broader context of structural violence, systemic corruption, institutional capture, historical discrimination against Indigenous Peoples, and the militarization of socio-environmental conflicts, dynamics entrenched in Honduras both before and after the 2009 coup d’état.
The report establishes a direct link between Cáceres’ murder and her leadership —alongside COPINH and the Lenca community of Río Blanco— in opposing the imposition of the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project on the sacred Gualcarque River without prior consultation.
Because of her leadership, organizational capacity, and effective resistance, DESA executives identified her as a strategic obstacle and ultimately ordered her assassination.
Corruption, Collusion, and Corporate Crime
The GIEI provides unusually detailed and well-documented evidence of the role played by corporate actors in grave human rights violations, including the right to life, in pursuit of economic gain.
The report concludes that the assassination was financed through funds originally allocated to the Agua Zarca project, with approximately 67% —nearly USD 18,5 million— diverted through fraudulent transactions.
The GIEI characterizes the crime as corporate, financial, and political, carried out through a complex criminal structure involving DESA executives, hired killers, actors with military training, international financing, and state complicity.
It further identifies criminal responsibility among DESA’s majority shareholders —José Eduardo, Pedro, and Jacobo Atala Zablah— and Daniel Atala Midence, as well as potential responsibility on the part of international lenders BCIE and FMO, which continued financing DESA despite clear knowledge of the violent context.
Conclusions and Responsibilities
The GIEI concludes that:
- The harm caused by the murder of Berta Cáceres is individual and collective, affecting her family, COPINH, the Río Blanco community, surviving witness Gustavo Castro, and the Gualcarque River itself.
- The Honduran State failed to recognize and protect the Lenca people’s collective territorial rights.
- International financial institutions violated their human rights due-diligence obligations.
- Honduras bears international responsibility for ongoing human rights violations.
- A historical debt of reparation exists, requiring structural, collective, and transformative measures, not merely compensation.
The report closes with a comprehensive reparations plan aimed at rehabilitation, restitution, guarantees of non-repetition, and restoring trust between affected communities and state institutions.
