Washington, March 6 (RHC)-- A group of U.S. Democratic congressmembers have reintroduced the Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act, which would suspend military aid to the Central American country until the Honduran government investigates allegations of human rights violations by their security forces. 

The bill is named after beloved Lenca Indigenous land and water defender Berta Cáceres, who was assassinated on March 3, 2016, a day before her 45th birthday. 

In 2017, The Guardian reported the extrajudicial killing had been planned by military intelligence specialists linked to Honduras’s U.S.-trained special forces.  Cáceres would have turned 50 this week. 

Laura Zúñiga Cáceres: “Then we see how the United States government continues to support governments in Honduras which are highly repressive and violators of human rights.  The United States supports these governments, particularly in the area of militarization.  And at the time of my mother’s murder, one of the things that caught our attention is that it was said that members of the FBI were investigating her killing, which the U.S. Embassy never clarified, even though it was not true, and the U.S. Embassy allowed the Honduran state to create that false narrative.”