FMO and FINNFUND Suspend Support of Agua Zarca Dam

We have big news to share. After the murder of a second COPINH activist this month, FMO and Finnfund have suspended their support for the Agua Zarca dam project.

It is tragic and wrong that it took two murders
to convince FMO and Finnfund to pull out of this terrible project. But
your voices made the difference.
Thousands of you demanded justice for Berta and put FMO and Finnfund in the spotlight. The international pressure we created made this success possible, and ensures that Berta’s death was not in vain. Thank you for standing with us.

Yet, despite international pressure, powerful
circles in Honduras continue to disregard the lives of people who stand
in the way of their economic interests. On March 15, Nelson Garcia, an
activist of COPINH, the Honduran organization Berta Cáceres had
co-founded, was shot and killed when he helped a group of poor families
resist a land grab in the small town of Rio Lindo.

After the release of this
“shocking news,” FMO, the Dutch development financier, decided to
suspend all activities in Honduras, effective immediately. They
will “not engage in new projects or commitments,” and “no disbursements
will be made, including the Agua Zarca project.” Finnfund, the second
European financier involved in Agua Zarca, suspended its support as
well.

The Central-American Bank for Economic
Integration is the last Agua Zarca financier standing. With $24 million,
CABEI extended the biggest loan for the dam project.

If we keep up the pressure
we’ve been building together, the suspension of support by European
funders will be the beginning of the end of the ill-fated and violent
Agua Zarca Project.

But this doesn’t mean that this tragic chapter can be closed:

All involved parties must continue to press for the safe release and return of Mexican activist Gustavo Castro,
the sole witness of Berta’s murder who is still kept in Honduras
against his will. They must press for an independent international
investigation of the murder. COPINH has called on the Dutch and Finnish
governments to visit the Agua Zarca site. It is also high time for the US government to end its aid to a Honduran military which has frequently been associated with the human rights abuses in the country.