(Tegucigalpa) An environmental defender in Honduras was shot dead Saturday night in the northeast of the country, one of the most dangerous in the world for environmental activists. A murder strongly condemned by the authorities who promised that “justice” would be done.
Juan López, who was interviewed by AFP in 2021, described living in fear since he began fighting against a mining operation near his home, in a mountainous and forested area in northeastern Honduras.
According to local press, Juan Lopez, 46, was killed while in his car after going to a church in Tocoa, where he lived and was a city councilor.
“We condemn the despicable murder of our comrade and environmental leader Juan López in Tocoa. I have ordered all law enforcement agencies to shed light on this tragedy and identify those responsible,” Honduran leftist President Xiomara Castro said on X.
“Justice for Juan Lopez,” she promised. The environmentalist was a member of the ruling Free Party.
His wife, Thelma Peña, said in a brief telephone conversation with AFP that he had been the target of “shots” while leaving a church, where she was not present.
Honduran prosecutor Johel Zelaya praised a man whose “life was an example of struggle,” saying that “specialized teams are investigating[ai]”We are already working to ensure that his death does not go unpunished.”
On Sunday morning, police asked “the public who has relevant information regarding the crime to contact them confidentially” via their 911 emergency line.
“An extraordinary human being”
The activist accused the mining group Los Pinares of operating an open-pit mine in conditions that are damaging the Botaderos forest reserve, near Tocoa, 220 km northeast of Tegucigalpa.
The representative in Honduras of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Isabel Albaladejo, called on the State to investigate, taking “into consideration” Mr. Lopez’s denunciations “against the mayor [de Tocoa] Adan Funez, whose resignation he had demanded for alleged links with organized crime”, which could have earned him “reprisals”.
“He was a popular intellectual, a comrade committed to social change, to the defense of the common good,” Joaquín Mejía, a lawyer and human rights defender, his partner in the fight to preserve the Guapinol River, told AFP.
This reserve has 34 watersheds, with valuable trees and endangered animal species, as well as pre-Columbian archaeological sites.
Juan López told AFP in November 2021 that he feared for his life because of the fight, explaining that he had been warned that the same thing would happen to him as to Berta Caceres, a famous environmental defender who was shot dead on March 2, 2016 because she opposed the construction of a hydroelectric dam in the west of the country.
The Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, co-founded by M.me Caceres, accused the state and the Castro government of being “responsible for a new assassination for not having protected the life of Juan” Lopez.
“When you start defending the common good in this country, you are attacking powerful interests […]”When you leave your home, you know that anything can happen, that you might not come back,” explained the activist, who was the father of a five-year-old girl at the time.
He said he never went out at night and never went alone to a remote area. “It’s tragic. The fear is losing your life,” he said.
The coordinator of the Committee of Relatives of Detainees and Disappeared in Honduras, Bertha Oliva, stressed that Lopez “was an extraordinary human being, a man of the people who gave his life for his people.”
Furthermore, Juan López had recently called, during a press conference, for the resignation of officials of the Libre party who appeared in a video, leaked by a specialized website, negotiating bribes with drug traffickers in 2013.
The video showed Carlos Zelaya, Xiomara Castro’s brother-in-law, who resigned as a congressman after admitting to taking part in the meeting.
According to a report by the NGO Global Witness, Honduras is one of the most dangerous countries for environmental defenders.
In 2023, it ranked third in the world for the number of environmental activists murdered, tied with Mexico (18), behind Colombia and Brazil. Between 2012 and 2023, 148 environmental activists were killed there.