March 2nd marks the third anniversary of the murder of Berta Cáceres, a political femicide that attempted to silence the struggles led by this Honduran defender together with the Lenca people and the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH).
With this crime, they tried to silence the struggle against the installation of extractivist projects such as Agua Zarca and stop COPINH´s reports about patriarchal, racist and capitalist violence. “They wanted to stop the collective “reestablishment” of this Central American country. But they couldn´t do it. Berta multiplied herself.
Feminist educator, Claudia Korol, of Argentina, was in Uruguay to present her book Las revoluciones de Berta, which gathers conversations between her and Berta held over the years about the reality of Latin America, the coup d´ Etat in Honduras against Manuel Zelaya´s administration, the building of the National Front of Popular Resistance, the intersectional struggle of COPINH, the feminist approach to conflict resolution, the role of information and community communications as part of the political struggle.
Reading this book is like listening to the human rights defender, women, peoples, territories, rivers: at first hand, without intermediaries.
Real World Radio interviewed Claudia Korol about the contents of the book, her friendship with Berta and how her experiences can inspire new generations of activists around the world.
“Berta showed me another way of doing politics”, said the popular educator of Pañuelos en Rebeldía. “How governance is built based on the struggle against oppression, in a creative way, dreaming with utopias, imagining specific actions for the reestablishment of Honduras from the grassroots”.
Korol explained that the goal of her book is to “continue multiplying the thought, experiences and struggle” of the Honduran defender.
Korol defined Cáceres as “an extraordinary human being; a fighter, a revolutionary, a feminist”. “Berta put her body and soul into each and every one of the words she said. She had a global perspective, that promoted research to know how to face the transnational corporations and the banks that finance extractivist projects in indigenous territories”.
“She was a person who paid attention to language, especially non-sexist language. I´ve seen her correcting over and over COPINH´s statements or the statements of other social organizations because she found “machista” expressions or expressions that invisibilized women. She knew the role of communications in popular organizations, and she valued it so much”. A clear example of this are the community radios of COPINH which broadcast information and concepts for the political capacity building of its members.
The book also includes chapters with testimonies and reflections shared by the son of Berta, Salvador, and her daughters: Bertha and Laura: “They are continuing her activism in COPINH. I see in them a mixture of hardness and warmth that I saw in Berta and how the struggle transcends all of us”.