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In our cosmovisions, we are human beings who emerged from the earth, the water and the corn. We, the Lenca people, are ancestral guardians of the rivers. Which are also protected by the spirits of the young girls, who teach us that giving our lives in various ways for the defense of rivers is also giving our lives for the well-being of humanity and the planet… Mother earth –militarized, fenced-in, poisoned, a place where human rights are systematically violated- demands that we take action… Let us come together and, with hope, let us continue defending and caring for the earth, its blood and spirits…[1]

After more than a decade working with and for human rights defenders (HRDs) in the Americas,[2] I had the urge to broaden my analytical and methodological tools to better understand and respond to the very worrying situation of HRDs in the Americas. I was very concerned about the high number of attacks against those leading the defense of territory, dignity and rights in relation to mega-projects in the region. I was particularly moved and worried by the situation of Indigenous women human rights defenders (IWHRDs). Throughout my human rights work, I observed that Indigenous women’s leadership was becoming more visible but, as they became more vocal and visible, they were also more repressed and attacked.

Three out of every four killings of human rights defenders in the world take place in the Americas.[3] In most of these cases, these leaders are challenging the abuses committed in the context of mega-projects, mostly defending Indigenous rights and territories.[4] By human rights defenders, I mean a person or a group of people who, individually or collectively, take action to stop human rights violations or advance the effective enjoyment of these rights.[5] Article 1 of the United Nations (UN) Declaration on HRDs establishes that the defense of human rights is a right in itself,[6] not only a legitimate and honorable activity.[7] Thus, as a human right, it implies responsibilities for State and non-state actors, including economic actors.[8] By mega-projects, I mean large-scale, extractive, development, and investment projects.[9]

Mega-projects should bring progress to the affected communities but, although some have made some contributions, they have too often led to further human rights violations, social conflict and environmental destruction.[10] The high number of attacks against those defending the human rights of communities affected by mega-projects has further compounded these issues.[11] The murder of Berta Cáceres is part of the alarming situation faced by those leading the defense of human rights in Latin America. Moreover, the killing of human rights defenders is only one of the many types of attacks against them in reprisal for their legitimate actions. Between 2015 and 2020, the “business, civic freedoms and HRDs portal” of the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC) registered 2,809 attacks against those defending human rights from corporations’ abuses. About one third of those attacks were assassinations; all the others were different types of human rights violations, such as attempted assassinations, death threats, intimidation, arbitrary detentions, abductions and sexual abuse. About fifty percent of all those attacks took place in Latin America, mainly in Brazil, Colombia, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico. Seventy percent of them were attacks against Indigenous leaders, environmental defenders and human rights groups defending communities’ lands, territories and the environment. Most of the attacks concerned the following economic sectors: mining, renewable energy and agroindustry.[12] Furthermore, women human rights defenders have made significant efforts to make attacks with a gender component visible. This includes those that are not so visible to the public (e.g., domestic violence) and those that are naturalized in many societies (e.g., sexual harassment and sexual baiting).[13]

Yet even in the face of extreme violence, several of the human rights mobilizations led by Indigenous women have had very important impacts.[14] Therefore, inspired by those impacts and urged by the alarming situation human rights defenders face, I developed my doctoral study: “Indigenous women leading the defense of human rights from the abuses by mega-projects, in the face of extreme violence.” In this article, I only offer a very brief overview of that study. Thus, first, I give some details about my motivation and research model. Second, I briefly present the acción trenzada theoretical framework that emerged from my investigation. Third, in light of that framework, I glimpse into the case of Lenca leader Berta Cáceres in Honduras, one of several cases I studied, to reflect on criminalization as one of the many silencing practices affecting mobilizations led by Indigenous women. My analysis, however, does not stop in the victimization of these leaders and their organizations. In line with the framework I develop, I also discuss how they are overcoming such silencing practices. The article ends with some concluding remarks.

I. Motivation and research model

There are numerous reports and documents by national and international nongovernmental organizations and intergovernmental institutions that specifically focus on the situation of HRDs, some of which are cited in this article. In these reports, the urgency of the situation faced by these defenders of rights, including Indigenous women leaders confronting the abuses committed in the context of mega-projects, is convincingly substantiated. However, even within so many reports and documents, only a few are on the specific topic of Indigenous women human rights defenders overcoming silencing practices and impacting corporate behavior. The absence of such a focus is due to two main factors. First, the main focus has mainly been on their victimization (i.e., the attacks against these women leaders and the States’ failure to protect them). Very rarely, their agency, capacity or leadership are these studies’ central focus. Second, there is chronic invisibility of Indigenous women’s role and diversity as leaders and agents of change,[15] which has contributed to further exacerbating their difficult human rights situation.[16] There is also extensive literature on business and human rights[17] and is a well-established literature on social movements, some of it dedicated to social movements’ influence on corporate practices.[18] However, the systematic study of the agency and impact of Indigenous women-led movements on corporate practice has been absent until now. My doctoral study, and this brief overview, are a contribution in that regard. They are also a contribution as there is a need to learn from the experiences of Indigenous women-led mobilizations in order to better respond to their demands and situation and better collaborate with them.

In the face of extreme violence, some Indigenous women human rights defenders have achieved remarkable success with their mobilizations. As Berta Cáceres explained and I confirmed in my study, they are mobilizing in dominant capitalist, racist and patriarchal contexts.[19] Thus, it is extraordinary that these defenders are Indigenous women standing up against powerful companies abusing their families and communities’ rights. These Indigenous women-led social movement organizations are defending the rights of the most neglected communities and are impacting the decisions of the most powerful actors in the world. Drawing on the metaphor of David against Goliath that Ganz used to explain the exceptional success of the United Farm Workers in obtaining legal guarantees for farmworkers’ rights in California in 1977,[20] I argue that Indigenous women-led social movement organizations are not defying just any “Goliath.” They are fighting the most politically and economically powerful actors in the world, who sometimes act with illegal actors’ support (e.g., organized crime or hitmen).[21] Additionally, IWHRDs-led social movement organizations are not just any apparently powerless groups, like “David.” They are Indigenous organizations of neglected communities, led by Indigenous women in “racist, capitalist and patriarchal depredatory” contexts.[22] Thus, we could easily assume that Indigenous women lack the power and resources to lead organizations, mobilize neglected communities and win their human rights demands. Nonetheless, in minimally favorable contexts and without effective protection and support, some Indigenous women-led mobilizations have sometimes had a significant impact, generating positive changes in corporate practice. These moments of success are remarkable because of who these Indigenous women are and what they do both individually and collectively in defense of their rights, in a context of extreme violence and overlapping asymmetric power relationships that shape their experience within and beyond their families, organizations and communities. Therein lies the puzzle of my investigation: what explains that in certain situations (and not in others), against all odds, in the face of extreme violence, with few resources or power, transformative actions led by IWHRDs do occur and produce success.

I define success as a favorable change in corporate practice. For example, corporations fully stop or withdraw their participation in mega-projects that have been advanced on the basis of human rights abuses, such as those lacking affected Indigenous communities’ free, prior and informed consultation and consent (FPIC). Thus, the central research question I aim to answer with my doctoral investigation is: what can explain the success (or not) of Indigenous women-led mobilizations over the most politically and economically powerful actors in the world?

To respond to this question, I use a multi-level qualitative comparative case study research methodology.[23] It includes analyses of (1) a variation within a country, specifically a paired comparison of cases of success and non-success of Lenca Indigenous women-led social movement organizations contesting the abuses of hydroelectric dam projects in Honduras; (2) a within-case variation over time through the study of a Binni’za women-led social movement organization mobilizing against the human rights violations connected to wind farm projects in Mexico, with successful and unsuccessful outcomes at different moments;[24] and (3) a small-N cross-national comparison of Indigenous women-led social movement organizations defending human rights from the abuses by mega-projects in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.[25] Additionally, a qualitative comparative analysis that also uses a Boolean minimization process is carried out with all the cases studied in-depth to test further and refine the findings of the study.[26] To develop this multi-level research design, I use a combination of qualitative methods.[27] Very importantly, by developing this multi-level qualitative comparative analysis, I do not intend to generalize my findings. Rather, recognizing some common aspects and the heterogeneity of experiences and the diversity among Indigenous peoples and Indigenous women, I only aimed to generate a theoretical framework to contribute to better understand these types of cases.

In the next section, I provide a brief overview of the theoretical framework that emerged from the application of this research design. In the following section, I focus on some aspects of the case of Lenca leader Berta Cáceres to discuss criminalization as a silencing practice. This case is one of the two cases I study in the first comparative analysis and, although all the cases I study in my thesis are emblematic in the region, this is particularly paradigmatic. Berta Cáceres was known to the world as “the activist who twisted the arm of the World Bank and China”.[28] Both the World Bank and Sinohydro, a Chinese company and the largest hydroelectric dam builder in the world, decided not to continue participating in the development of the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam project (Agua Zarca) in Honduras. This was one of the many impacts of the mobilization Berta Cáceres led. She co-founded and led the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) for more than two decades. In April 2015, Berta Cáceres received the Goldman Prize (also known as the “green Nobel”) in recognition of her achievements defending the Lenca people from abuses committed in connection to mega-projects in their territory. A year later, and after numerous attacks, she was killed in reprisal for her human rights actions. Those who murdered her may have thought they would silence her this way, but they never imagined that her voice and impact would outlive her.

II. Acción trenzada

To explain the impact Indigenous women-led mobilizations challenging the human rights abuses committed in connection to mega-projects in Latin America have (or not) on corporate practices, I develop the theoretical framework Acción trenzada (braided action). It is a metaphor and a theory that draws on the knowledge and experience of Indigenous women-led mobilizations in the Americas and legal, intersectional and sociological studies. I adapt the Archimedes’ Lever analogy proposed by Payne, Pereira and Bernal-Bermúdez in the book Transitional Justice and Corporate Accountability from Below: Deploying Archimedes’ Lever.[29] The Archimedes’ Lever model was originally developed to study accountability efforts regarding economic actors’ participation in past atrocities. However, I use it to study contemporary cases of human rights violations involving corporate actors. On the one hand, I found this model very illuminating, as Indigenous women-led mobilizations’ impact on corporate practice in the context of mega-projects in Latin America had not been previously studied in a systematic manner. On the other, it is a comprehensive model of a reality that continues. Corporate actors’ involvement in grave human rights violations is not only a matter of past atrocities; it is a legacy of the past that remains a pressing issue.

The Archimedes’ Lever model acknowledges a dynamic of forces in the context of imbalanced power relationships, which includes silencing practices such as criminalization and the mobilization actions to overcome them. Thus, I adapt this model because it helps to show how Indigenous women-led organizations face so many disadvantages, challenges, oppressions and a history of discrimination and violence, and how they use a minimally favorable context and the tools available to harness a mobilization’s power and produce a change. Very importantly, it helps me show that the mobilization force comes from the territory, and braids the power of external actions to it.

The metaphor of the braid of action builds upon Indigenous women’s knowledge and experience and the concept of human rights defenders mentioned in the introduction. For many Indigenous peoples in Latin America, braids in their hair, clothes, textiles, and other handmade objects are a distinctive characteristic of their culture.[30] The Sutsüin Jieyuu Wayúu (Wayuu Women’s Force -FMW) organization in Colombia uses ropes to explain their mobilization process.[31] It is a fundamental part of their culture. Wayuu leader Karmen Ramírez explains: “We use ropes to knit our hammocks, and our mochilas […] One rope represents one individual; it can be easily broken. Three united ropes forming one braid cannot be broken […] It represents a national process of Indigenous women […] defending the territory.”[32] Thus, a braid can be tough and resistant. But, as a Colombian leader explains, “to resist is not the same as to endure.”[33] Indeed, Indigenous women human rights defenders effectively and continuously deal with multiple resistances, but their struggles go beyond it. Their mobilizations are not only processes of resistance; they are transformative. Indigenous women challenge the dominant power inside and outside their communities, voicing and struggling for their communities’ demands. These women reaffirm their collective and individual subjectivity, presence and existence, identity, dignity and rights. They build a strong power to defend human rights, and they do so with their actions. With a tough braid of action, Indigenous women-led mobilizations can pull down a lever to lift human rights and achieve success.

The original Archimedes’ Lever model includes the following essential parts: the weight to be lifted, the force applied to lift the weight, the force that aims keep it down, and the placement of the fulcrum.[34] Theoretically, fulcrum means context, and it is a conditioning factor. The closer the fulcrum is to the weight that needs to be lifted, the less pressure is needed to lift it up. In my adaptation of the Archimedes’ Lever model, the fulcrum is slightly closer to the weight to be lifted but very near the middle. Hence, it is a minimally favorable context. On the one hand, the cases of IWHRDs-led organizations struggling against the abuses committed in connection to mega-projects occur in a dominant racist, patriarchal and capitalist context. In such a context, prevalent neoliberal policies have favored corporate power, promoting mega-projects even in protected areas inhabited by Indigenous peoples. On the other hand, the current context is not the same as it was before (e.g., in colonial times). As a result of social struggles, democratic and human rights frameworks (e.g., norms and policies) have been advanced, opening important opportunities for mobilizing in defense of rights.

Therefore, in my adaptation of that model, human rights are to be lifted; thus, the weight is created by the violations that have been committed in connection with megaproject (e.g., the lack of FPIC). Veto players seek to keep the weight down,[35] as human rights abuses benefit their interests. Indigenous women-led mobilizations aim to lift human rights, to stop the situation of abuse. The fulcrum gives them an opportunity to do that, but it does not do the work for them. The braid of action — a unique “weapon of the weak”[36] for Indigenous peoples — is an essential tool needed to lift human rights. Lashing the braid to the lever can pull it down and produce a favorable change.

The braid of action combines the presence of four crucial factors (strands).[37] Three emerge from the capacity of the movement: transforming the power in the territory into mobilization power, Indigenous women’s effective leadership and human rights framing. The fourth is reacting to an external factor: a grave human rights violation, usually severe repression, overtly involving a corporation. These four strands interwoven in a tough braid of action are capable of harnessing a strong mobilization power, achieving success over more materially powerful corporate forces. However, if some of the strands are weak or frayed, the braid cannot achieve this success.

It is then a dynamic model. The four strands overlap and, operating with their own mechanisms, gather strength.[38] A tough braid can harness a strong mobilization power. However, in that dynamic of forces, while the mobilization may build power, veto players also use their power to advance the mega-project. Veto power can be exerted by State and non-state actors, including the companies interested in developing mega-projects. Veto power can be used to resist change. Even in a minimally favorable context, veto players use their power to resist the mobilizations that may alter their advantageous situation. This power can be exerted in diverse forms,[39] one of which is the criminalization of Indigenous women leaders and their organizations. In some cases, State and corporate actors are direct aggressors while, in others, they use others or even involve illegal actors (e.g., hitmen).

In this vein, acknowledging such a dynamic of forces in the context of imbalanced power relationships, I recognize the extreme violence and many challenges that Indigenous women leaders face. However, this study also treats these leaders as more than victims of a struggle over rights. It considers them protagonists. It highlights what they are up against, but also how they have overcome violence and other challenges to, at times, achieve success. In the next section, based on the model briefly introduced here, I share a few aspects of that dynamic of forces. Drawing on the case of COPINH and Berta Cáceres, I focus on criminalization as a silencing action affecting Indigenous women leaders, the groups they lead and how they overcome it.

III. Overcoming silencing practices — criminalization

In a moment when the sustainability of the world is a principal concern, the call for taking action for “the well-being of humanity and the planet”[40] is not only legitimate but necessary.[41] Thus, those who struggle for these causes should not only be supported but praised for having the courage to raise their voices. Instead, they have been criminalized, persecuted and attacked. A year after Berta Cáceres made that call to the world, she was killed in her home in Intibucá, Honduras.

Honduras is a dangerous place to defend human rights. Between 2009 and 2017, over 120 defenders of the land and territory were killed in Honduras.[42] Between 2016 and 2017, 1232 attacks against women human rights defenders were registered,[43] 444 of which were attacks against women defenders of the territory, the environment, and Indigenous peoples’ rights. These attacks include, among others, six killings and numerous cases of intimidation, death threats, domestic violence, and sexual violence. In most of these cases, the aggressors are unknown. When known, they mostly are from the police, the community, the corporations, the social movement, the family/partner, or the military.[44]

Hitmen, a military officer (active until his arrest), and high-ranking employees of Desarrollo Energéticos S.A. (DESA), owner of the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam project, participated in Berta Cáceres’ murder.[45] The attack that ended Berta’s life was the consolidation of many other previous ones. There was a dynamic of forces in the context of imbalanced power relationships in this case. While Berta Cáceres and the COPINH had been mobilizing to challenge the abuses committed in relation to the Agua Zarca project, the veto players were also using their force to try to silence them, break their mobilization process and advance the mega-project. Criminalization was continuously used against the COPINH.

Social organizations sometimes englobe all attacks against social leaders as being part of a general trend to criminalize the defense of human rights. In international human rights law, criminalization refers to the misuse of the justice system (i.e., administrative, civil, or criminal law) to prosecute human rights defenders in reprisal for legitimate activities.[46] In this case, both interpretations are applicable. The many different attacks against Berta Cáceres and other leaders of COPINH were all attempts to silence them. They were all part of a dynamic where veto players attempted in many ways to stop their mobilization process and deter others from defending human rights.

When DESA arrived in the Lenca territory with the Agua Zarca project, many local communities were already organized as part of COPINH. They already knew the power of their organization. In 1994, Berta Cáceres and COPINH, together with other Indigenous and tribal peoples and organizations, mobilized in the first pilgrimage for “life, liberty, and justice.” About 4,000 Indigenous people walked to Tegucigalpa. The mobilization had several impacts, such as the ratification of the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention of the International Labour Organization;[47] the creation of two Indigenous municipalities;[48] the granting of several communal legal titles; the suspension of lumber mills’ operations;[49] the establishment of the Prosecutor’s Office on Ethnic Groups and the Cultural Patrimony of the Nation (FEEPC). There was also a structural transformation as Indigenous peoples became more visible and recognized in Honduras. The context (the fulcrum, as above explained) became more favorable and more hopeful, opening opportunities for human rights struggles.

COPINH was also at the forefront of the anti-coup mobilization in 2009. They campaigned against the illegal regime, the human rights violations committed at the time and the arbitrary measures that followed it, including those favoring neoliberal policies and corporate interests. In 2010, COPINH mobilized in front of the National Congress and denounced the 40 concessions approved without the FPIC of affected communities, including Agua Zarca.[50] As a result of their insistence, in August 2011, President Lobo agreed with COPINH not to carry out any hydroelectric dam projects in the Lenca territory without first approving them in cabildos abiertos (town meetings) according to ILO Convention 169, and with the participation of COPINH.[51] This agreement was never implemented.

When the presence of the Agua Zarca project in the Lenca territory was evident, the affected communities that were part of COPINH took further actions to protect their rights. The project had been imposed in their territory without their FPIC. Thus, on 1 April 2013, they started to block an access road to the site where the project was being constructed. They established a permanent presence at El Roblón, located next to a big old oak tree. About 300 Lenca people (children, elderly, women, and men) built a tent and put up COPINH’s colorful flags. This site became a prominent place for strengthening their mobilization, community assemblies, and practicing their spirituality and culture. However, many acts of intimidation, threats, persecution, and attacks against the COPINH local leaders also took place in reprisal for their legitimate actions.[52]

At the end of April 2013, the tense dynamic increased as the military was active in the area. On 17 May 2013, a permanent military and police presence was installed on the DESA premises. The criminalization of the Lenca leaders intensified. On 24 May 2013, Berta Cáceres was detained and accused of carrying an unlicensed gun in the back of the pickup truck she was driving. She always claimed the gun had been planted by the military officers when they searched the car. Three months later, DESA accused Berta Cáceres and two other COPINH leaders of usurpation, coercion and continued damages against the company. Facing imprisonment for these unfounded charges, Berta was forced into hiding.[53] During the proceedings, “DESA’s lawyers went as far as to call on the Honduran State to ‘act with all resources at its disposal to persecute, punish and neutralize’ the actions of COPINH.”[54] A few months later, after a global solidarity campaign and their legal representatives’ actions, all charges were dropped.

The El Roblón blockade and other actions continued. Lenca leader Tomás García explained: “We have to defend our forest, rivers, and lands; if not, who would do it? If we do not do it, nobody will defend our [territory]. And from there, we get everything.”[55] On 15 July 2013, García was killed and his 17-year-old son was seriously wounded. They were marching with many other members of COPINH towards the premises of DESA when one of the soldiers guarding the company shot directly at them.[56] Following such a severe attack, COPINH redoubled its mobilization actions. They reaffirmed their presence in a territory the Lenca people have inhabited for centuries and, raising their voices further, made all the abuses they were enduring even more visible. Their voices were joined by many others in the country and abroad, bringing further attention to a situation that required the State and corporate actors to stop participating as they were committing grave violations of human rights. “The denunciations encouraged dozens of representatives of Honduran and foreign organizations working to defend human rights to visit, as well as local, national and international press who documented and denounced the situation. This was significant and of great weight for the community. On the one hand, the problem was made visible and, on the other, this made them feel […] like they had strong support.”[57]

When facing baseless criminal proceedings, Berta Cáceres and the COPINH also reaffirmed their mobilization and voice. They never kept quiet. Berta said: “We decided to sustain the struggle and intensify national and international activities to complain. I feel very accompanied; I do not feel alone. They have been unable to impose neither fear nor terror. We remain firm. I feel safe, dignified, and strong”.[58] Berta and the COPINH felt solidarity from national and international organizations, as did the veto players who could not silence them. Neither the State nor corporate actors could escape the case’s visibility.

DESA initially contracted the Chinese company Sinohydro to construct Agua Zarca and had secured the World Bank’s financial support. At the end of 2013, after increased campaigning by COPINH and their network of support, Sinohydro withdrew from the project. The Chinese company later explained: “Right from the very beginning of our mobilization, it was noticed that there were serious conflicts of interest between the Employer of the Project, i.e., DESA, and the local communities, which were treated as unpredictable and uncontrollable by the Contractor.”[59] Later, the World Bank stated that it “has never invested in the Agua Zarca project. Several years ago, an investee fund of our private sector arm, IFC [International Finance Corporation], considered financing the project. However, no investment was ever made.”[60] Such powerful economic actors’ decision not to participate in the Agua Zarca project was a significant change in their corporate practice. However, Berta Cáceres’ and the COPINH’s actions were further repressed.

During the mobilizations against Agua Zarca that followed, authorities and corporate representatives acted to diminish the leadership of Berta and the mobilization power COPINH had managed to create from the territory. On 20 February 2016, Berta Cáceres publicly denounced that she and many other members of COPINH had been threatened, harassed, and criminalized by employees of DESA, employees of the Mayor’s office and active members of the ruling National Party.[61] A few days before her killing, she also denounced that four members of COPINH had been killed in reprisal for their campaigning against the abuses committed in connection with the Agua Zarca project. In the last few weeks before her killing, she managed to file 33 complaints about the most recent death threats against her, but none of them were investigated.[62] She should have been protected by the State the night she was killed. By then, she had valid State protection measures and the support and recognition of national and international networks and organizations. She also had precautionary measures granted by the InterAmerican Commission of Human Rights. Yet, that night she was only accompanied by a fellow Mexican human rights defender, Gustavo Castro, with whom she had been preparing a workshop for Lenca communities for the day after. He was wounded but survived the attack.

In November 2014, when a journalist asked Berta Cáceres if she feared for her life, she said: “Honduras is not an easy country, there is brutal violence […] the most real and present danger is losing one’s life and being physically and emotionally attacked. All this in addition to a negative media campaign against female leaders, because it is not the same to be a woman as to be a man in this role […], but fear will not paralyze us, and the Lenca people will succeed.”[63] Indeed, even after her killing, Berta Cáceres and the COPINH were never silenced. Her voice has continued to resonate in Honduras and beyond.

Those who killed Lenca leader Berta Cáceres may have thought they would silence her and stop the COPINH’s mobilization this way, but they never imagined that her impact would lead to something even more durable and profound. In 2017, a year after her killing, the Netherlands Development Finance Institution (FMO) and the Finnish Fund for Industrial Cooperation (Finnfund) also ended their participation in the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam project. Furthermore, she inspired many people worldwide and dozens of Indigenous women leaders to defend their territories, dignity and rights.

* * *

Despite a more hopeful framework of human rights norms and democratic institutions, human rights abuses persist. Human rights defenders continue to be targeted and attacked in Honduras and other Latin American countries. But, as violence and abuses persist, so do mobilizations led by Indigenous women who sometimes manage to generate positive impacts on corporate behavior.

In a context of violence and imbalanced power relationships, in a dynamic of forces with those who wanted to impose Agua Zarca, Berta Cáceres and COPINH managed to impact and overcome silencing practices. They were often confronted with the problem of not being heard now and being silenced forever. But they managed to overcome these obstacles every time, raising their voices further and gaining greater visibility and support. They insisted with great courage and continue to do so. Berta Cáceres “never let fear paralyze the struggle,” and she now is “the eternal general coordinator of COPINH.”[64] At the same time, COPINH, now led by Bertha Zúñiga Cáceres, her daughter, continues to advance human rights claims.

Moreover, the voice of Berta Cáceres continues to resonate across the Americas, where many Indigenous women are facing and overcoming similar situations. Berta Cáceres and COPINH braided their actions and achieved important impacts favoring communities’ claims, including some changes in corporate practice. They managed to overcome the silence that veto players wanted to impose on them, despite the very high costs for them, their loved ones and organization. Together with COPINH, Berta Cáceras braided action and their tough braid allowed them to harness a strong mobilization force that persists.