Statement of Senator Peter Welch
on Juan López
Statement as Prepared
January 22, 2025
Madam President, four months ago I made a statement about the murder of Honduran Indigenous environmental defender and anti-corruption activist Juan López, on September 14, 2024, who at that time was the latest victim of an ongoing epidemic of vigilante violence in that country.
As I mentioned then, my office, like others in Congress, had received reports of recurring threats, attacks, arbitrary arrests, and assassinations of members of the Guapinol, Tocoa, and other communities in the Bajo Aguán region of Honduras. The crimes were intended to silence those who opposed the Los Pinares open-pit iron oxide mine and the Ecotek Thermoelectric Project in an Indigenous reserve which threaten their livelihoods and the region’s environment, and who challenged the companies and corrupt officials who profit from those projects.
Mr. López, a winner of the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award in 2019, had been a victim of wrongful imprisonment, false prosecution, and had spoken out against corrupt officials in Tocoa.
His assassination was the latest in a pattern of similar killings that have not resulted in justice. Of the six other assassinations of members of the Guapinol water defenders, no one has been prosecuted or punished, nor for the murders of scores of other social activists, journalists, and human rights defenders in Honduras.
Last September, I urged the following steps to be taken immediately: Convene an international commission of experts to support the Honduran prosecutor’s investigation, to ensure the investigation is credible, thorough, and impartial; Provide protection for human rights defenders at risk in the Bajo Aguán region; and investigate the abuses and corruption denounced by Juan López and the pattern of violence against the Guapinol defenders.
In the months since Mr. López was killed, the Honduran government has said that it detained three people who were responsible. That is encouraging. But government officials believe that the person who ordered the killing is still at large. Also, according to press reports, Honduran prosecutors formally accused company leaders and local government officials connected to the mine of illegally exploiting resources, abusing authority and ‘environmental crimes’ for mining in the Indigenous reserve. Yet people living in the area say the mining hasn’t stopped.
After the assassination in May 2016 of Berta Cáceres, another Honduran Indigenous leader who led protests against the construction of a hydroelectric dam and won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, international pressure pushed the Honduran government to arrest and prosecute one of the top officials of the construction company. But he is challenging his conviction, and it is widely believed that there may be others who were responsible and have not been charged.
Before and after her election in 2021, Honduran President Xiomara Castro pledged to combat corruption and impunity, including partnering with the United Nations to establish an international commission for this purpose. Her term ends in November 2025, when a new president will be elected in Honduras, yet there has been minimal progress toward establishing the promised commission. Corruption and impunity remain deeply entrenched in the Honduran public and private sectors.
Not only do those of us who care about justice in Honduras want to see all those responsible for the murders of Berta Cáceres, Juan López, and the other land and water defenders prosecuted and punished, we also want to be able to support a new Honduran commission against corruption and impunity. That would be a crucial, tangible way for President Castro to demonstrate that she not only replaced Juan Orlando Hernandez, her predecessor who was sentenced to 45 years in a United States prison for cocaine and weapons trafficking, but she also dismantled the criminal enterprise that enriched him, his brother, and their cronies. Otherwise, the Honduran people will continue to suffer from the spiraling poverty and violence and bear the costs and consequences of the complicity of yet another corrupt government in undermining the rule of law.
As I said last September, the people of the Bajo Aguán should not have to live in fear that powerful companies and corrupt officials will steal their land, pollute their rivers, and murder courageous leaders like Juan López and Berta Cáceres for peacefully defending the natural resources that are rightfully theirs.