Urgent Issues Forum: "The Assassination of Berta Cáceres and the Future of Indigenous and Afrodescendant Environmental and Land Rights in Honduras"

On March 2, 2016, award-winning Lenca environmental and indigenous rights activist Berta Cáceres was assassinated in her home in Honduras. She had received multiple threats from military and paramilitary groups linked to the mining and dams interests that she opposed. Gustavo Castro, a Mexican activist who was in Berta's home and was injured in the attack, is now being held illegally in Honduras and there are international concerns that he is being framed for the attack. This urgent forum explores the issues of resource extraction and state violence and their impact on the future of indigenous and environmental rights activism in Honduras.

Participants include:

• Olivia Cáceres (Lenca)
  Activist and daughter of Berta Cáceres
• Rony Castillo (Garifuna)
  PhD student UT Austin, Advisor on Education Issues OFRANEH, President of the Garifuna Education Council and Co-founder of the Garifuna Intercultural University
• Suyapa Portillo
  Pitzer College
• Chris Loperena
  University of San Francisco
• Joseph Berra
  UCLA Law School

Hosted by the UCLA American Indian Studies Center. Co-sponsored by the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, UCLA Center of Study for Women, UCLA Chicano Research Studies Center, UCLA Institute of American Cultures, and Grassroots International.

For more information, visit http://www.aisc.ucla.edu/events/urgentissuesforum.aspx.