and we knew her to be a staunch advocate for the lenca people, a staunch advocate for the environment against the exploitation of land by transnational corporations who came into honduras to try to set up hydroelectric dams on rivers that, quite frankly, the lenca people have historically depended on for their welfare for basic food, water, and for their living conditions. and so for transnational corporations to come in, appropriate lenca land for their uses and without any consultation with the lenca people, and berta caceres was one of those who stood up to oppose that. quite frankly, have been quite successful in doing so prior to her assassination. that is what led to her assassination. indications that the assassination plot goes higher up than just simply people working for these transnational companies. it appears that the military as well as security units within honduras were complicit in this assassination. and it needs to be investigated, and there have been calls for an international independent investigation of the killing. and i am hopeful the progress can be made in th

for a decade, she led the struggle against the agua zarca dam planned along a river sacred to the lenca people. honduran authorities have charged five people in connection with her death, including a honduran army major and employees of desa, the company behind the dam.

caceres was an indigenous lenca leader who won the prestigious goldman environmental prize for her fight against the agua zarca dam. she was shot to death on march 3 at her home in la esperanza, honduras. cruz said caceres' name was on a list distributed to a military police unit in the inter-institutional security force, or fusina, which received training from 300 u.s. marines and fbi agents last year. five people have been arrested includingres' murder, hundred major. last year was the deadliest on record for environmentntalists. the group global w witness says 185 environmental activists were killed last t year, a 60% incree over the previous year. 50 of them were killed just in brazil alone where the summer , olympics are set to take place in august. the israeli military says its soldiers shot and killed a 15-year-old palestininian boy ad wounded four other people by mistake. mahmoud rafat baderan was killed while he and his family were driving home from a swimming pool. the military said soldiers mistakenly believeved he had ben throwing stotones in an earlier incident. federal pros