Issue 21 — The Killings of March

Yesterday, March 2nd, was the anniversary of the assassination of Berta Cáceres. An indigenous Lenca woman and environmental defender, Cáceres led and won the fight against the world’s largest dam — a hydropower project in Honduras that threatened the Lenca people’s access to food, water, and medicinal plants as well as the destruction of the sacred, Gualcarque River. After years of threats against her life, Cáceres was killed in 2016 by former Honduran soldiers trained by the United States.

When I began researching my investigation into the links between U.S. security assistance and violence against environmental defenders, I knew that Cáceres would feature in some capacity. But between reporting in the Philippines and speaking with environmental and human rights defender, Brandon Lee — who was targeted by state forces because of his activism — I realized she was much more enmeshed in the story than I had expected.

In 2015, the year Cáceres and the Lenca people won their fight against the dam project, members of the indigenous Philippines’ organization, the Ifugao Peasant Movement (IPM), met Cáceres at a summit in Malaysia. The IPM was fighting several hydropower projects across the province of Ifugao in the Philippines’ far northern Cordillera — dams that would choke the waters, displace communities, inundate farm land, and destroy the small-scale fisheries locals rely upon.

Just a year earlier, on March 25th, indigenous Tuwali man, IPM member, and human rights defender, William Bugatti, was shot and killed while on his way home. Over the years, Bugatti, known for his booming voice and sense of humor, had received numerous death threats including extensive questioning from the military battalions occupying indigenous land. While the assailants were never identified, as is often the case, the killing fit a pattern of state terror and led activists to believe the Philippine armed forces were involved.

“By killing William, they wanted the movement silenced permanently,” says Brandon Lee, a former IPM member who worked alongside Bugatti. “But we knew that if we stopped, the people would have nothing to gain.”

“They were asking for our help and we wanted to empower them.”

At the summit in Malaysia, Cáceres joined the IPM in their call to defend Ifugao, signing a note of solidarity that later hung on the wall of IPM’s office in the municipality of Lagawe. While Lee did not attend the summit, he recalls stories from other defenders detailing Cáceres’ fierce dedication to internationalism and her critique of large NGOs that she believed were diluting solidarity amongst activists around the world. Among IPM members, he explains, she was greatly admired.

The following year, Cáceres was killed.

Back in Ifugao, in the aftermath of Bugatti’s killing, farmer and IPM member Ricardo Mayumi began attending the court hearings and investigation into the murder. Mayumi was from the town of Tinoc, about an hour west of Lagawe on a road that snakes through the mountains like a river, and had been leading opposition to the Quadriver Mini Hydro Dam. Because of his activism, he had also received death threats and was red-tagged on social media as a “terrorist.”

On the evening of March 2nd, 2018, while Mayumi was inside his home, a neighbor and cousin heard four sudden gunshots. Mayumi had been struck on the left cheek, the left side of his chest, and in both arms. He did not make it to the hospital alive.

A week later, international organizations condemned the murder, calling for a prompt investigation. Given the circumstances and the spate of activist killings that both foreshadowed and followed the attack on Mayumi, a Philippines-based indigenous peoples organization believed members of a government trained and funded paramilitary were involved. Ifugao police were said to be investigating. No one has ever been charged.

“Berta was extrajudicially killed in March, William Bugatti was also extrajudicially killed, and then, Ricardo Mayumi was killed,” says Lee. “After that, March was always a hard month for the IPM.”

From Honduras to the Philippines, none of those activist killings would be the last. Dam by dam, bullet by bullet, one military alliance to the next, environmental defenders continue to be surrendered to a global war machine that cannot see the mountain from the mine. But activists’ lives, and their legacies — such as Cáceres in the Cordillera — hold a power beyond that violence. It is one birthed from the headwaters of a movement and pushed by a tide that cannot be quelled and cannot be silenced.

Thank you for reading this issue of Defender!

While much has been written about Berta Cáceres — about her activism, her defiant wins, and ultimately, the price she paid for both — I haven’t read much on how her struggle and resistance inspired other activists, land defenders, and indigenous peoples around the world. This small anecdote — part of which was taken from my 2024 investigation and some of which was culled during the editing process — also shows Cáceres’ deep internationalism in action — something with which I identify as a journalist and as a person.

Through my reporting in Guatemala, Nicaragua, India, the Philippines, Southern Italy, California’s central valley, and even the borderlands between Texas and Mexico, I have seen the same issues appear again and again in different contexts, in different countries but nearly always with the same underlying causes.

Migrant farmworkers in Italy’s south face the same kinds of exploitation as immigrant workers in California’s agricultural fields. Guatemala’s Q’eqchi’ people are displaced and disenfranchised by the same industrial land grabs that push indigenous farmers off their land in the Philippines. And as my last investigation confirmed, state forces from India to Colombia, are involved in the harassment, kidnapping, and killing of environmental defenders around the world.

This internationalism is central to my work because it is what I see and what I hear every single time I report a story. It is not even a matter of personal politics — it is the reality. But as the West rushes to the right with fascist politicians winning votes by campaigning for strong borders, against immigrants, and essentially, prioritizing white supremacy, the idea of internationalism has never been less popular, even if it is more important than ever.

As a journalist, my strengths lie in the stories you have read in this newsletter — the imprint of imperialism that displaces communities, chokes rivers and streams, culls forests, poisons the air, and kills those fighting against it from one country to the next. In other words, the antithesis of the West’s, in particular the United States’, steep descent into authoritarianism. Yet, even as parochialism fails us, we are focusing on it more and more — and journalism, both mainstream and other, is following suit.

With that, I welcome you back to another year of Defender — my inconsistent newsletter now driven by bigger and bolder plans. Together with some 300 people subscribed to this newsletter, I hope to create a space for thought and discussion about the ways in which the stories I report and those exclusive to Defender, share similar narratives, similar struggles, and as a result, similar systems of oppression and repression around the world.

If you would like to support this work, I’ve set up three membership tiers on my Ko-fi page ranging from $1 - $3 a month. This newsletter, as always, remain free. Thank you to everyone who has already supported Defender and my work — I really appreciate it.

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As you may have noticed, I switched newsletter platforms once again. I was uncomfortable with how much money and support Substack has thrown at far right newsletters and do not want to be involved with a company that monetizes Nazis while flouting their own so-called “terms of service.” For now, this will be Defender’s home.(Also if anyone watches Rick & Morty, trying to find a newsletter platform has felt a lot like this scene.)

Next week, I’ll be sharing a new story published on Atmos.

Rage On. ❤️‍🔥