Follow us on social

Berta_cáceres_2

The trial for Berta Caceres' murder will test Biden's Central America policy

The Biden administration says it wants to counter the corruption that’s driving displacement. Does that apply to U.S. allies in Honduras?

Analysis | Latin America

On her recent trip to Guatemala and Mexico, Vice President Kamala Harris drove home two points: that potential immigrants to the U.S. should “stay home,” and that the Biden administration will not tolerate corruption, which it sees as a major barrier to development in the region.

Harris made it clear that the two priorities are linked: “Part of giving people hope is having a very specific commitment to rooting out corruption in the region,” she said. But U.S. promises to help root out corruption in the region has generated skepticism in the U.S. and in Central America.

The U.S. government has generally been on the wrong side of history when it comes to combating corruption in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador — the three Central American countries that currently account for most migration to the United States. It has backed powerful economic and political interests in the region, to the point of overturning elected governments and funding death squads.

And this isn’t just the ancient past. Washington’s continued promotion of private sector extractive industries that cause environmental destruction, resource depletion, displacement, and conflicts with local communities, as well as U.S. support for Central American security forces involved in extrajudicial executions and other egregious human rights violations, all still exacerbate the out-migration Biden seeks to stem.

Then there’s the selective nature of how U.S. anti-corruption campaigns are applied. It’s significant that Harris didn’t make a stop in Honduras, despite the fact that Hondurans account for the majority of Central American migrants. The reason is simple: a photo-op with the Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez would be an embarrassing reflection of the administration’s double standard on anti-corruption.

Hernandez has been implicated in drug trafficking and corruption cases in the United States, where his brother, Tony Hernandez, was sentenced to life in prison for trafficking cocaine and funneling the money into Juan Orlando’s presidential campaign. In February of this year, the Southern District Court of New York revealed that President Hernandez himself is a target of investigation for using state security forces to protect drug traffickers who in turn have helped bolster his political control over the county.

There is also credible evidence that Hernandez stole Honduras’s 2017 election, orchestrated a massive embezzlement scheme, and illegally packed the country’s highest court.

A high-profile trial winding up in Tegucigalpa will be an important sign of Honduras’ commitment to rule of law and whether or not that matters to the Biden administration.

David Castillo, a Honduran former military intelligence agent and CEO of Desarrollos Energéticos, SA (DESA), is accused of playing a central role in the 2016 murder of internationally renowned indigenous land defender Berta Cáceres.

DESA was building the Agua Zarca Hydroelectric Project that Cáceres opposed when she was assassinated in her home March 2, 2016. In November 2018, seven men, including DESA company employees and members of the Honduran military, were convicted of carrying out the crime. But the masterminds who hired the hitmen remained at large.

During Castillo’s trial, the state prosecution and the victim’s family presented damning evidence of his involvement, including tapes of phone conversations between Castillo and Douglas Bustillo, a former DESA security chief convicted for the murder in the 2018 trial. They also provided evidence that Castillo coordinated surveillance of Berta Caceres and discussed a previous aborted attempt on her life. He also faces corruption charges related to an alleged criminal network of economic interests with international ties behind the hydroelectric project.

Castillo’s trial will likely be decided this month, amid a coordinated media and public relations campaign to undermine the prosecution. International organizations have called for a fair ruling and full investigation and cooperation from the state.

The trial of the feminist land defender exemplifies the challenges to Biden’s Central America plan.

If the Honduran court fails to deliver an impartial verdict in the face of overwhelming evidence against Castillo, it would send a clear message of impunity and discredit the U.S. effort just days after its launch. And it would highlight the critical question facing the Biden administration: Will its anti-corruption campaign be bold enough to target corruption among economic and geopolitical allies at the very top of these governments, or will it back the deceit of the wolves guarding the sheep?

Actions speak louder than words. The anticorruption rhetoric will fail to convince migrants, human rights defenders, or Honduran and international civil society that Biden’s plan is any different from “business as usual” in the region if the administration looks the other way as regional counterparts run roughshod over rule of law.

This article has been republished with permission from Foreign Policy in Focus.


Berta Caceres, activist for indigenous rights and the environment. Caceres was murdered in 2016. (U.N. Environment via wikimedia commons).
Analysis | Latin America
Trump Netanyahu
Top image credit: White House April 7, 2025

Polls: Americans don't support Trump's war on Iran

Military Industrial Complex

While there are serious doubts about the accuracy of President Donald Trump’s claims about the effectiveness of his attacks on Iranian nuclear sites, the U.S./Israeli war on Iran has provided fresh and abundant evidence of widespread opposition to war in the United States.

With a tenuous ceasefire currently holding, several nationwide surveys suggest Trump’s attack, which plunged the country into yet another offensive war in the Middle East, has been broadly unpopular across the country.

keep readingShow less
Could Trump's Congo-Rwanda mineral deals actually save lives?
Top photo credit: Foreign Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner, left, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, center, and Foreign Minister of Rwanda Olivier Nduhungirehe, right, during ceremony to sign a Declaration of Principles between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, at the State Department, in Washington, D.C., on Friday, April 25, 2025. (Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA)

Could Trump's Congo-Rwanda mineral deals actually save lives?

Africa

There may be a light at the end of the tunnel as representatives from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda are hoping to end the violence between them by signing a peace deal in a joint signing ceremony in Washington today.

This comes after the United States and Qatar have been working for months to mediate an end to the conflict roiling the eastern DRC for years.

keep readingShow less
Trump steve Bannon
Top photo credit: President Donald Trump (White House/Flickr) and Steve Bannon (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)

Don't read the funeral rites for MAGA restraint yet

Washington Politics

On the same night President Donald Trump ordered U.S. airstrikes against Iran, POLITICO reported, “MAGA largely falls in line on Trump’s Iran strikes.”

The report cited “Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and critic of GOP war hawks,” who posted on X, “Iran gave President Trump no choice.” It noted that former Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz, a longtime Trump supporter, “said on X that the president’s strike didn’t necessarily portend a larger conflict.” Gaetz said. “Trump the Peacemaker!”

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.