{"id":6600,"date":"2017-03-01T01:02:21","date_gmt":"2017-03-01T01:02:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/islamicpostonline.com\/?p=6600"},"modified":"2017-03-28T01:07:28","modified_gmt":"2017-03-28T01:07:28","slug":"suspects-in-murder-of-environmental-activist-trained-at-controversial-united-states-facility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.islamicpostonline.com\/uncategorized\/2017\/03\/01\/suspects-in-murder-of-environmental-activist-trained-at-controversial-united-states-facility\/","title":{"rendered":"Suspects In Murder Of Environmental Activist Trained At Controversial United States Facility"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The murder of environmental activists has reached unprecedented levels throughout Latin America \u2013 and nowhere is this more pronounced than in the Central American nation of Honduras. Since Honduras\u2019 government was overthrown in 2009 in a coup backed by the Clinton-led State Department, the industry-friendly government that came to power is cracking down on local activism by any means necessary.<br \/>\nBerta C\u00e1ceres,a slain environmental justice activist, was the winner of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize. However, her international prestige and recognition did not prevent her from being gunned down in her own home last year.<br \/>\nA new investigation published by the UK Guardian has found that the nation\u2019s U.S. trained special forces have been directly linked to her brutal murder. Citing leaked court documents, the investigation found that C\u00e1ceres\u2019 assassination was an extrajudicial killing planned by military intelligence specialists.<br \/>\nEight men have been arrested in connection with C\u00e1ceres\u2019 death, including one active-duty and two retired military officers. Two of them \u2013 Maj. Mariano D\u00edaz and Lt. Douglas Giovanny Bustillo \u2013 were trained at the infamous School of the Americas.<br \/>\nThe School of the Americas (SOA) is a military training school for Latin American soldiers located at Fort Benning, Georgia. Initially founded in 1946 in Panama, the school soon grew into what former Panamanian President Jorge Illueca called the \u201cbiggest base for destabilization in Latin America.\u201d<br \/>\nThe school was expelled from Panama in 1984 and relocated to Georgia. In 2001, it underwent a \u201ccosmetic\u201d name change and is now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC).<br \/>\nThough the U.S. military insists that SOA\/WHINSEC is dedicated to preserving human rights, the training manuals used at the facility tell a different story. In 1996, bowing to public pressure, the Pentagon reluctantly released training manuals that had been used at SOA. The manuals expressly advocated torture, extortion, blackmail, and the targeting of civilian populations.<br \/>\nMost of the eight people detained in connection to C\u00e1ceres\u2019 murder have ties to either the Honduran military or Desarrollos Energ\u00e9ticos SA (DESA) \u2013 the company behind the Agua Zarca dam, which C\u00e1ceres opposed at the time of her death.<br \/>\nDESA itself has extensive military and government links. Its president, Roberto David Castillo Mej\u00eda, is a former military intelligence officer, while its secretary onced served as justice minister. Bustillo, one of the men trained at SOA and now suspected of murdering C\u00e1ceres, was DESA\u2019s head of security from 2013 to 2015.<br \/>\n<em>Whitney Webb\/mintpressnews.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The murder of environmental activists has reached unprecedented levels throughout Latin America \u2013 and nowhere is this more pronounced than in the Central American nation of Honduras. Since Honduras\u2019 government was overthrown in 2009 in a coup backed by the Clinton-led State Department, the industry-friendly government that came to power is cracking down on local [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2964,"featured_media":6604,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14076,2,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.islamicpostonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6600"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.islamicpostonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.islamicpostonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.islamicpostonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2964"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.islamicpostonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.islamicpostonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.islamicpostonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.islamicpostonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.islamicpostonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.islamicpostonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}