Backers of Honduran dam opposed by murdered activist withdraw funding

Backers of Honduran dam opposed by murdered activist withdraw funding.
The international funders behind the hydroelectric dam opposed by murdered Honduran environmentalist Berta Cáceres are withdrawing from the project, the Guardian can reveal.
Three financial institutions had pledged loans worth $44m for the Agua Zarca dam on the Gualcarque river, which is considered sacred by the Lenca people and which Caceres campaigned against before her death.
The Civil Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (Copinh) – the campaign group Caceres co-founded – has long demanded that investors withdraw and make reparations for the human rights violations linked to the project.
Desa secured loans from Dutch bank FMO, Finnish finance company FinnFund and the Central American Bank of Economic Integration (Cabei).
Gualcarque river Belize Guatemala El Salvador Nicaragua San Francisco de Ojuera Rio Blanco La Esperanza Caribbean Sea Pacific Ocean 100 km 100 miles Honduras Tegucigalpa Belize Guatemala El Salvador Nicaragua Gualcarque river San Francisco de Ojuera Rio Blanco La Esperanza Caribbean Sea Pacific Ocean 100 km 100 miles Honduras Tegucigalpa Caceres wrote to FMO in 2013 after the murder of her colleague Tomás Garcia, asking them not to finance Agua Zarca amid violence against the community.
Caceres was killed in March 2016 after receiving multiple death threats linked to her campaign, and just a few months after her name appeared on a military hitlist, a Guardian investigation found.
But all three investors have now decided to to withdraw completely from the Agua Zarca project.
In identical statements FMO and FinnFund told the Guardian they “intend to exit as soon as possible.
Desa received $17m – just under 40% – of the loans before payments were suspended.