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Two large European financial institutions have stopped financing the Agua Zarca dam project in Honduras after environmental and Indigenous activists have been killed for opposing it.
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The Netherlands Development Finance Institution and the Finnish Fund for Industrial Cooperation announced in a joint statement Thursday that they are pulling out.
They said they believed the project would benefit communities in the territory, but that in light of recent violent events, there should be dialogue in order for local citizens to reach a concensus.
"The lenders' exit from the project is intended to reduce international and local tensions in the area," the statement said.
The dam was to be built on the Gualcarque River, considered sacred by the Indigenous Lenca people.
Lenca leader Berta Caceres was murdered over a year ago and became an icon for the Indigenous environmental rights movement.
In 2015, she was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for leading a campaign against the Agua Zarca Dam. A year after that, she was shot dead by gunmen who are suspected to be connected to the ruling U.S.-backed right-wing government.
Among those arrested in her killing was a security employee who worked for the developer Desarrollos Energeticos, or DESA.
Just two weeks later, another activist from her organization, Nelson Garcia, was killed. Then, the body of another activist, Lesbia Janeth Urquia, was found.
"These same investors were silent when dozens of death threats were made against (Caceres). ... Investors have a duty to speak out when activists opposing their projects are threatened," Billy Kyte, leader of the Global Witness environmental campaign, said in a statement.
Honduras was named the most dangerous country in the world for land and environmental defenders this year by NGO Global Witness, with 120 murdered since 2010.
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