A controversial US development agency has been linked to the Honduran company implicated in the assassination of environmentalist Berta Cacares, who was gunned down in her own home while opposing a dam project.

Ms. Cacares is the founder of one of the largest indigenous and environmental organizations in Honduras, the Council of Indigenous and Popular Organizations of Honduras (COPINH,).  She was awarded the Goldman Prize in 2015 for her efforts to stop the Agua Zarca dam project being pushed by the energy company Desarrollos Energeticos SA (DESA), because of the damage it would do to the Gualcarque River and valley that is the traditional home of the indigenous Lenca people.

Weeks after Berta was murdered on 3 March - and under growing international pressure - Honduran police eventually arrested five people.  These included Douglas Geovanny Bustillo, a retired military officer and the former head of DESA’s security detail; and Sergio Rodriguez, DESA's Social Investment Manager.

But now it can be revealed that less than three months before the murder, DESA signed a funding deal with a Washington DC-based company called Fintrac, which acts as a front for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).  And putting pen to paper on that day was none other Sergio Rodriguez, now charged in the assassination of Berta Cacares.

USAID is a US government agency that advances Washington's interests by funneling money - lots of it - in the form of "investments" into projects in developing nations.  It has, in the past, been accused of working hand in hand with the Central Intelligence Agency, and critics say it tends to appear in countries just before pro-American factions force "regime change" - from Vietnam in the 1960s all the way up to Ukraine in 2014. 

In a February 2016 action alert, COPINH denounced USAID for its complicity in maintaining a "smokescreen of development, employment, clean energy, and social responsibility".