Jeanette Kawas

Blanca Jeanette Kawas Fernández (16 January 1946 – 6 February 1995) was a Honduran environmental activist known for her role in saving more than 400 species of flora and fauna.

Biography
Kawas started her studies at the Miguel Paz Barahona School and earned her title of Expert Accountant and Certified Public Accountant in 1967, after which she began working in financial institutions during the 1970s. Between 1977 and 1979 she met and married Jim Watt, giving birth to two children, Damaris and Jaime.

In the early 1980s she moved with her children to the city of New Orleans, where she studied computation, obtaining various certificates, awards, and citations for her achievement and academic excellence. In the early 1990s she began working at the Honduran Ecology Association. Her activities and the progress made to preserve 449 plant species, diversity of flora and fauna, coastal lagoons, rocky outcrops, swamps, mangroves, rocky shores, sandy beaches, and rainforest located in a coastal strip of 40 kilometers, were an obstacle to business projects.

Murder
On February 6, 1995 around 7:45 PM, Kawas was shot by two unidentified suspects at her house in Barrio El Centro in Tela, Atlántida. Among the murder suspects were Colonel Mario Amaya (known as Tigre Amaya), who reportedly met with sergeant Ismael Perdomo and Mario Pineda (aka Chapin) at the police headquarters in Tela.

Aftermath
Since there was no more interest on the Honduran justice system's part in resolving this crime, on January 13, 2003, the Team of Reflection, Research and Communication (ERIC) of the Society of Jesus and the Centre for International Justice (CEJIL) sent three individual requests to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, in which they declared the State of Honduras responsible for the murders of Jeanette Kawas, Carlos Escaleras, and Carlos Luna.

In 2005, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found Kawas v. Honduras admissible; its ruling in 2009 set international legal precedent for the requirement that governments must protect at-risk environmental human rights defenders.

See also
 Femicides in Honduras
Jeanette Kawas National Park
Berta Cáceres another Honduran environmentalist

References

External links 
 

Category:Honduran environmentalists
Category:Honduran women environmentalists
Category:Assassinated Honduran people
Category:Honduran people of Palestinian descent
Category:Environmental killings
Category:People from Atlántida Department
Category:1946 births
Category:1995 deaths
Category:People murdered in Honduras
Category:Honduran murder victims
Category:Deaths by firearm in Honduras
Category:Honduran women activists
Category:Women accountants
Category:Women human rights defenders