James Neelan is inside a bland, beige-carpeted boardroom.

He's sitting at a large round table, under the dull glare of fluorescent light.

In his role as the U.S. ambassador in Honduras, he spends a lot of time in rooms like this.

Today's meeting is in Washington, D.C., at the Council of the Americas. It's a group that

promotes free trade and open markets. A couple dozen other diplomats from Central America and the

Caribbean sit around the same table. It's March 2016, less than two weeks after the murder of Bertha Caceres.

The killing is sure to be a topic of discussion today.

And Neelan knows the case well.

He attended Bertha's funeral, and he's met with her family,

promising them whatever support his embassy can provide.

But before Neelan can get into all of that, the room erupts.

A gentleman stood up in the middle of it, and I think he unfurled a banner and he said, you know, pointing at me, he said, this man has blood on his hands.

And it was in reference to the Berticassar's case.

A couple of men grabbed the activists and begin pushing them toward an exit door.

The protesters fight back.

One is shoved hard into a doorframe on his way out of the room.

In Honduras, the U.S. Embassy is a powerful institution.

It's capable of exerting lots of pressure on local authorities.

But for some, that influence wasn't always welcome.

Bertha herself had been deeply critical of the U.S., and especially its military,

ever since her days in El Salvador,

when she aided leftist rebels there in their fight against the U.S.-backed government.

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