Nun's murder angers thousands
2005-02-16 14:39
Rio De Janeiro - Thousands of people on Tuesday attended the funeral of Dorothy Stang a 74-year-old United States nun who campaigned for the poor of the Amazon rainforest.
Her funeral was held as another leader of landless peasants was gunned down in Para state.
Stang was shot dead on Saturday near an encampment for landless farmers. Three men were detained for the murder on Monday and the Brazilian authorities have blamed the owners of illegal ranches who are encroaching on the Amazon land.
The nun was buried on the edge of the Anapu river, near an environmental agriculture project she developed in Anapu, a town 700km south of the Para state capital, Belem.
Two thousand indignant followers attended a mass and marched through the streets to Stang's burial, according to the Pastoral Land Commission, for which Stang worked.
Made life difficult
Several posters and banners demanded: "Justice be done."
Meanwhile, a peasant leader, Soares da Costa Filho, was murdered on Tuesday in Paraopebas, in Para.
Filho, 44, was shot six times by two men who cut him off along an access road to a peasants camp.
"Neither the murderers nor those who ordered the killings will go unpunished," Cabinet Chief Jose Dirceu promised.
"We will make an example of their punishment," he said in Brasilia.
So far, four warrants have been issued, two for the alleged killers and two for masterminds, believed to be ranchers or foresters who illegally encroach on Amazon land, officials said.
Stang was likely murdered because her attempts to reclaim land made life difficult for the land poachers, according to the commission's coordinator in the state of Para, Pax Pinto.
"The incident resulted from the eternal conflict between small farmers and poachers," he said.
The commission said that in 2004, 37 persons had received death threats in the region.
Stang campaigned tirelessly to protect the Amazon and the rights of the landless.
She had lived in Brazil since 1972 and had obtained Brazilian citizenship. Stang had said that she and farmers from the peasant movement had received death threats.
Ten days ago, she was quoted in a Brazilian daily brushing aside the threats, saying no one "would never dare kill an old lady like me."
She was working in a rural development project in Anupa, in a zone authorised by the National Institute of Colonisation and Agrarian Reform.
In July 2004, Stang received the Para Citizen award for her work defending the Amazon and landless farmers.