Supporters of Slain American Nun Vow to Pursue Planners of Killing
By REUTERS
Published: December 12, 2005
BELÉM, Brazil, Dec. 11 (Reuters) - Two Brazilian ranch hands began long prison sentences Sunday after they were convicted of murdering Dorothy Stang, an American nun who was an advocate for protection of the rain forest. Their trial was seen as a test of Brazil's will to combat killings over land use on the Amazon frontier.
But Sister Dorothy's supporters said they were now ready to go after the ranchers accused of offering the two men about $22,000 to kill her, after she blocked their advance on valuable, hardwood-rich rain forest.
"This is just the beginning," said the nun's sister, Margaret, as the land-protection advocates wept and hugged one another after the trial in the Amazon city of Belém, the capital of the state of Para.
Three ranchers accused of ordering and planning the killing are fighting their case in court.
"They're going to think twice about threats and assassinations from now on," said the Rev. José Amaro, a Roman Catholic priest and land protection advocate who worked closely with Sister Dorothy in Anapu, and has received death threats since she was killed.
Public prosecutors said the rancher accused of masterminding the killing, Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura, should face trial early next year.
The verdict against the two ranch hands came down late on Saturday. Raifran das Neves Sales was sentenced to 27 years in prison for shooting Sister Dorothy, 73, on Feb. 12 as she defended peasant settlers.
Clodoaldo Carlos Batista, an illiterate farm worker, was sentenced to 17 years for acting as an accomplice. They had faced maximum sentences of 30 years.
A native of Dayton, Ohio, Sister Dorothy had spent the past 30 years fighting for peasants' land rights and the environment. She was killed setting up a federal reserve meant to let poor families to grow crops in the rain forest without chopping it down.
In Para, a rain forest state twice the size of France, 772 advocates of protecting the land have been killed in the past 30 years, but only nine killers had been convicted before Saturday. Sister Dorothy was killed near the remote town of Anapu.
Landowners in Para, and their defenders, contend that the nun was a left-wing militant who encouraged peasants to occupy private property and acquire guns illegally.
Mr. Sales said he shot her in self-defense after he thought she was going to pull a pistol out of her bag when he and Mr. Batista confronted her on a jungle road.
But Mr. Batista said she pulled out a Bible and read verses from Matthew before Mr. Sales shot her six times.
The United Nations and Brazil's federal government hailed the trial as a first step toward ending corruption and impunity that drives the Amazon violence.
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