Missionaries Murdered for Helping Amazon Indigenous

By Sovereign Hager
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

(Photo courtesy of daylife.com)

PARÁ, Brazil-The landowner accused of ordering the murder of Sister Dorothy Stang in the Amazon in 2005 has been ordered back to jail.  Sister Dorothy Stang worked on behalf of the indigenous community and for rainforest preservation. Vitalmiro Bastos Moura "Bida" was originally convicted for the killing in 2007. The verdict was overturned a year later and he is now facing a retrial

Sister Dorothy Stang was seventy-three and had lived in Brazil for thirty years when she was shot six times as she walked along a muddy rainforest trail. She was left to die in the mud. 

The thirty year sentence is the maximum in Brazil and  legislation requires a second trial to confirm the sentence. At the second trial, Bida was found not guilty. Yesterday an appellate court ordered him back to jail, with a majority of the judges agreeing with a lawsuit filed by government attorneys, which annulled the second trial.

The man who is believed to have ordered and paid for the murder is another landowning farmer, Regivaldo Pereira Galvao, also known as Taradao ("Big Pervert"), has been indicted but never tried. 

Estimates are that hundreds of people have been killed in land disputes in the state of Pará in the last few decades, with few prosecutions. Despite the international outrage, missionaries who campaign on behalf of the poor in the Amazon region face death threats and reportedly need police protection to do their work.

For more information, please see:

AP-Suspect in Slaying of U.S. Nun in Brazil is Back in Jail, New Trial Expected This Year-7 February 2010

BBC-Brazil Man Accused of Nun Murder Back in Jail-7 February 2010

Sydney Morning Herald-Brazilian Linked to Nun's Death Jailed-7 February 2010