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Alleged mastermind of Amazon activists' murder is acquitted Two convicted of Amazon activists' murders
(about 4 hours later)
A man who prosecutors accused of masterminding the killing of two Amazon activists in northern Brazil in 2011 was acquitted by a jury on Thursday. A Brazilian court has convincted two men for the murder of prominent Amazon activists, but stirred up anger by acquitting the farm-owner who was accused of paying for the killings.
José Rodrigues Moreira was acquitted due to insufficient evidence, said Edmundo Rodrigues Costa, the national co-ordinator of the Catholic Land Pastoral watchdog group that tracks land-related violence. Costa said prosecutors plan to appeal. Jose Claudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife, Maria do Espiritu Santo, were shot in May 2011 by gunmen riding on a motorbike through in a forest reserve in the northern state of Pará.
But the panel found two others, Lindonjonson Silva Rocha and Alberto Lopes do Nascimento, guilty of carrying out the killings of the activists. Rocha was sentenced to 42 years and eight months and Nascimento got 45 years. Costa said their attorneys will appeal those rulings as well. Their assassinations in May 2011 generated international condemnation, and were compared by many with the killings of Chico Mendes, 25 years ago, and another environmental campaigner, the American-born nun Dorothy Stang who was murdered in 2005.
Jose Claudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife, Maria, were shot near a reserve in the jungle state of Pará, where they taught farmers how to use land in a sustainable manner. Pará is among Brazil's most violent and lawless states, notorious for land-related violence, contract killings, slave-like labour conditions and wanton environmental destruction. The couple been leading the campaign against illegal deforestation and the eviction of rural workers by a local farmer, José Rodrigues Moreira.
"The verdict was to a certain point a positive one because those who shot the guns were convicted," Costa said. "But the verdict unfortunately again showed that those who order people killed enjoy impunity." After multiple threats, da Silva had predicted his own death six months before it happened.
Phonecalls to the courthouse in the city of Marabá, where the trial was held, and to the local prosecutor's office, went unanswered. A judge in Marabá in northern Brazil convicted two men for the murders. Lindonjonson Silva Rocha was sentenced to 42 years and eight months and Alberto Lopes do Nascimento got 45 years.
The Silvas had reported illegal loggers to police and federal prosecutors, and confronted powerful interests that destroy the forest to sell timber, or to clear land for cattle or soybeans. But Moreira was acquitted due to insufficient evidence.
Prosecutors accused Moreira of ordering the killings because the Silvas opposed the eviction of three families occupying his land in the Nova Ipixuna reserve. Prosecutors claimed Moreira had paid for the assassinations because da Silva and Santo were campaigning against the eviction of three families occupying primary forest he had bought in the Nova Ipixuna reserve with the intention of turning it into cattle pastures.
Last month, the Land Pastoral said the number of rural activists killed in the country rose 10% from 2011 to 2012, with most deaths occurring in the Amazon region. "The verdict was to a certain point a positive one because those who shot the guns were convicted," Edmundo Rodrigues Costa, the national co-ordinator of the Catholic Land Pastoral watchdog group that tracks land-related violence, told the Associated Press. "But the verdict unfortunately again showed that those who order people killed enjoy impunity."
It said in a report that illegal logging and the resulting conflicts were responsible for the majority of the 32 murders of local activists in Brazil last year. Brazil recorded almost half of the recorded killings of environmentalists worldwide in 2011, the majority of which were connected to illegal forest clearance by loggers and farmers in the Amazon and other remote areas, often described as a "wild west". Many cases go unsolved.
The Land Pastoral group says 1,566 rural activists were killed in Brazil from 1985-2012. Last month, the Pastoral Land Commission said 32 rural activists were killed in Brazil last year, an increase of 10% from 2011.
In Brazil, killings over land are common and seldom punished, as powerful landowners clash with farmers and others for control of lucrative farming and logging land. Pará is one of the most dangerous. Between 1996 and 2010, 231 people were killed and 809 received death threats in this state, according to Pastoral Land Commission.
The murders are mostly carried out by gunmen hired by loggers, ranchers and farmers to silence protests over illegal logging and land rights in the environmentally sensitive region. "Violence is the instrument of local capitalism," Brazilian political ecologist Felipe Milanez, told reporters this week. "They're proud to kill and they're seen by some as local heroes defending their property with their blood. It's insane, but it's what happening there."
The role of the authorities is mixed. Despite death threats and being named by Brazilian human rights groups as being at high risk of assassination, da Silva was not under police protection. After he was killed, president Dilma Rousseff ordered the protection of dozens of other activists and informers who had received death threats.
But her administration has also revised the Forest Code to reduce punishments for illegal landowners, and pressed ahead with infrastructure projects that are another cause of tension.
This week, the Munduruku indigenous group in Para criticised the government for using troops to push ahead with a dam survey mission in an area they claim as their territory.