Three environmentalists gunned down this week in Brazil
On May 24th, environmental activists José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and Maria do Espírito Santo, also husband and wife, were shot and killed near their home in the southeast of the state of Pará, in the Amazon rainforest region of Brazil. They fought for the sustainable and diversified use of the forest and against illegal logging and deforestation.
On Saturday, another forest activist was shot and killed: Adelino Ramos. Fifteen years ago, he survived one of the deadliest land conflicts in Brazil, when police killed 10 of the "landless activists," in an encampment on land they occupied.
No arrests have been made.
But these are three more names added to the 1,150 rural activists who have been killed in land conflicts across Brazil in the past 20 years. These murders are carried out by gunmen hired by loggers, ranchers and farmers - all to silence voices against illegal cutting in the forest.
From Bradley Brooks' heartbreaking piece at the Huffington Post: Of all those killings, fewer than 100 cases have gone to court. About 80 hired gunmen have been convicted. Only 15 or so of the people who have ordered killings faced charges. And just one of them one is known to be in prison.
Impunity rules among the 23 million people spread across the vast Amazon because Brazil's judicial system is weak and corruption among local officials is endemic, activists and federal prosecutors say.
It's a big hurdle for the Brazilian government's efforts to preserve a rain forest the size of the U.S. west of the Mississippi River. More than 20 percent of the forest already has been cut down. On the same day that Silva and his wife were slain, Brazil's lower house of Congress passed a bill that would weaken the nation's cornerstone environmental laws, changes that environmentalists fear will lead to more destruction if the measure passes the Senate.
Those on the ground in the Amazon say that until the violence stops, the forest will keep falling, because most people in a position to denounce illegal clearing keep quiet out of fear.
Threats against anyone who stands in the way of those who want to clear the Amazon are so routine, the Catholic Land Pastoral watchdog group known as CPT keeps a running list of activists whose lives have been threatened.
Silva, who publicly predicted his own death just six months ago, was on the list, along with 124 other environmentalists. His wife and Ramos were not.
Read the rest of the story HERE.
