Amazon land reform activist shot dead

Published 10:19 pm Thursday, April 1, 2010

BELEM, Brazil — A top activist for land reform in Brazil’s Amazon has been murdered, police said Thursday.

The killing came hours after a delay in the trial of a man accused of masterminding the slaying of another rain forest activist, American nun Dorothy Stang, who was shot and killed in 2005 in notoriously violent Para state.

Watchdog groups say conflicts between powerful ranchers and poor farmers over land rights have led to 1,200 murders across Brazil in the last 20 years.

In only one of those killings — Stang’s — is the alleged mastermind now behind bars. About 80 of the gunmen are in jail.

Pedro Alcantara de Souza, who headed a union of landless farmers in Para, was shot in the head five times by two men on motorcycles, police in Redencao said.

Souza was riding a bicycle on the outskirts of the town and his wife was with him when he was shot, police said. Police were working on the assumption Souza was killed because of his political activities.

The gunmen are not in custody, but officials are sending a special team of investigators from the capital Belem to the area, about 465 miles to the south, police said.

Souza was a city councilman for 14 years before stepping down in 1996. As the head of a union of landless farmers, he led occupations of massive farms that had land they argue is unproductive.

Brazil’s agrarian reforms laws state that unused farmland can be taken by the government and distributed among landless farmers.