American missionary slain in Brazil remembered for fearless environmentalism

People carry the casket containing the body of American missionary Dorothy Stang, from Ohio, to the cementery in Anapu, 2,100 kilometers (1,300 miles) north of Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Tuesday. Stang was shot to death in Anapu on Feb. 12, 2005 less then a week after she accused loggers and ranchers of threatening to kill rural workers. The casket is draped in a Brazilian flag.

Associated Press Writer

ANAPU, Brazil — Thousands of settlers in bare feet and on motorcycles crowded the Trans-Amazon highway Monday to accompany the coffin of Dorothy Stang, a 73-year-old American nun slain over the weekend in the environmentally fragile region she defended for 20 years.

Stang was gunned down Saturday at the Boa Esperanca settlement where she worked to organize some 400 poor families near Anapu, a rural town about 1,300 miles north of Rio de Janeiro. She also fought to protect the large areas of pristine jungle nearby.

Her body had been flown to the state capital, Belem, some 370 miles to the west, for an autopsy and was returned here for burial Tuesday. Stang’s violent death has drawn new attention to the region, which is notorious for illegal logging, slave labor and violent land conflicts.

Stang had received countless death threats for her advocacy work and many are asking why the government didn’t do more to avert her death. ‘‘The death of Sister Dorothy was a crime foretold,’’ said Bishop Jayme Chemello, president of the Catholic Church’s Amazonia Episcopal Committee. ‘‘We ask the government to take a stand to revert this chronic reality of corruption and impunity in Brazil, especially in the Amazon.’’

Witnesses said Stang read passages from the Bible to her killers before they shot her. One witness said Stang pulled the Bible from her bag when she was confronted and started reading. Her killers listened, took a few steps back and fired.

Arrest warrants have been issued for four suspects — two purported gunmen, a man who allegedly hired them and a rancher accused of ordering the slaying, officials said. No arrests have been made.

Residents of Anapu expressed shock. ‘‘The whole town has stopped because of this. She was very dear to us. Everyone is here to honor her memory,’’ said Milton Pereira da Costa, who arrived here three years ago in search of land.

Officials said Stang, of Dayton, Ohio, never sought police protection despite the constant threats.

‘‘She always asked for protection for others, never for herself. She wasn’t the kind of person who could live with police watching her all the time,’’ said federal Human Rights Secretary Nilmario Miranda, who flew to the region shortly after the killing.

Anapu, a hardscrabble town of 7,000, sits in the so-called ‘‘arc of destruction’’ — the logging frontier encroaching steadily on the rain forest’s southern edge.

The hot, dusty region attracts settlers from Brazil’s poor, arid northeast. Many take jobs clearing brush and get caught in an endless cycle of debt. Others work as ‘‘pistoleiros,’’ or hired gunmen, in a region where life is cheap.

The profits go mainly to loggers, who frequently flout laws requiring that most of the forest be left standing, and the ‘‘grileiros,’’ who forge land titles to expel poor settlers and gain access to the lucrative timber.

(AP Photo/Paulo Santos)