Brazil’s elite police force protecting families of targeted small farmers in Amazon forest

[Judi Lynn]

Brazil’s elite police force protecting families of targeted small farmers in Amazon forest
By Associated Press, Updated: Sunday, June 19, 11:33 AM

SAO PAULO — Members of Brazil’s national police force are protecting the families of small farmers receiving death threats after a series of killings apparently linked to the conflict over land and logging in the Amazon.

Brazil’s official government news service says the police escorted four adults and five children from their homes Saturday and are keeping them in a secure undisclosed location.

The Agencia Brasil said Sunday that among those receiving protection is the sister of a rubber tapper shot to death last month.

Four other people involved in land disputes have been killed in recent weeks, including a landless activist shot in the head less than a week ago.

More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/americas/brazils-elite-police-force-protecting-families-of-targeted-small-farmers-in-amazon-forest/2011/06/19/AGTdlebH_story.html?wprss=rss_world

[Judi Lynn]

1. Brazil Land Barons Seen Behind Amazon Environmentalists' Killings

Published on Sunday, June 19, 2011 by Agence France-Presse
Brazil Land Barons Seen Behind Amazon Environmentalists' Killings
by Javier Tovar

NOVA IPIXUNA, Brazil – Nearly a month after the murder in Brazil's Amazon of an activist couple believed to have been threatened by land and logging barons, the investigation has gone nowhere.

The killing of the activists, who had denounced illegal logging, was the latest in a string of deadly attacks on environmentalists, murders allegedly linked to powerful corporate interests in the vast South American jungle.

Jose Claudio Ribeiro da Silva, 52, and his wife Maria do Espirito Santo da Silva, 51, were shot dead in an ambush in late May close to their home in Nova Ipixuna, a small town of 15,000 people in the state of Para.

Since their deaths, another three activists have been killed in the state, which is the epicenter of deadly land disputes. A fourth was killed in the state of Rondonia, also in the vast Amazon jungle.

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/06/19-0