Slain Nun Mourned In Brazil

Priests, nuns and rain forest defenders gathered Monday in this eastern Amazon city to remember Dorothy Stang, a 73-year-old American nun who was shot and killed over the weekend in the environmentally fragile region she had spent 20 years defending.

In muddy boots and cowboy hats, hundreds of residents flocked to the chapel where Stang's casket lay covered in flowers. Many wept, while others put up signs saying, "How long will they kill those who fight for life?"

The killing came as little surprise in a region notorious for illegal logging, slave labor and violent land conflicts. Stang had received countless death threats over the years for her advocacy work.

"The death of Sister Dorothy was a crime foretold," said Bishop Jayme Chemello, president of the Catholic Church's Amazonia Episcoal Committee. "We ask the government to take a stand to revert this chronic reality of corruption and impunity in Brazil, especially in the Amazon."

Stang was gunned down Saturday at the Boa Esperanca settlement where she worked with some 400 poor families near Anapu, a rural town about 1,300 miles (2,100 kilometers) north of Rio de Janeiro.

Witnesses said Stang read passages from the Bible to her killers before they shot her, according to a high-ranking member of the government Human Rights Commission who asked not to be named. A witness interviewed on the Globo TV network said Stang pulled the Bible from her bag when she was confronted and started reading. Her killers listened for a moment, took a few steps back and fired.

In the first published photo of the killing, the Diario do Para newspaper Monday showed Stang's body face-down in the mud, blood staining the back of her white blouse.

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

Supporters gathered for the Mass in her honor Monday praised Stang's courage.

"When they said she was risking her life, she just smiled," recalled Bishop Erwin Krautler of Altamira. "She didn't believe them, and neither did we."

Stang, a naturalized Brazilian citizen raised in Dayton, Ohio, never asked for police protection despite the threats, officials said.

"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.

Stang worked to organize poor families and protect large areas of pristine jungle near Anapu, a hardscrabble town of 7,000 that sits in the so-called "arc of destruction" — the logging frontier that encroaches 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 find themselves trapped in a modern form of debt slavery. Others make a living as "pistoleiros," or hired gunmen, in a region where life has little value.

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.

Ubiritan Cazetta, chief federal prosecutor in Para state, said Stang's murder would likely hurt the loggers' interests.

"Now with the world's attention, implementing the sustainable development project has become a question of honor," Cazetta said.

U.S. Ambassador John Danilovich said in a statement he was "saddened and appalled" by the killing.

"Sister Stang was a courageous individual who loved the people of Brazil and who dedicated her life to serving those less fortunate. I share the outrage over her tragic loss," he said.

Meanwhile, Miranda, the human rights secretary, said the federal government and Para state officials were working to implement a program to investigate death threats to human rights activists.

The Catholic Church's Pastoral Land Commission, linked to Stang's work, identified 30 land activists in Para state alone who had received death threats, the Folha de Sao Paulo daily reported.

"We are trying to make this an issue for police before someone gets killed, instead of after," Miranda said. "In this region, fighting for human rights is a high-risk occupation."