The assassination occurred at 7 am in the municipality of Anapu, in the southeastern part of the state of Pará. It was planned by two ranchers whose economic interests were being threatened by the work of the sister who defended poor agricultural workers, working on their behalf for agrarian reform and sustainable production projects.

The two ranchers, Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura, known as Bida, and Regivaldo Pereira Galvão, known as Taradão, have yet to be conclusively condemned by the justice system.

“Dorothy’s work was very connected to the most needy people. She devoted her life to them, made a preferential option for the most poor, lived with these families, and began to organize these communities and associations as well. She often walked from community to community defending the interests of these people,” said Dom Erwin, bishop of Prelazia, Xingu, who worked with the missionary.

For Jane Silva, the coordinator of the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) in Pará, the date of Sister Dorothy’s death is important in that it is a chance to remember the work the she pursued, following her vision of people and forests living in harmony.

“She showed that it is possible to manage food production in a way that protects the forest. She showed it was possible if public policies were enacted.”

According to Dom Erwin, who has also received death threats since 2006 and has had to have police escort, Dorothy worked against the ambitions of large ranchers and land grabbers by settling poor families into Sustainable Development Projects (PDS), a new settlement model based on small family farming and subsistent extraction projects with low environmental impact.

“With this type of settlement, begun by the government itself, she countered the interests of large landowners who wanted to increase their pastures,” said Dom Erwin.

For the bishop, the most important thing about this five year anniversary date is to remember that the sister’s death is symbolic – it calls attention to her work in favor of those less favored and for the conservation of the Amazon, which is becoming more and more devastated.

“A few days before her death, she said that in spite of being threatened, she knew her place was alongside these people who are constantly mistreated. So, she could not run away.”

In the same year that the crime was committed, Rayfran das Neves Sales confessed to be the one who actually shot Sister Dorothy and was given a 27-year prison sentence. The sentence was upheld on December 10, 2009 in the Criminal Forum of Belém after a request for a new trial was denied.

Two other accomplices of the crime, Amair Feijole da Cunha and Clodoaldo Carlos Batista, are serving 18 and 17 years, respectively. In 2007, one of the ranchers and architects of the crime, Bida, received a 30-year prison sentence. However, in a new trial held in 2008, he was found innocent.

The public prosecutor appealed the decision. The Pará justice system then annulled the absolution of the rancher and ordered his imprisonment. The Brazil Supreme Court denied Bida habeas corpus in February 4, 2010, and he finally turned himself in and awaits a new trial, to be held on March 31, 2010.

The other architect of the crime, Taradão, has yet to be tried. He continues to walk freely, though he was imprisoned in December of 2008 for another motive: he tried to falsify land documents of the area which was in dispute during Sister Dorothy’s time.

According to the federal police, Taradão fraudulently tried to acquire Lot 55, which occupies 3,000 hectares of the PDS for which Sr. Dorothy was fighting. The rancher was in prison for less than two months. His trial is expected to happen sometime in the first half of this year.

Despite the commotion around Sister Dorothy’s assassination, Dom Erwin said that this is not the only crime of this type, and there are other similar cases which have never been covered by the press.

“A few years ago, a father of a family named Ademir died for the same reason. In the early morning, they entered his house and killed him, in front of his wife. But the case never received the same attention as Dorothy’s case. And there have been other cases in the last few years.”

Jane Silva of the CPT stated that currently the Public Defender’s Office has recognized the existence of 72 death threats in the state. Last week, the CPT entered a list of 681 deaths related to land conflict between 1982 and 2008.

Sister Dorothy Stang was born on June 7, 1931, in Dayton, Ohio, USA, and as a religious sister was sent by her congregation (Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur) in 1966 to work in Maranhão, Brazil.

From the beginning, she worked with agricultural laborers from small Christian base communities. Sister Dorothy accompanied many of such communities in Pará. There was lack of land for family farmers to plant and there were workers fleeing from submission to large land owners.

In 1982, she sought out Bishop Dom Erwin to talk about her desire to work among the poor of the Amazon. “I was already a bishop at that time, and she introduced herself as a representative of her congregation, and told me she wanted to work among the poorest. So I said to her, go to Transamazônia East, what is now Anapu. She stayed there until the end of her life,” said Dom Erwin.

It was in the poorest and the most needy areas of the Amazon (through which passes the Transamazonian Highway) that Sr. Dorothy worked and struggled against the interests of land grabbers and large ranchers. Since the 1980’s, the region of the small city of Anapu has suffered greatly from deforestation. This has caused constant conflict among land grabbers, woodcutters, small producers and settlers. Sister Dorothy denounced the situation various times to the Brazilian authorities..

In June of 2004, the missionary participated in a inquiry commission on violence in rural areas and denounced the impunity that had aggravated the situation of land conflicts in Pará. She said that the land grabbers did not respect boundaries of land destined for agrarian reform. The head of the commission later asked for the creation of a task force, which allowed the Public Ministry and the Federal Police to act in Pará.

The main vision of Sr. Dorothy, indicated by her work for sustainable development, was that rural workers should have the right to a piece of land for planting, respecting the environment.

“This generated a very hostile environment. The large land owners did not want this sister. In the middle of it all, I had to defend her. Even the Legislative House of Anapu declared her to be a persona non grata, and there was a wave of lies. I was on the radio and television many times saying that none of these lies were true,” said Dom Erwin.

Shortly after lands were destined for a PDS, the land grabbers took control of the lands. They alleged that the lands already had owners, and began threatening many families, scaring them off the land.

Sr. Dorothy’s work for small farmers increased the ire of the ranchers. For this reason, her life was cut short with six shots at blank range as she was going to a meeting of rural workers in the countryside of Anapu.

“The murderers wanted to commit the act the night before, while she was sleeping in one of those poor houses. But they were scared away when a child began to cry, and left the deed for the next day,” said Dom Erwin.

After the assassination, the Dorothy Committee (www.comitedorothy.blogspot.com) was formed in Anapu. The group’s objective is to construct a culture of peace through the commitment of men and women and the Defense of Human Rights and Justice office to socio-environmental causes, thus furthering the work of Sister Dorothy.

The committee is formed by religious people, human rights activists, and young people who are indignant with the impunity around these rural crimes, and who believe in the possibility of doing something for the common good and for the rights of excluded people of the Amazon. This is the legacy of Sister Dorothy.

This followed a decision by Brazil’s main appellate court (Supreme Court of Justice – STJ) overturning a habeas corpus and ordering him back to jail.

Dorothy Stang was assassinated on Feb 12, 2005, in Anapu, state of Pará, where she worked with poor, landless farmers helping them obtain property rights and avoid being exploited by big landowners in the area.

Bida was tried in 2007, found guilty and sentenced to the maximum sentence in Brazil: 30 years. However, a new trial in 2008 found him innocent. Brazilian government attorneys (Public Ministry) filed a lawsuit against that decision and got it overturned by a Pará state court.

But he remained out of jail because his lawyers obtained a habeas corpus – it was this habeas corpus that the STJ revoked on Thursday, Feb 4, making his return to jail inevitable. However, his lawyers are already preparing the papers to file for a new habeas corpus and free him again.

The farmer ended up being freed because in his first he was sentenced to 30-year in prison, which is the maximum in Brazil, a country that  doesn’t have death penalty. In cases like that legislation requires a second trial to confirm the sentence. At this second trial, Bida was found not guilty.

The decision to send him back to jail was not unanimous. One of the judges, Arnaldo Esteves Lima, the same one who gave him the habeas corpus, cited the fact that technically Bida was innocent because of the decision in his second trial, and voted returning him to prison.

But the majority of the judges accepted another decision in December 2009 by Pará state’s Justice Court based on a lawsuit filed by government attorneys, which annulled the second trial.

The Dorothy Stang murder has become an international cause célèbre, but achieving some form of justice and closure has become frustrating and confusing.

To make matters worse, the man who is believed to have been the mastermind behind the crime, the person who ordered and paid for it, another landowning farmer, Regivaldo Pereira Galvão, aka Taradão (Big Pervert), has been indicted but, five years after the crime, still has not gone on trial, not even once.

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But, as a 30-year sentence is the maximum in Brazil, which doesn’t have death penalty, legislation requires a second trial to confirm the sentence. At his second trial, Bida was found not guilty.

At the time of the second trial, and since then, Bida has been free due to a habeas corpus, which was granted pending an appeal by his defense lawyers of the first sentence.

Yesterday, February 4, an appellate court (STJ – 5º turma – 5th circuit) ordered him back to jail. The decision was not unanimous. One of the judges, Arnaldo Esteves Lima, the same judge who gave him the habeas corpus, cited the fact that technically Bida was innocent because of the decision in his second trial, and voted against sending him back to prison.

But the majority of the judges accepted another decision in December 2009 by Pará state’s Justice Court based on a lawsuit filed by government attorneys, which annulled the second trial.

The Dorothy Stang murder has become an international cause célèbre, but achieving some form of justice and closure frustrating and confusing.

To make matters worse, the man who is believed to have been the mastermind behind the crime, the person who ordered and paid for it, another landowning farmer, Regivaldo Pereira Galvão, aka Taradão (Big Pervert), has been indicted but, five years after the crime, still has not gone on trial, not even once.

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The detention of Regivaldo Pereira Galvão, aka as Taradão (Big Pervert), 42, at his home in -Altamira, in the Amazon state of Pará, could lead to the reopening of the case in the death of nun Ms Stang, 73, who was shot in February 2005 amid a dispute with ranchers over land she wanted, brought under government protection.

Prosecutors say Galvão and another rancher hired men to kill Ms Stang over the disputed Amazon land. Galvão, who denies any role in the missionary's death, was arrested in 2005, but he was freed on bail by Brazil's Supreme Court in 2006 and he has since used appeals to avoid trial.

Galvão has denied any role in Stang's death, arguing he had no interest in the lands Stang was defending.

But prosecutors say that in November he went before Brazil's Incra land reform agency to present documents showing he owns the disputed land and wants it back – casting doubt on one of his main defenses.

A second rancher accused in Stang's murder, Vitalmiro Moura, was sentenced to 30 years in prison in May 2007. But Moura's sentence was overturned earlier this year after a gunman confessed to killing Stang and said he acted alone. Gunman Rayfran das Neves Sales was sentenced to 28 years in prison.

Stang was born in Dayton, Ohio, and spent three decades trying to preserve the rain forest and defending the rights of poor settlers who confronted powerful ranchers seeking their lands in the Amazon's wild frontier.

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His vice-mayor is land-owner Délio Fernandes from the PRP party, who has been investigated as a suspect for having ordered Stang's killing.

The alliance between the two caused surprise among the supporters of the nun's cause.  According to the Public Ministry of Pará, in 2005 she was shot six times on a local route in the city because of a dispute with wealthy landowners – including Fernandes – over creating family farming projects in supposedly disputed areas of the region.

According to José Batista of the Pastoral Land Commission (Comissão Pastoral da Terra – CPT), Fernandes, who was never even charged for the murder of the nun, is suspected of using the very same false property deeds as Regivaldo "Taradão" Pereira Galvão, and Vitalmiro "Bida" Bastos de Moura. 

Both Galvão and Moura are accused of ordering the killing, but Moura had his sentence overturned this year.

When the nun was killed there were rumors that Fernandes had given protection to Bida while he fled, which has not been confirmed.  All of the suspects or accused have consistently denied involvement in the murder.

Chiquinho, who was taught religious education by Stang when he was an adolescent, was the main ally of the missionary in the Rural Worker's Syndicate of Anapu, of which he was the president.

In 2003, he made, with Stang, a document accusing Fernandes of being a forger of property deeds of land in Anapu.  Soon after the crime, he became a spokesperson for the cause of Stang.  He was speaking with the press and he met with government officials in Brasí­lia to discuss the case.

But, in the last two years, little Chico left the sister's group.  To Jane Dwyer, a nun from the same congregation as Stang, the political situation in the city is "beyond critical",  increased pressure on the Project for Sustainable Development (Projeto de Desenvolvimento Sustentável – PDS) created by her old colleague.

Three attempts were made to contact Fernandes by telephone for this article, but they went unanswered.

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Tato testified earlier, clearing the rancher Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura, also known as Bida, of being the one who ordered the crime.  Bida was pronounced innocent on May 6, 2008, of the accusation of double aggravated homicide – he was suspected of having offered 50,000 reais (US$ 30,488) to have Dorothy Stang killed on February 12, 2005.

For Edson de Souza, the prosecutor who led the accusation, the testimony of Tato was essential in Bida's innocent verdict by 5 votes to 2 in the Grand Jury Court.

In his own trial in April of 2006, when he was sentenced to 17 years in prison for his involvement in the crime, Tato incriminated Bida, saying that Bida had, in fact, sought him out to arrange for someone to kill the missionary.

But last Monday, as a witness, Tato changed what he had said a little over two years ago.  Despite this, he confirmed the supposed authenticity of the video presented by the defense in the Grand Jury.  The recording, made in October of 2006, showed him saying that Bida had not ordered the death of anyone.

In the trial of last Monday, crying, Tato said that he had been coerced to say that the rancher had been the one who ordered the assassination and that he could now tell the truth since he had become an evangelical.

The suspicion of the public prosecutor's office comes from the fact that in 2006, on the eve of the trial of Tato, his wife Elizabete Coutinho, had confirmed receiving, for the payment of debts, close to 100, 000 reais (US$ 60,976) from Bida.

"And after Tato was condemned, he had nothing more to lose," affirmed the prosecutor Souza.  "Why not change his testimony in exchange for money?"  He added that it was just a few months later when the video in which the intermediary clears Bida of guilt was recorded.

In an interview with daily Folha de S. Paulo, Bida confirmed that he made the payment on that occasion and that it was negotiated and paid in installments by one of his brothers.  But he also affirmed that the money was for the payment of oxen that Tato had given him as part of the payment for land in the region of Anapu in Pará.

"The prosecutors had even told Tato that he should have considered the leniency program because he would never again receive my money", said Bida.

Souza said he was surprised by the appearance of the video, annexed to the files of legal documents the previous week, and that until then he had not known of its existence.  The recording of the video, made while the intermediary was still in prison, did not have judicial authorization.

He also questioned why the video had not been shown in May of 2007, when, in his first trial, Bida was condemned to 30 years.  For the prosecutor, this could be related to a supposed negotiation with Tato.

The lawyer of the rancher affirmed that he had already known of the recording and that it had not been used in 2007 because, during the questioning of witnesses, Tato affirmed the innocence of Bida.  Souza refuted, "However, the confirmation of Bida's guilt by Tato was one of the main reasons why Bida received the maximum penalty."

Despite these contradictory facts, the prosecutor, who has already participated in more than 500 sessions of the Grand Jury, did not cast doubt on the impartiality of the jurors, affirming that they were only responding to what had been presented to them.

FSP

The state's Supreme Court (TJ) decided for the annulment based on a petition by Sales's lawyer, who claims that his client had his defense curtailed and that the jury included people who had been vetoed by the defense. Pará's justice will not schedule a new trial before the end of the year.

Since the early 70s Sister Dorothy had dedicated her life to poor Brazilians and ended up getting her Brazilian citizenship. The outspoken religious woman had received several threats from land owners and loggers throughout the years. Stang was killed with nine shots on February 12, 2005, at age 73.

Sales, also known by the nickname of Fogoió, said that he was the one who point blank shot the missionary six times in Anapu, in the southwest of Pará. The nun, who for decades worked with rural workers, was trying to establish a sustainable development project that would help peasants in the region using public land.  This apparently  bothered big farmers, who are accused of deforestation and land grabbing.

In a first trial, in December 2005, Sales was also condemned and sentenced to 27 years of jail, but was automatically granted a new jury trial because his sentence was over 20 years in prison.
 
Since his sentencing the gunman has been kept in a maximum security penitentiary in metropolitan Belém, capital of Pará state. He's been jailed together with Vitalmiro Moura, Amair Feijoli da Cunha and Clodoaldo Carlos Batista, all of whom are also involved in the missionary's murder.

Moura, 36, was sentenced to the maximum term of 30 years in prison for having paid gunmen Sales and Batista to kill the American missionary. Farmer Regivaldo Galvão, the Taradão (Big Sex Maniac), is the only one who hasn't been  put on trial yet.

In October, Sales confessed that he had killed the nun, but denied that he had been hired by farmers to murder her. He killed her, he said, because the American missionary had threatened him when he went to plant grass in a land, known as lot 55, in Anapu. Stang wanted to use the place for settling poor peasants.

The District Attorney claims that farmers Galvão and Moura paid 50,000 reais (US$ 28,000) for the contract killing of the nun.

The jury determined that the farmer was the crime's mastermind and a judge sentenced Moura to 30 years in prison, but the farmer still can appeal that verdict.

The sentence is for 30 years of jail time for doubly qualified murder, with the aggravating factor that the victim was an old person. Moura will not be able to appeal his sentence in freedom, as his defense asked the judge. The "killing was carried out in violent and cowardly manner," Judge Raymond Moisés Alves Flexa stated.

The verdict's announcement was noisily celebrated by about 900 farm workers who stayed in front of the court building during the two days in which the jury heard testimony before taking its decision.

The jurors had started their deliberations on Monday, May 14. On Tuesday, May 15, the prosecutor Edson Cardoso made his case once again being followed by the arguments of lawyers Américo Leal and Eduardo Imbiriba, who worked for the defense.

The missionary, who became a aBrazilian citizen, worked for 30 years in small communities of the Amazon defending the right of small ranchers to have a piece of land. She was also a strong advocate of the forest's sustainable exploration.

Both gunmen who killed her, Rayfran das Neves Sales and Clodoaldo Carlos Batista, and the man who hired them, Amair Feijoli da Cunha, have already been tried, convicted and are in jail.

Reginaldo Pereira Galvão, another farmer, who is charged with being another mastermind of the crime, is waiting for his trial in freedom.

At first, on Monday, Moura, denied any involvement in the case and even said that he did not know the American missionary. His testimony was backed up by Sales, one of the men charged with having shot the nun and who was sentenced to 27 years in prison.

The new version  presented by Neves declaring the farmer innocent was quite different from 12 other testimonies he had given previously incriminating Moura.

Dorothy's brother, David Stang, said he was indignant at the recanted testimony: "I felt that my sister was murdered once again here. They attempted to hurt her moral of, to kill her image. I am angry and sad because of this. I didn't expect them to use this kind of strategy, but I still trust justice will be done in this land," he said on Monday. 

After the verdict was read, David wept. "Justice was done," he told reporters. He added that he now believes that another farmer also accused of ordering the killing, Pereira Galvão, might also be convicted later in the year when he goes to trial.
 
Dorothy Stang was shot to death in February 2005. According to prosecuting office, the missionary was murdered because she defended the creation of settlings for rural workers in public lands, which were claimed by farmers and lumbermen in the region.

The demonstrations ended with a hearing granted by the governor of the state, Ana Júlia Carepa.
 
In Belém, the capital of the state of Pará, the demonstrations began on the 9th with the seminar "Building Community Alternatives for the Amazon Region." On Sunday, the 11th, donations were collected for the Carlos Prestes camp of the Landless Movement in celebrations held in different Christian churches.

In the morning of February 12, an ecumenical celebration was held which brought together about 100 people in front of the Court of Justice of the state of Pará.

In the afternoon, governor Carepa convened her secretaries and received representatives of the Indianist Missionary Council (Cimi), of the Land Pastoral Commission, of the Movement of People Affected by Dams, of the Dorothy Stang Committee, and of others organizations.

Senator José Nery (PSOL Party – state of Pará) and representatives of Incra, Ibama, and the Federal Police also attended the meeting.

During the meeting, a document was delivered to the governor describing the yearnings of social movements in relation to the environment, the land reform, and human rights. The organizations requested protection for threatened people and an investigation into consortia which have been financing murders of human rights supporters.

They also urged authorities to fight slave labor diligently and to take steps to ensure the regularization of land areas in the state, which can reduce the conflicts in rural areas. The movements suggested that the federal administration and state governments should act jointly.

In Anapu, the municipality in which the missionary used to work, Father Erwin Krí¤utler, the bishop of Xingu and president of Cimi, celebrated a mass on February 11. 

In his homily, Krí¤utler recalled that the murder of Sister Dorothy was not an isolated fact. "It was just another bloody event in the Amazon region caused by land grabbing practices, by the deliberate and planned destruction of this region, by the devastating exploitation of its riches, and by those who want to continue to exploit slave labor."

The February 12 was declared an official holiday in Anapu by the mayor of the city, who before the crime used to say that Sister Dorothy was a persona non grata there.

In other municipalities in the states of Pará, Maranhão, Ceará and others, demonstrations were also staged in memory of Sister Dorothy.

Sister Dorothy Stang died after being shot seven times when she was 73 years old in the morning of February 12, 2005 on a remote dirt road at 53 kilometers from the central area of the municipality of Anapu.

Three of the five people accused of having killed the Brazilian-naturalized American missionary have been convicted already. The trial of the two people who are believed to have hired the killers has not been scheduled yet.

Farmer Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura, known as Bida, is in prison. The other defendant, farmer Regivaldo Galvão, known as Taradão (Big Pervert), is free pending trial.

Dorothy Stang had worked in the region for 30 years as an activist protecting the land rights of the poor and the environment. The two gunmen, Rayfran das Neves and Clodoaldo Batista, have already been tried and sentenced to 27 years and 18 years, respectively.

According to Tato’s testimony, he made the payment on orders from Regivaldo Galvão, aka "Taradão," (Big Pervert) and Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura, aka "Bida," both of them local landowners who had had problems with the law because of illegal deforestation.

They had paid fines after Dorothy Stang denounced them to authorities. It also seems they were interested in taking possession of rural properties that Stang was trying to protect from land-grabbers, just like Taradão and Bida.

In Wednesday’s, April 26, trial, farmer/landowner, Feijoli da Cunha was sentenced to 18 years in prison for intermediating the murder of Stang.

According to Tato, Taradão and Bida wanted Stang killed because she had denounced them for illegal deforestation. Taradão and Bida have still not been tried.

Prosecution was hoping for a 30 year sentence, but as Feijooli cooperated with the investigation, he was given an 18 year term.

The Stang family is satisfied with the conviction, but will not rest until the two ranchers are also behind bars. "We do not want revenge, but only justice, and it will come when those guilty are imprisoned," said David Stang, brother of Dorothy.

Agência Brasil