Rural conflicts caused over 100 deaths in 2005

18/04/2006 - 13h48

Keite Camacho
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Brasília - At least 38 people were murdered in 2005 as a result of rural conflicts, and 64 deaths, due to miscarriage, inanition [loss of vitality from lack of food and water], overwork, and absence of government policies, can in some way be attributed to these conflicts. In 2004 there were 39 murders and 31 conflict-related deaths.

These figures appear in the book, Conflicts in the Countryside - Brazil 2005, which was launched today (18) by the Land Pastoral Commission (CPT) at a ceremony in the headquarters of the Brazilian National Bishops' Council (CNBB).

In this edition the CPT refers to the execution of the US-born missionary, Dorothy Stang, in the northern Brazilian state of Pará; the hunger strike undertaken by Don Luiz Cappio, the bishop of Barra, in the northeastern state of Bahia, in protest against the transposition of waters from the São Francisco River basin; and the death of the environmental activist, Francisco Anselmo de Barros, who turned himself into a human torch in defense of the Pantanal. Mention is also made of the Eldorado dos Carajás massacre, in April, 1996, when 19 landless rural workers were murdered.

Translation: David Silberstein