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Violence Against Environmental Activists
The assassination on Feb. 12
of Dorothy Stang, a U.S.-born Catholic nun working
in the Brazilian Amazon state of Pará, turned
international attention to the human rights of environmental
activists. Tierramérica offers this guide for
navigating the issue on the Internet.
Dorothy Stang, 73, a U.S.-born
Catholic nun who was a nationalized Brazilian, worked
for four decades with the peasant farming communities
of the Amazon, in conjunction with the Pastoral
Land Commission. In the late 1990s she began to
receive death threats from big landowners.
On Saturday, Feb. 12, she was shot six times, probably
by two hired assassins. The administration of President
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, which mobilized
the army in the region in a bid to control agrarian
violence, compared the case to that of Chico
Mendes, one of the Amazon's most famous environmental
martyrs, assassinated in 1988.
Environmental leaders around
the world, often involved in defending ecosystems
that are also home to impoverished indigenous communities,
are systematically threatened, arrested, tortured
and murdered, say activist groups.
Specific campaigns on environmental
defenders gained global momentum following the 1995
murder of Ken
Saro Wiwa, a Nigerian poet and activist who mobilized
the Ogoni community in a peaceful protest against
Shell Oil Company for the environmental damages it
had caused. Then-dictator of Nigeria Sani Abacha ordered
the killing.
Saro Wiwa's murder prompted two
powerful NGOs -- Amnesty
International and the Sierra
Club -- to launch a broad campaign to bring attention
to the link between human rights and environmental
defense.
In Latin America, there are few
detailed reports available on the matter. One of the
first efforts to compile information was conducted
by the Argentina-based human rights and environment
center, CEDHA.
It has outlined several cases, such as that of Oscar
Olivera, winner of the Goldman Prize for his efforts
to fight privatization of water services in Bolivia,
the Puhuenche indigenous community's fight against
a hydroelectric dam in Chile, and the citizen mobilization
against logging of virgin forests in the Honduran
department of Olancho.
According to CEDHA, environmental
activists are doubly vulnerable. Their efforts often
run counter not only to the interests of the government,
but also of powerful economic groups with governmental
ties.
Included in the Amnesty International/Sierra
Club report ''10
Urgent Cases'' of human rights abuses are Mexican
peasant activists Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera,
who were imprisoned for fighting illegal logging and
the Ecuadorian Kichwa peoples for fighting oil exploration.
Experts in environmental law
are also working to convince indigenous groups and
activists alike to present petitions to the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights, following the precedent
set by the Awas
Tingni case, in which it was found that logging
of indigenous-held lands was illegal -- and a special
tribunal was established for environmental matters.
CEDHA
Sierra Club
Amnesty
International
Chico Mendes
Defending
the Defenders
10
Urgent Cases
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