This Just In From The Ministry Of Duh - Landowners Seen Behind Amazon Activist Murders

[hatrack]

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.

Junior, a 30-year-old agronomist who worked for two years with Silva and declined to give his last name for fear of retribution, said the murdered ecologist had received death threats. "He was told things like 'Your days are numbered', 'You are going to die' and 'Get ready to be silenced forever'," Junior told AFP, accusing "powerful landowners and forest companies" of contracting the murders.

EDIT

http://www.seeddaily.com/reports/Land_barons_seen_behind_Amazon_activist_killings_999.html

[robinlynne]

1. Those forest companies would be American and German corporations, btw.