For Immediate Release
Contact: Jeffrey Buchanan
(202) 463-7575 ext 241
buchanan@rfkmemorial.org

RFK Center Applauds Conviction of Mastermind of Sister Dorothy Stang’s Murder

Belém do Pará, Brazil (May 15th, 2007)--Five of seven jurors in a Brazilian court in Belém found Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura (Bida) guilty as one of the intellectual authors of the murder of Sister Dorothy Stang in 2005. Bida will receive the maximum sentence of 30 years in prison for his role in the murder, the longest sentence of anyone convicted in the conspiracy and murder of Sister Stang.

“People who commit crimes against landless workers can no longer go unpunished,” said Marselha Gonçalves Margerin, RFK Memorial Center for Human Rights Program Officer. “Impunity’s reign ends with this conviction.”

Sr. Dorothy is one of 773 rural workers and their supporters murdered in Pará in the past 33 years and of those only 3 intellectual authors of these murders have been brought to trial.

Currently, Bida, the hired gunmen and the middleman have all been convicted. The second alleged mastermind, Regivaldo Pereira Galvão (Taradão), was granted habeus corpus last year.

“This is a historic decision but Taradão still must be brought to trial,” said 2001 RFK Human Rights Award winner and leader of Terra de Direitos, Darci Frigo. “This conviction is a mandate to swiftly schedule his trial and bring him to justice for this heinous crime.”

The Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights was part of an international delegation observing the trial. It is part in their continued efforts to keep applying the international pressure that has compelled Sister Dorothy’s murder to be investigated and swiftly prosecuted, as opposed to the vast impunity in other land conflict crimes committed in Brazil. RFK Center Program Officer, Marselha Gonçalves Margerin, joined Stang family members and pro-bono lawyer Jeff Hsu of Heller Ehrman LLP witnessing this historic verdict.

The two day trial began May 14, 2007 in Belém, Pará, Brazil.

Sister Dorothy Stang, a member of the Ohio Province of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, was murdered on 12 February 2005 in Anapú, Pará, Brazil. She lived for 39 years in Brazil working together with the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT, the social justice arm of the Brazilian Catholic Church), fighting for the rights of landless workers and for the broad implementation of a rights-based land reform that encourages wise environmental stewardship.

According to CPT’s 2006 partial report, since 2002 there has been an increase of 69.8% in the number of killings of landless workers, 39 workers were killed in land conflicts only from January to August 2006, the highest number since 1990. The CPT report comparing rural violence and the presence of organized social movements in the area showed that where the level of organization is higher then the violence level is lower

“A 2005 Brazilian Federal Senators Report into Sr. Dorothy’s death reported that the conspiracy to kill her ran much deeper than just these two landowners,” said David Stang, brother of Dorothy Stang. “Bida’s conviction and Taradão eventual trial will be just the beginning, and not an end, to this case.”

RFK Center is a non-profit non-governmental organization that engages in long-term partnerships with the social movements of activists who win the RFK Human Rights Award, advocating for the social justice goals they champion.

Source: Robert F. Kennedy Memorial