Pretty sad: whistle blowing farmer killed in Brazil

[nam78_two]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24329384/

Whistleblowing Amazon farmer killed in Brazil
50-year-old shot dead; he reported illegal logging in lawless Para


updated 7:18 p.m. CT, Sat., April. 26, 2008
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - An Amazon farmer who received death threats after reporting illegal logging to authorities was shot to death as he left his house, Brazilian media reported Saturday.

Emival Barbosa Machado, 50, was shot three times Friday in the eastern city of Tucurui, the Globo TV network said. No arrests have been made.

Machado had often reported illegal logging and shipments of lumber in Para, a largely lawless state where American nun and rain forest defender Dorothy Stang was killed in 2005.

Machado told the environmental protection agency Ibama that locals were forced to deliver wood to loggers and were killed if they refused.

"He made various complaints to us, and we seized lumber and boats thanks to his reports," Anibal Picanco, Ibama's superintendent in Para, said in a televised interview.

Phone calls to police in Tucurui went unanswered Saturday.

Para has been targeted in a government crackdown after satellite photos showed illegal logging in the Amazon was on the upswing.

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More at the links-damn that is a depressing story :-/.

[texastoast]

1. Sort of like when Kerr-McGee killed Karen Silkwood

Be very scared if you threaten the entrenched interests.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Silkwood

[siligut]

2. Kafkaesque thinking, not undue here.

It would appear that the “get it while you can and fuck everyone else” committee has begun not only to prevail but also to go about their business blatantly. Damn, they didn’t even try to make it look like a suicide.

Emival Barbosa Machado you did what you did, and that is noble, thank you and peace be with you.

[superkia]

3. As long as everyone keeps believing that the R's are evil and...

the D's are innocent, we will continue to be fooled. Hopefully more and more people start to educate themselves and realize that a letter in front of your name is no different than a cover on a book. Its just as bad as thinking that WWE wrestling is real, not scripted and actually has an evil side and a good side. They are all in the same game and as long as we play their game, we lose!

[tyedyeto]

4. Here, they make it look like a suicide. n/t

[freefall]

5. Emival Barbosa Machado, I honor your sacrifice.

Rest in Peace.

May your family be protected.

freefall

[nam78_two]

6. Indeed.nt

[Judi Lynn]

7. Thanks for posting this story. It's the same area where the little nun was murdered by hired hitmen

sent by two ranchers in the area who wanted to cut the trees and use the land for their ranches.

Her name was Dorothy Stang, a naturized Brazilian citizen from Ohio.

Two more sacrifices at the hands of greedy monsters who are tearing down the world's desperately needed, irreplaceable lungs in the Amazon.

[nam78_two]

8. It is truly sad isn't it?

And these are just two cases. There are so many more :-/-citizen activists who were trying to do that right thing, going up against powerful interests.