The death of the missionary who reached out to "the poorest among the poor"

The life of American missionary Dorothy Stang was marked by the intense activism over the land rights of the countless peasants who migrated to northern Brazil looking to make a living out of the sustainable exploitation of the Amazon Rainforest. Her first destination was the city of Coroatá, in the state of Maranhão, where she arrived at age 35 in 1966.

A nun from the Congregation of Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, Stang soon noticed how severely the Amazon rainforest was being affected by exploitation. With government support, farmers were clearing the forest and carrying out tests for potential crops. As a result, peasant migrants that had come from the northeast, particularly from Maranhão, were forced to migrate to Pará state, drawn by the promise of lands along the Trans-Amazonian Highway, then under construction.

So, as missionary Rebecca Spires recalls, Stang decided to go with them: “Then [Stang] said, 'Look, our people are leaving for Pará. Why don't we join them? We can't just sit and watch people go.' And so we came.”

In the early 70s, the Brazilian military government, under the motto “Integrar não Entregar” (“Pave a way, don't give away”), introduced a new plan to populate the region which consisted of selling plots of land through documents called Deeds for the Sale of Public Land (or CATP, in its Portuguese acronym). These deeds were given to people who, in most cases, had not even had a chance to see the parcels in person. Under the terms of the agreement, if owners did not make any improvement in the property within five years of purchase, the land would be restored to State ownership. But, as it turned out, the plots were resold to other people who, years later, claimed they had no knowledge of the condition and reclaimed the land. Forged deeds soon began to emerge.

Francisco Jesus Portela, a cocoa farmer in Anapu, remembers: “We had to clear the forest before some other country would come and take our Amazon. We did it so we could grow rice and grass. We were purposely doing the clearing as pioneers.”

As the government, farmers, and smallholders battled over land, Dorothy Stang came out as the voice of the poor peasants.
According to Bishop Erwin Kräutler, Prelate of Xingu, as large farmers came claiming the land, conflict grew ever more overt. He believes authorities were “negligent and remiss.”

“In the area where the town of Anapu is now located, migration was chaotic, and families were forced to live in very poor conditions as a result. This was the scene encountered by Sister Dorothy, who subsequently stood up for the poor as they strove for their so bitterly craved piece of ground.”

Ever since 1982, when Stang arrived in Anapu, the missionary began to speak out for the rights of smallholders and encourage them to organize themselves, fellow missionary Rebecca Spires recollects.

“The first thing Dorothy told me was, 'You have to learn the Bible in Portuguese, but you also have to learn Brazil's laws on land tenure. We are working with the peasants and they have to know how to stand up for their rights. We need to learn the rights recognized by law, and pass this knowledge on to the people, so they can fight on their own. We won't be here forever to stand up for them; they need to be able to fend for themselves',” she recalled.

Spires says Stang's go-getter attitude was reflected in the way she led and taught people. She founded dozens of schools in her travels. Her method was, “Can you read? So you take these children and teach them.”

Kräutler, who was responsible for choosing the missionaries' locations at the time, tells us what happened after Stang arrived in Anapu.

"I remember it well. We were visited by a lady with a sweet voice and a strong American accent. She wanted to ask the bishop to work along with her congregation in the Prelature of Xingu. As more people were moving to live near the Transamazonian and other areas within the Prelature, we welcomed all religious congregations, and of course I accepted her proposal without immediately coming up with a particular area of service,” the bishop recounts.

He goes on to talk about Stang's dream of working among the poorer local peasants.

“She told me right away that she wanted to 'work among the poorest among the poor.' I joked that, as a US citizen from lovely Ohio, she was certainly not acquainted with extreme poverty. It didn't take long before I told her about the eastern portion of the Trans-Amazonian region, which was plagued with tropical diseases, and inhabited only by those with nowhere else to go. Well, before I finished my story she said, 'Then that's where I'm going'. I tried to reason with her: 'You won't bear it!” And she said: 'Give me one chance to try.' I was convinced she would come back in a few weeks, asking me to relocate, or sick with malaria. I couldn't have been more wrong,” Kräutler said.

Rebecca Spires notes that whenever Stang went to the state capital, Belém, “[Stang] would bring a few peasants with her and show them around, 'so this building here is the IBAMA [Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources], this other one here is INCRA [the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform], they're the folks you want to turn to.” The aim, Spire notes, was to ensure “[the peasants] themselves would be taking care of things in the future, not her.”

And so Dorothy Stang started to help smallholders as they arrived, disoriented, looking for a place to grow their crops.

For many locals, however, Stang's presence was a hindrance to the economic development of the town. Paulo Anacleto, a taxi driver and city councilor at the time when tension over land began to rise, explains: “Someone was going to lose their land for want of a deed. This is what eventually led up to Stang's death.” In the early 2000's, there were a number of protests against the Sustainable Development Project championed by Dorothy Stang in the city.

José Carlos Pereira, who chaired the local merchants' association, said the prevailing notion at the time was that any losses incurred by loggers and ranchers would cause a negative impact on local trade. “The aim of the protests was to rescue our town, which was about to be taken by a complete stranger,” Pereira argues.

“A number of movements gathered momentum because people were all scared of what might happen. Loggers wouldn't log, farmers couldn't have their land. Some people had farms with two thousand cattle expropriated” he says.

In order to discourage the activism for land reform led by Dorothy Stang, the local council of Anapu declared her persona non grata in 2002. Pereira explains: “Nobody had anything against her. We sensed she was in danger, and, fearing for her, we made the move to force her to leave the city before her life was at risk. That's why we did that; all we wanted was for her to let the loggers and ranchers who were under threat live in peace. We thought that, if she left, both the ranching sector and the timber business would be able to continue their activities normally.”

But Dorothy refused to leave. And she ended up murdered on February 12, 2005 with six shots, as commanded by farmers Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura, known as “Bida”, and Regivaldo Pereira Galvão, known as “Taradão” (Portuguese for “pervert”), who were both convicted of the crime after four trials.

Now, ten years after the killing, José Carlos Pereira admits he has changed his mind. “If I had to do over what I did then [i.e., the protests], I'd stop and think things through. After all, a lot has changed after the project was implemented,” he concedes.

“Examples can be seen all over, in São Paulo, Minas [Gerais], where even drinking water is running out. And if it wasn't for [the Sustainable Development Project] giving us some relief here, in 20, 30 years we would be in the same situation again. So I must admit it. She was right – at least in part,” he says.

Translated by Mayra Borges / Fabrício Ferreira