[Imc-newsroom] headline for next week's news hour:

[Sascha Meinrath]

here's the headline (from the washington post) -- NOTE: there are multiple
difficult names to be read -- KNOW THE NAMES AHEAD OF TIME.

--sascha

To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47876-2002Jul23.html

Brazil Activist Killed in Amazon

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil ––  Assailants tortured and killed a
prominent activist who had been organizing land occupations by the poor in
a southern Amazon state, police said.<P>The body of Bartolemeu Morais da
Silva, 44, was found Monday by the side of a highway in Para state with
both legs broken and with 12 shots to the head. Police said they had no
leads in the killing.<P>Da Silva, who worked for the Rural Workers Union
in Altamira, 1,120 miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro, had been receiving
death threats for the last several months, according to the Agricultural
Workers Federation of Para.<P>In a statement, the federation accused the
owner of a large ranch in the region of ordering the killing.<P>Da Silva
had been organizing land invasions in the region near Castelo de Sonhos,
some 430 miles west of Altamira.<P>Land invasions are a common tactic used
to pressure the Brazilian government to speed up its agrarian reform
program. In Brazil, 90 percent of the land belongs to 20 percent of the
people and the poorest 40 percent own just 1 percent of the land.<P>Da
Silva was the second land reform activist killed in the southern Amazon
region in the past month. On June 28, Ivo Laurindo do Carmo's bludgeoned
body was found along the Belem-Brasilia highway.<P>More than 1,000
Brazilians have lost their lives in land disputes over the past decade,
according to the Land Pastoral, a Roman Catholic group that advocates land
reform.