Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura Convicted (Again) in Dorothy Stang's Murder

Excellent news:

A jury in the Brazilian city of Belém has sentenced a rancher to 30 years in prison for the murder of an American-born nun, news agencies reported.

The rancher, Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura, was convicted of ordering the murder in 2005 of Sister Dorothy Stang, from Dayton, Ohio, a longtime organizer of rural settlers and the poor in their efforts to protect their land from seizures by cattle ranchers and timber merchants.

Globo News, in Sao Paulo, reported Tuesday that the jury reached its verdict late Monday night after 15 hours of deliberations. The trial was the second appeal in the case, and the decision on Monday upheld the original conviction from 2007.

After being found guilty in 2007, Bastos de Moura, or "Bita," was acquitted in a second trial in 2008 (and for those wondering about double jeopardy, in Brazil, first-time convicts sentenced to more than 20 years are automatically given a re-trial). The third Trial took place after the state of Para's top court ruled that video evidence that Bita's defense used in the second trial was inadmissable, effectively rendering this third trial his "second" after Brazil's Supreme Court upheld the Para court's ruling. Now, it appears that Moura will actually serve time for contracting the murder of Dorothy Stang.

The conviction itself is huge, as it is one of the first times that a powerful rancher has been found guilty for his role in the murder of a land rights activist. Of course, Para sees many such murders, including just last week, and it is often commonly accepted that the wealthy landowners are often behind those murders but never see trial due to their power in the region. Certainly, Stang's case is particularly high-profile, but it is still extremely encouraging to see at least one landowner has been punished for his deeds, offering tentative hope that perhaps ranchers involved in future contracted murders will also be punished within the Brazilian courts (or at least deterred from hiring killers in the wake of Bita's sentencing). As Rebecca Spires put it, the only real chance at ending the murders in the Amazon is to go after the contractors; otherwise, the killings will most likely never cease. This is a good step in that direction, and if nothing else, Stang's case alone is an encouraging case of elites in Para not being protected by their money or status.

Man Who Contracted Dorothy Stang's Murder Back in Jail

This is excellent news:

A landowner accused of ordering the murder of American nun Dorothy Stang in the Amazon in 2005 is reported to be back in jail after turning himself in.

Vitalmiro Bastos Moura was originally convicted for the killing in 2007. The verdict was overturned a year later but he is now due to face a retrial.

The Brazilian report says he turned himself in after Brazil's Supreme Court refused Moura's request for habeas corpus, upholding the Para state court's ruling. Of course, the fact that Moura will get a new trial isn't fully encouraging - he's wealthy enough that he may be able to avoid a second conviction; the first conviction simply never should have been overturned in the first place. Still, this isn't completely hopeless; Moura was wealthy in the first trial, and was still found guilty; perhaps the outcome will be the same in the second. If nothing else, at least right now, the Supreme Court's ruling sends the message that wealthy landowners who hire poorer people to kill those trying to protect indigenous lands and the environment in the Amazonian basin will not remain immune from their murderous actions, and that alone is an important message to send. Hopefully, Moura will (once again) feel the full force of that message.

Food Deserts

What is a food desert? It's an area where people can't buy decent food. Neighborhoods of color. Areas where poor people live. Indian reservations. Etc.

To give you a concrete example, when I lived in Atlanta during the summer of 1999, I was probably the only white person within 15 square blocks (literally). The neighborhood Kroger was atrocious. 2 miles away was a gay neighborhood. The food there was outstanding. We see this over and over again. Here in Georgetown, the old downtown area has a high Mexican population. Other than good Mexican products, the store is bad, especially the produce. Out in strip mall city to the northwest of downtown, the grocery is much better.

This is an environmental justice issue and serves to remind us of one of the major problems of the environmental movement--that it is based on providing consumer goods to rich people that poor people can't afford. In this case, it's organic food. Or even just fresh food. The stores themselves certainly deserve a great deal of scorn, as they often refuse to build or improve stores in economically disadvantaged neighbors. Albuquerque has tried for years to get a store to move downtown, but Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and any number of other stores consistently build in the northeast heights, 20 miles from downtown. Not only can poor people not get out there, but literally everybody has to drive to these stores. Sustainability indeed.

Via Miriam.

A Second Chance at Justice in the Dorothy Stang Murder

Last year, I was dismayed when a Brazilian court overturned the conviction of Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura, who was earlier convicted for ordering Stang's guilt.

Well, in the wake of the good news in Peru today, there's more great news out of Brazil:

A Brazilian court on Tuesday ordered the arrest and retrial of an Amazon rancher acquitted of orchestrating the murder of American nun and rain forest activist Dorothy Stang.
Para state's top court reversed last year's not-guilty verdict for Vitalmiro Moura on a technicality, ruling that a video used by the defense was not admissible as evidence, the state prosecutor said.

This is just outstanding. Over the past two decades, over 1,100 environmental activists and poor people have been murdered in Brazil's Northern and Northeastern regions over land disputes and conservation efforts, and for way too long, the elites behind these murders and the land-grabs that precede or follow them have remained immune. Moura's overturned conviction last year was definitely a low-point in the justice system in Brazil. But this new ruling changes everything - Moura can go back to the courts where he was originally found guilty (Brazil has no double-jeopardy laws), and hopefully witness the same justice that the poor men who were convicted and whom he hired to murder Stang. It's rare that justice gets a second chance, especially against Brazil's landed elites; hopefully, this ruling will help overturn that trend. I doubt it will, but even if it doesn't, at least there's a chance for Moura to end up back in jail, where he rightfully belongs.

Van Jones in the White House!

Obama has just recruited environmental justice activist Van Jones to join the Council on Environmental Quality as a special advisor for green jobs.

I cannot overstate how much I LOVE this man.  He has been an advocate for green jobs as a solution to the environmental crisis and the growing economic inequality in the U.S. since before the economic crisis, but his work is even more important now.  He is the founder of the advocacy group Green For All, which advocates for government commitment to creating jobs and providing job training - especially for people from disadvantages communities - that will move the US toward a clean energy economy.  He is also the author of the New York Times best-seller, The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems.  To top it all off, he is also an amazing and inspirational speaker.  

Most importantly, I think Van Jones and Majora Carter and other activists like them represent the beginning of the end of the racially-exclusive environmental movement.  Up until very recently, the mainstream environmental movement has been very limited to upper middle class white people, and some would even argue that women were kept out of the leadership of the movement as well.  Now environmental leaders like Jones and Carter (both black) are changing all of that.  Van Jones advocates changing the whole system - not just the pollution.  Taking the pollution out of a broken (read: racist, sexist, violent, etc.) system will only leave a racist world with solar-powered wars fought over the lithium for batteries.  ...And yeah, it's really easy to recognize that we have a lot of problems, but Van Jones also has a solution, which is why I'm glad he's starting at the White House next week.