Brazil Rancher Admits Killing Amazon Activist

Brazilian rancher Darci Alves da Silva, in a dramatic and unexpected about-face, confessed in court today that he had shot dead rain forest activist Chico Mendes nearly two years ago.

Darci, accused with his father, Darly, of the murder--which drew worldwide attention to the destruction of the Amazon rain forest--had said they were innocent. But on taking the witness stand hours after the trial opened, Darci changed his plea: “I killed Chico Mendes,” he confessed, adding that he had acted alone.

“I fired one shot,” Darci, dressed neatly in a white shirt and beige trousers, told the tiny, cramped courtroom in the Amazon village of Xapuri.

His voice betrayed no hint of emotion as he spoke of the night of Dec. 22, 1988, when he crouched in Mendes’ back yard, ambushing the rubber tappers’ leader as he emerged from his simple wooden house and firing one bullet into his chest.

Federal Police Chief Romeu Tuma, in Xapuri for the trial, told reporters that Darci’s confession could be a tactic to try to get his father Darly, accused of ordering the murder, acquitted. Darci might also be trying to persuade the court that no one else was involved in the crime, Tuma added.

Darci turned himself over to police within days of the killing of Mendes and confessed to the murder. He later retracted his confession, so today’s admission was a stunning development.

Foreign reporters and environmentalists were crammed in the tiny, 80-seat courtroom while townspeople stood outside in driving rain. White banners in the main square of this frontier town proclaimed “Justice to Save Amazon.”

Mendes was a local trade unionist who led rubber tappers in their struggle against the encroachment of cattlemen into the world’s last great rain forest. Mendes’ campaign made him enemies among the ranchers, and he predicted his own death.

Security in Xapuri, a town of 5,000 people in the western state of Acre close to Bolivia, is intense. Police check everyone who enters the town.

The tightest security has surrounded the main prosecution witness, 15-year-old Genesio da Silva, who has lived in hiding since 1989. Genesio da Silva, who used to live on Darly Alves da Silva’s farm, is due to testify that he heard him plotting the murder.

Human rights activists said the trial of Alves da Silva on charges of ordering the murder was virtually unprecedented in Brazil. Moacyr Grechi, the Roman Catholic bishop in Acre’s state capital, Rio Branco, said that out of 1,200 rural murders in Brazil between 1964 to 1986, no one was ever brought to trial for ordering a killing.

But those close to Mendes question whether the right man is in the dock. They say Alves da Silva is a small fish in a large conspiracy that involved far more powerful people.