Rural worker’s leader and her husband are murdered in Rondônia

On February 17th, Ilma Rodrigues dos Santos, 45, and her husband Edson Lima Rodrigues, 43, residents of the Thiago dos Santos Settlement, were murdered. They were found with gun shot wounds in the head in the region known as “8° Linha do Ribeirão”, in the District of Abunã, near Porto Velho, in the state of Rondônia. Ilma was the treasurer of the League of Poor Peasants (LCP), a movement that arose in the state after what became known as the Corumbiara Massacre, in the Santa Elina farm, in 1995.

Major Adenilson Silva Chaga, commander of the Environmental Military Environmental Police of Porto Velho, told the Amazônia Real website that the double homicide may have been a response to the attack against inspectors and military police officers, which occurred the day before in the Guajará-Mirim State Environmental Park. Chaga attributes the shootings against the agents to the LCP. However, for the coordinator of the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) of Rondônia, Maria Petronila, such allegations are an attempt to criminalize the movement.

Recently, in November 2021, 26 people from the LCP were the target of an operation by the Civil Police of Rondônia, including the lawyer who represents the movement, Lenir Correia Coelho, leader of the Brazilian Association of People’s Lawyers (Abrapo)