U.S. Professor (U of Vermont) shot dead in Brazil's Amazon (Reuters)

[Up2Late]

(My heart goes out to any friends and family of this University of Vermont Professor.)

U.S. professor shot dead in Brazil's Amazon

Sun Aug 14, 2005 11:28 PM ET

BRASILIA (Reuters) - A U.S. anthropology professor on a research trip to Brazil was shot and killed on Saturday in an Amazon rainforest town, a U.S. Embassy spokesman said on Sunday. James Petersen, 51, of the University of Vermont, was shot while he was being robbed in a restaurant in the town of Iranduba, about 14 miles west of Amazonas state capital Manaus, the spokesman, John Wilcock, said.

Three suspects were taken into custody on Sunday morning in connection with Petersen's murder, Brazil's CBN radio reported. Wilcock could not confirm the information. Federal police in Manaus were not immediately available for comment.

Petersen, chairman of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Vermont, was on a research field trip with colleagues in the Manaus area, located around 1200 miles (1900 km) northwest of the capital Brasilia. He was working with the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, on a joint research study known as the Central Amazon Project.

Petersen was with a Brazilian anthropologist from the University of Sao Paulo when he was robbed and shot on Saturday night while eating dinner at a roadside restaurant, CBN reported. Petersen died shortly afterward, Wilcock said.

© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.

<http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=9370155&src=rss/domesticNews>
(more News at link above)

[wli]

1. was he involved in any politically-charged issues in any way?

e.g. documenting the ongoing campaigns against indigenous peoples in South America?

[jsamuel]

3. Not that this really matters, but Anthropologists are Dems 30 to 1

People who study people for a living are 30 to 1 democrats... hmmm...

Anyway, it is very sad to hear. I hope he loved what he did and loved his life while he was here with us.

[Rich Hunt]

2. picture of him here

And more details:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/aplatin_story.asp?category=1102&slug=Brazil%20Professor%20Killed

I always take academic deaths particularly hard.

[SoCalDem]

4. Globalization is making Americans targets EVERYWHERE

We are the ones driving the globalization bus, and the locals everywhere have realized that THEY are becoming poorer as a result of it.

EVERY American who travels abroad is a target. We are no longer seen as peaceful,helpful people. the aid our government gives is recognized as a bribe for damages done TO them..and the "bribes" are not big enough to trickle down to the people most hurt..

Indigenous people all over the world are being stripped of their livelihoods and culture because they have "valuable stuff" under their feet or in their environments and WE want it ...

The distrust us, and anyone who goes there..for whatever reason..is seen as an enemy:(

[bicentennial_baby]

5. People, it's Brazil

not the safest place in the world, regardless of your nationality or political inclinations...My prof has a brazilian wife and a house down there, oh the stories I have heard...yikes!

[Mizmoon]

7. exactly

Years ago I knew a biologist who did research in the Amazon and she told me about some encounters that would have made me leave and never go back.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

6. An interesting article about his work...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/01/09/MNGPVAMDQ61.DTL

Very cool stuff.

[Judi Lynn]

8. Didn't know he was involved with this fascinating research.

Here's a map with Manaus visible on the Amazon south of Guyana...



That area will be so important to archaeologists for a long time, no doubt. Here's a transcript about the "terra preta" they discovered containing remnants of an ancient civilization:

....NARRATOR: Terra preta is so fertile that it's been prized by Brazilian farmers for centuries. Somehow the prehistoric Amazonians had transformed the world's worst soil into some of the best.

JAMES PETERSEN: Unintentionally perhaps, maybe intentionally, the native people enriched the soil in and around where they lived and this turn enabled them to intensify their agriculture which then, in turn, enabled their numbers to grow and become complex and Orellana and the things he described become more than plausible, very likely in this scenario.

NARRATOR: So here is the truth behind the myth of El Dorado. The prehistoric people of the central Amazon transformed the very earth beneath their feet. From their black soil sprang a civilisation that lasted for over one thousand years. They fashioned works of art to rival those of the Mayas and Incas. They built towns and even cities that spread across the jungle. Eventually they settled the Amazon Basin with millions and millions of people. It seems Orellana was telling the truth after all, but if there really had been a great society here, what had become of it? How could it have disappeared so suddenly and so completely? The most likely answer is tragically simple.
(snip/...)

http://www.mindfully.org/Farm/2003/Secret-Of-El-Dorado19dec02.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Appreciate your making your article available. It's really huge.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Don't forget the Ohio-born Brazilian-naturalized Sister Dorothy Stang who was murdered by killers hired by an Amazon rancher in the last year. Also very sad.

[Lisa]

13. oh, no ...

I just discussed some of Dr. Petersen's work with my Resource Management students today -- and a lot of people thought it was very cool.

[MaineDem]

9. Local report: Former Maine professor killed in Amazonian town

...

James Petersen, 51, a former professor at the University of Maine at Farmington and the University of Maine, was in Brazil on a research trip.

Peterson, of Salisbury, Vt., died during a confrontation in a restaurant in the town of Iranduba, said the embassy spokesman, John Wilcock. Iranduba is about 1,650 miles northwest of Sao Paulo.

Three suspects were taken into custody, according to CBN radio. Wilcock said he could not confirm that information.

http://news.mainetoday.com/apwire/D8C089UG0-226.shtml

[alarcojon]

10. RIP Dr. Petersen

Looks like a senseless killing of a white man because he was perceived to have money. Desperate poverty in Brazil, as elsewhere, leads to these tragic occurrences

[Judi Lynn]

11. This article would make it seem he was a key character in this research

Pay Dirt
Thriving civilization or ‘counterfeit paradise’?
The clues are underfoot as a UVM professor and an alumnus join forces to rethink the Amazon’s past
Story by Lee Ann Cox

.....In this part of Brazil, near the spot where the Rio Negro meets the Amazon, a good day means mind-bending heat, humidity that will cover a book in mold within a week, a nighttime torrent of mosquitoes, not to mention the menacing tarantulas, anacondas, and jaguars.

James Petersen usually bears the harshness of life here with equanimity, but today the rains are heavy. It’s too wet to dig, and with clothes soaked, Petersen and his fellow archeologists are chilled despite the steamy heat. They are scanning the ground for artifacts when Petersen has what he calls an “epiphany moment.”

“I look down and I see a face smiling up at me,” he recalls. It’s a piece of pottery broken off a jar, a human face, almost life size. “I had been cold and distracted and uncomfortable, and then the humanity of the Indians came to me like a shot. I had a communication, in a way, with the people of the Açutuba site. It was really dramatic.”

The year is 1985. Petersen, an ecological anthropologist and ceramics expert, has until then taken a pragmatic approach to his career. At the time, he is founder and director of a busy consulting archeology program at the University of Maine at Farmington; joining the UVM faculty is twelve years in his future and his work in the Amazon is just a summer vacation. But when he’s there he feels the ghosts of Pre-Columbian Indians and they seem to be telling him — along with others who are increasingly called to listen — that their story is vastly different from the one we’ve been told. Now Petersen is dedicated to setting the record straight — and rewriting the history of the Amazon in the process.
(snip/...)

http://www.uvm.edu/~uvmpr/vq/vqspring05/amazon.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It also sounds as if there is a determined counter movement which denies their findings. Is it possible that for whatever reasons they could hire a staged robbery which gave a misleading appearance to his killing?

[LeftyElvis]

12. American = Target

thanks, chimp

[Judi Lynn]

14. Three arrested in connection with American prof's slaying

Posted on Tue, Aug. 16, 2005

Three arrested in connection with American prof's slaying

A man and two teens were arrested on charges of killing an American anthropology professor conducting research in the Amazon rain forest.

BY PETER MUELLO
Associated Press

RIO DE JANEIRO - Police arrested a man and two teenagers for the alleged killing of an American professor and said the three were drunk and high on cocaine when one of them shot James Petersen in an Amazon rain forest town. Welison Cornelio de Oliveira, 18, confessed to the Saturday killing of Petersen, a 51-year-old chairman of the University of Vermont's anthropology department, a police inspector said Monday.

Inspector Normando Barbosa said the three robbed a restaurant where Petersen and a Brazilian archaeologist were dining Saturday in the town of Iranduba, about 1,800 miles northwest of Rio.

SHOT IN CHEST

As they were leaving the restaurant, Oliveira turned and shot Petersen once in the chest, Barbosa said by telephone. The American died on the way to the hospital. ''They thought was going to resist,'' Barbosa said.

``It just shows how unprepared they were. They were drunk and {high}.''

Police also arrested Janderson Pereira da Silva, 23, and Ricardo Pereira de Lima, 16, who were with Oliveira at the restaurant. Officials recovered an identity card, a driver's license, credit cards and other documents belonging to Petersen and his Brazilian colleague, archaeologist Eduardo Neves.
(snip/...)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/12393946.htm
(Free registration required)