EVERYONE KNEW THAT CHICO MENDES WAS A marked man -- long before the leader of the Amazon rubber tappers and champion of rain-forest preservation was killed in 1988. Little was done to protect him from hostile ranchers bent on stripping the forests. When his assassins, Darci Alves Pereira and his father % Darly Alves da Silva, were convicted two years later, it was an unprecedented strike for justice that triggered a steady decline in local violence.
But with Darci and Darly's escape from prison last Monday, Brazil's western frontier has regained its reputation for lawlessness. Despite repeated warnings that lax security...
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