Reuters called Roman Catholic Bishop Luiz Flavio Cappio a "militant bishop" and a "leftist priest," but I would simply call him "heroic."
"My fast is suspended in favor of life," Bishop Cappio said outside the small chapel on the banks of Sao Francisco River in Pernambuco state where he has fasted for the past 11 days.More on this story in Grist Magazine:
Cappio had vowed to keep up his hunger strike until he died unless President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government canceled the $2 billion project to divert river water through a network of canals. He says it would harm the environment and help big business at the expense of the poor.
Cappio and his supporters say most of the water will benefit wealthy farmers growing export crops like grapes and flowers, with only a tiny percentage allocated to millions of rural poor. They fear the waterworks will be the final blow to the Sao Francisco -- already extensively damaged by riverside deforestation, pollution, sewage, and hydroelectric dams -- and want the government to clean up the river.
