Bishop Says Hunger Strike Just the Start of Campaign To Save Brazilian River

CABROBO, Brazil — A Brazilian bishop savored the success of his 11-day hunger strike Friday, sipping chicken soup and mulling the government's pledge to delay the rerouting of a major river in Brazil's arid northeast.

Bishop Luiz Flavio Cappio ended his strike Thursday, when the government agreed to have further discussion on shifting the course of the Sao Francisco River. But Cappio said his struggle to save the ailing river was just beginning.

"My gesture alone would be incomplete. What gives it weight is the movement of society and the discussion that comes now," Cappio said close to the site where work on the rerouting is set to begin near Cabrobo, 1,100 miles northeast of Rio de Janeiro.

Cappio met Thursday with Brazil's Minister of Institutional Relations Jacques Wagner, who traveled to this poor, dusty town with a letter from President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva promising to extend discussion of the $2 billion water project.

Silva also agreed to increase funds to rehabilitate the polluted river and grant Cappio a personal audience.

The Sao Francisco wends over 1,600 miles through the heart of Brazil and is essential for water and transportation.

But today, some 90 percent of the forest along the river's banks has been cut down, causing it to dry up. Raw sewage from some 200 towns and cities pour into the Sao Francisco every day, and seven hydroelectric dams have altered the river's natural flow.

Once navigable over 1,057 miles, the river today it is only navigable along 373 miles.

The government says that changing river's course will benefit some 12 million poor people. But Cappio and his supporters say it will harm the river and benefit only a handful of construction companies and agribusiness firms.

"I hope and trust that the government keeps its part of the deal, if it doesn't I will come back to Cabrobo," Cappio said.

Source: Associated Press