NICARAGUA:
‘Invisible’ Victims of
Pesticide Protest
Government Neglect
By
José Adán Silva
MANAGUA, (IPS) -
For months, more than
3,000 Nicaraguans in a
makeshift camp in the
centre of Managua have
been demanding a
government response to
their health needs and
legal backing for their
cause. They have been
poisoned by the
pesticide Nemagon, but
in spite of their
protests they are
apparently invisible to
those in power.
Most of them are from
rural areas in the
departments (provinces)
of Chinandega and León,
in the west of
Nicaragua, who were
exposed to Nemagon, the
brand name for
dibromochloropropane (DBCP),
used on banana
plantations in the
1960s, 1970s and early
1980s.
Exposure to Nemagon, or
Fumazone (another brand
name), is considered to
be a risk factor for
cancer, chronic kidney
failure, acute
respiratory disease,
heart attacks,
sterility, muscular
atrophy, skin complaints
and internal bleeding.
"We left Chinandega (140
kilometres northwest of
Managua) on foot on May
20, and came here once
again to ask the new
government to fulfil the
agreements that people
affected by Nemagon
reached with the
previous administration,
of Enrique Bolaños,"
Jorge Alí Sánchez, vice
president of the
Association of Workers
and Former Workers with
Claims against Nemagon (ASOTRAEXDAN),
told IPS.
The demonstrators want
the government of
leftwing President
Daniel Ortega to make
good on commitments on
medical treatment and
economic aid which they
wrested from his
rightwing predecessors,
Bolaños (2002-2007) and
Arnoldo Alemán
(1997-2002).
During the Bolaños and
Alemán administrations,
the agricultural workers
won the passage of a
special law for dealing
with suits brought by
persons affected by the
chemical against the
companies responsible
for DBCP manufacture and
use, said Victorino
Espinales, the president
of ASOTRAEXDAN.
They were also promised
free medical care, food
ingredients for special
diets, economic support,
and even an allowance of
25 coffins a month and
free plots in municipal
cemeteries to bury the
dead. "Now they are
refusing to keep these
promises," he said.
Since the first lawsuits
were brought, in 1999,
some 2,000 people have
died from illnesses
linked to the pesticide,
many of whom were
registered as litigants,
according to lawyers
from the four firms that
are representing the
agricultural workers.
Government authorities
do not accept this
figure.
"Last year alone, 192 of
our fellow-workers died.
We didn’t even have
coffins to put them in.
Even that has been
denied us," Espinales
said.
This is the fifth time
since 1999 that people
with claims against
Nemagon have marched to
Managua on foot and set
up camp in the central
Pedro Joaquín Chamorro
park. The style of their
protest is simple: they
raise hundreds of
temporary shelters made
of black plastic,
cardboard and tree
branches, and live
there.
Once settled in, they
take any action they can
to attract attention:
they have gone on hunger
strike, they have walked
the streets armed with
bottles of gasoline,
threatening to set
themselves alight, they
have buried themselves
to the neck in the
ground, leaving only
their heads out, and
they have tied
themselves to wooden
crosses, crucifixion
style.
"We have tried so many
things, and although we
have appeared in the
media, we haven’t moved
the hearts of the
politicians," said
Hilario Calero, one of
the demonstrators and a
member of the commission
of agricultural workers
which is trying to
negotiate with the
Ortega administration.
More than 12,000 women
and men, former workers
and residents in areas
near the banana
plantations, are in
litigation in courts in
the United States,
Nicaragua, Ecuador and
Colombia with U.S.
companies accused of
manufacturing, selling
and spraying Nemagon
even though its perils
were known since 1958.
The product was banned
in the United States in
1979.
A total of nearly 17
billion dollars are
claimed in reparations
against the food
industry corporations
Dole Food Company,
Chiquita Brands and Del
Monte, and against the
petrochemical companies
Shell Oil, Dow Chemical
and Occidental Chemical
which manufacture DBCP.
Lawyer Boanerges Ojeda,
of the law firm Ojeda,
Gutiérrez, Espinoza and
Associates which is
representing 4,000
plaintiffs, said that
litigation is proceeding
at different stages in
the United States and
Nicaragua, as well as in
other countries where
the companies operate.
"It has not been easy.
The transnational
corporations are
immensely wealthy and
are capable of keeping
the trials snowed under
with paper for many
years to come, but we
are certain that we will
eventually win," Ojeda
told IPS.
On Jul. 19, the Los
Angeles Superior Court
in the U.S. agreed to
try the case brought by
13 agricultural workers,
represented by another
group of lawyers. This
is the first time that
Nemagon victims have
gained a hearing in a
U.S. court.
The Dole Food Company
refuted the legality of
the agricultural
workers’ demands in
Nicaraguan courts, and
denied its
responsibility for
health damages caused to
those who worked in
areas sprayed with DBCP
or who drank water
contaminated by the
toxic chemical.
Apart from the legal
battles, the state is
evidently neglecting the
agricultural workers’
demands, Gonzalo Carrión,
head of the legal
department of the
Nicaraguan Centre for
Human Rights, told IPS.
"The Nicaraguan state is
supposed to watch over
the right of Nicaraguans
to health, and to live
in a healthy
environment, and this is
not happening with these
persons," he said.
The most recent death
was that of Paulino
Carreros in Chinandega
in late July, said
Calero.
"The health authorities
told us we weren’t
allowed to die here,
they say that if we see
someone is on the point
of death, we should take
him or her to the
hospital. But people
here want to die in
their own temporary
shelters," said the
demonstrator.
The authorities deny any
neglect.
The Health Ministry’s
National Centre for
Prevention and Control
of Toxic Substances has
installed dialysis
equipment in a hospital
in Chinandega to provide
special care for people
with chronic kidney
failure, the main cause
of death officially
recognised by the state
among the agricultural
workers affected by
Nemagon, according to
Jesús Marín, the
Centre’s director.
Health Ministry
spokeswoman Maritza
Tellería told IPS that
two Managua clinics
provide medical care to
people sleeping in the
camp, known as "Nemagon
City".
And lawyers representing
the agricultural workers
told IPS that
Nicaragua’s
attorney-general, Hernán
Estrada, has advised
them on negotiating with
the transnational
corporations.
Meanwhile, 673 women and
2,580 men are living in
the 450 precarious
shelters in the park.
"Everyone here is sick,"
said Sergio García, a
former worker on the
Santa Elisa banana
plantation who says he
is suffering from
infertility and kidney
disease.
There is no water,
sanitation or
electricity in the camp.
To wash clothes, bathe
and cook, people have
broken water pipes and
carry water in buckets
to the camp, said
Faustina Eduarda Robledo.
The park covers four
city blocks and is
ornamented with
eucalyptus trees, where
the demonstrators hang
their clothes and their
hammocks. Meetings are
held in an amphitheatre
which has to be washed
on every occasion,
because it is used as a
de facto public urinal
at night.
In June and July, the
park was spattered with
bullets from drive-by
shootings. Two men were
injured, but the
shooters were never
identified.
"If the poison doesn’t
kill us, people will,
with gunshots or
neglect," said Rosa
Amanda Gutiérrez, 75,
who left her family
behind to form part of
this tragic camp that
appears to go unnoticed
in the heart of Managua. |
