'Invisible' victims of pesticide protest government neglect

For months, more than 3,000 Nicaraguans in a makeshift camp in the center 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 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 (87 miles northwest of Managua) on foot on May 20, and came here once again to ask the new government to fulfill 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 US 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 US 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 US 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 Center 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 recognized by the state among the agricultural workers affected by Nemagon, according to Jesús Marín, the Center'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.