International Union Call For Delta & Pine Land Co. [Being Purchased by Monsanto]
to Clean Up Toxic Waste Disaster in Paraguay
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IUF / UITA / IUL
International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant,
Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations
Rampe du Pont-Rouge, 8, CH-1213 Petit-Lancy (Switzerland)
tel: + 41 22 793 22 33, fax + 41 22 793 22 38, e-mail: iuf@iuf.org -
www.iuf.org
president: Frank Hurt, general secretary: Ron Oswald, press officer: Peter
Rossman
Geneva, June 15, 1999
IUF Calls on Delta & Pine Land to Clean Up Toxic Disaster in Paraguay
The IUF has called upon the US-based Delta & Pine Land Company to assume
responsibility for the environmental and public health disaster created in
Paraguay by its local subsidiary. Delta & Pine Land, the world's largest
cottonseed producer, is in the process of being acquired by the MONSANTO
Company through a share swap to be completed later this year.
Last November, Delta & Pine Paraguay dumped 30 thousand sacks of expired
cottonseed - 660 tons - in the area of Rinc—n-i-Ybycu’, a rural community
120 kilometres from the capital Asunci—n. The seeds were treated with high
concentrations of toxic pesticides, including the organophosphates acephate
and chlorpyrifos. Organophosphates are powerful poisons which attack the
central nervous system. The label on the seed sacks states that the
acephate chemical compound (trade name: Orthene 80 Seed Protectant)
"contains material which may cause cancer, mutagenic or reproductive
effects based on laboratory animal data. Risk of cancer depends on duration
and level of exposure." This toxic cocktail, extending over one-and-a-half
hectares, was covered with only a thin layer of soil. The disposal site is
on private land in the center of a rural population of three thousand, less
than 170 meters from a primary school with 262 pupils.
Health problems were immediately reported. The well-known symptoms of
pesticide poisoning - vertigo, nausea, headaches, neurological disorders,
memory loss, insomnia and skin rashes - appeared immediately, and worsened
as the first rains brought with them a malevolent odor which hung over the
area. Instead of water, toxic sludge oozed from the wells and pumps.
The poison claimed its first victim on December 28, the day of the death of
Agust’n Ruiz Aranda. Ruiz Aranda had been active in the Commission for the
Defense of the Environment and Human Rights formed by the local community
to draw attention to the dumping and demand government action. His official
death certificate states that he was treated by the attending physician for
"acute poisoning due to pollution caused by toxins of the Delta & Pine Land
seed deposited on the property of Julio Ch‡vez..." In May, his widow told
the
IUF that "On December 26 my husband attended what would be his last meeting
with the Commission. He felt very ill. On December 27 he could no longer
get up from his bed. We did not have a single guarani (Paraguayan currency)
to buy medicine, much less to get to the city. On Monday noon he lost the
capacity to speak. When he died, his flesh was like a wet, twisted rag
stuck to the bone." Thirty years old at the time of his death, Mr. Ruiz
left behind five children.
Medical testing of the residents has produced irrefutable evidence of acute
pesticide poisoning. The Ministries of Agriculture and of Public Health
have acknowledged the results of the tests but have not taken action. The
Ministry of Education has refused support for the school organized by the
villagers when it became necessary to abandon the polluted schoolgrounds.
The IUF has met with the Minister of Health and the president of Paraguay,
and has helped to organize demonstrations and support for the victims of
the contamination. Still, the government refuses to act, despite the
publication of no less than 45 articles on the situation in Ybycu’ in the
nation's largest circulation newspaper Diario Noticias.
In August, the case will be the subject of an inquiry in Asunci—n organized
by the Ethical Tribunal against Impunity in Paraguay with the support of
the Latin American Regional Secretariat of the IUF. The Ethical Tribunal is
well known for its work in defense of the victims of the Stroessner
dictatorship and for its discovery, in 1992, of the dictator's "Archive of
Terror" which documented the coordinated police operation of the Southern
Cone dictatorships known as "Operation Condor."
Rinc—n-i-Ybycu’ is a poor, isolated part of the country where life has
always been difficult for the population of small producers of manioc,
fruits and vegetables. Delta & Pine Land has chosen this neglected corner
of the world to dump its poisonous waste. The company must now face the
consequences of its disregard for human life and the environment. The IUF
is demanding:
á Immediate action to remove the toxic seed and decontaminate the area;
á Immediate and comprehensive medical treatment for the victims;
á A program of long-term medical and environmental surveillance, including
regular monitoring of water supplies;
á Adequate compensation for the victims, their families, and the wider
community.
The company must also make a full and public disclosure of the
circumstances surrounding the dumping. The thirty thousand seeds buried in
Ybycu’ were part of a larger shipment of 84 thousand bags of Delta & Pine
Land cotton seeds authorized for importation by the Paraguayan Ministry of
Agriculture and Livestock in 1997 after the ministry had imported
sufficient seed for the 1997-98 planting season. Where is the rest of the
seed? Has it also been similarly dumped on unsuspecting communities? Were
the seeds already past their expiry date at the time of export from the
United States, i.e. were they exported with the intention of dumping as an
alternative to the more costly methods of controlled waste destruction
required by US law? Answers to these questions are urgently necessary if
more disasters are to be avoided.
Delta & Pine Land Co. is in the process of merging with the agro-chemical,
seed and biotechnology giant Monsanto. Delta & Pine Land jointly holds the
patent rights, and the exclusive licensing rights, to the notorious
"Terminator" technology, a technique of genetic modification which ensures
that seeds will not germinate if planted a second time. The Terminator
patents are designed to ensure that farmers will not be able to save their
seed, as they have done for thousands of years, but will instead be totally
dependent on Monsanto to plant their crops. The Terminator has been
described by farmers' organizations, trade unions, and consumer and
environmental groups as an unprecedented threat to food security and
bio-diversity. The IUF supports the international campaigns to have this
dangerous technology banned from commercial production.
Monsanto (corporate slogan "Food-Health-Hope") claims to be advancing food
production and sustainability and creating "new possibilities for better
nutrition and health". The company's history as a major corporate polluter
raises serious doubts about these claims. In 1995, Monsanto was named in
the US Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Release Inventory as having
released 37 million pounds of toxic chemicals into the environment.
Monsanto is indelibly linked to the environmental disasters of Times Beach,
Missouri, a town so thoroughly polluted with Monsanto dioxin that its
entire population had to be evacuated, and the poisoning of Vietnam with
the defoliant "Agent Orange". With the proposed merger with Delta & Pine
Land, Monsanto will be able to add the poisoning of Rinc—n-i-Ybycu’,
Paraguay to its history of corporate abuse of the environment.
* * * * *
The International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering,
Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) is an international trade
union federation composed of 329 trade unions in 118 countries with an
affiliated membership of 2.6 million members. It is based in Geneva,
Switzerland.