Nicaragua: Nemagon Workers Are Dying

[struggle4progress]

Members of the Miami University Students for Peace and Justice group traveled to Nicaragua March 11th-20th on a Witness for Peace delegation to learn about United States foreign policy. While in Managua, the delegation visited a protest camp of several thousand banana and sugar cane farmers who have been lethally infected by the chemical Nemagon. Nemagon is a virulent pesticide used in banana and sugar cane plantations in Central America, the Caribbean, and the Philippines. Approximately 5000 protesters, who are living in makeshift tents of black plastic and sticks across the street from the National Assembly, say that they will not leave until their government has acted justly by recognizing the horrible conditions in which they've been left to die, covering their burgeoning medical costs, and discontinuing the use of all pesticides that contain Nemagon.

The workers asked the students to take their stories back to the United States because the United States corporations Dow Chemical, Shell Oil Co. and Standard Fruit Co. exported and encouraged the use of Nemagon. The protesters claim that over 2000 people have died due to exposure to Nemagon. One worker, Juan Alejandro Varela Sanchez, said to the Miami students who'd gathered on the night of Friday the 18th, "And here we stand talking to you and it looks like we're normal human beings, but we are already dead. Nemagon has already killed our way of life, our energy, and has left us practically lifeless. That's why some of us will be burying ourselves." <snip>

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=54&ItemID=7553

[chlamor]

1. Issue to organize

campus groups around. Raise awareness of predatory TNC's-Boycott various fruit Cos. Human rights connected to environmental justice.

Dow-Shell-Standard Fruit triumvirate of colonial poisoning corps.