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IUF Calls on Delta and Pine Land to Clean Up Toxic Disaster in Paraguay


Story Filed: Friday, June 25, 1999 4:47 PM EST

WASHINGTON, June 25 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco
and Allied Workers' Associations has called upon the U.S.-based Delta and Pine Land Company to assume responsibility for the
environmental and public health disaster created in Paraguay by its local subsidiary. Delta and Pine Land, the world's largest cotton
seed 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 and Pine Paraguay dumped 30 thousand sacks of expired cotton seed -- 660 tons -- in the area of
Rincon-i-Ybycui, a rural community 120 kilometers from the capital Asuncion. 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 3,000, 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 Agustin 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 and Pine Land seed deposited on the property of Julio Chavez." 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, Ruiz Aranda 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 Ybycui in the
nation's largest circulation newspaper Diario Noticias.

In August, the case will be the subject of an inquiry in Asuncion 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."

Rincon-i-Ybycui 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 and 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:

-- Immediate action to remove the toxic seed and decontaminate the area;

-- Immediate and comprehensive medical treatment for the victims;

-- A program of long-term medical and environmental surveillance, including regular monitoring of water supplies;

-- 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 30,000 seeds buried in
Ybycui were part of a larger shipment of 84,000 bags of Delta and 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 U.S. law? Answers to these questions are
urgently necessary if more disasters are to be avoided.

Delta and Pine Land Co. is in the process of merging with the agro-chemical, seed and biotechnology giant Monsanto. Delta and
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 U.S. 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, Mo., 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 and Pine Land, Monsanto will be able to add the
poisoning of Rincon-i-Ybycui, 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.


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Copyright © 1999, U.S. Newswire, all rights reserved.

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