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jenka
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Since the beginning of February, Dole banana plantation workers have staged a vigil at their nation's capital.
Thousands of Nicaraguan workers covered with skin lesions, sores, disfigurations and cancer are camped out in front of the National Assembly building in Nicaragua's capital city, Managua. They are demanding answers from the companies that knowingly and willfully exposed them to a deadly, poisonous pesticide that caused these defects. The companies, Dole banana company, Dow Chemical and Shell, claim that they hold no responsibility for the workers' fate.
Katherine Stecker is a researcher with the Nicaragua Network, based in Washington, DC
While bananas continue to be the most purchased fruit in the United States, banana workers throughout Central and South America continue to be among the most underpaid and overworked of all seasonal fruit laborers. During the era of colonization, United Fruit Company was the owner of nearly 100% of the land in Honduras, and its successor Chiquita still holds a large percentage of that country's land. Next door in Nicaragua, Dole (formerly Standard Fruit Company) holds the monopoly. So while U.S. citizens are enjoying the taste of their Dole bananas, most remain ignorant of the fact that workers are dying of pesticide poisoning for having worked on or near the Dole plantations in Nicaragua.
There are an estimated 17,000 people who have been affected by exposure to the nemagon pesticide, either by working on Dole's banana plantations, living nearby, or simply getting water from a source that was tainted with nemagon.
The workers camped out in Managua, Nicaragua issued a statement this week declaring unity among all of the Nicaraguan banana workers and demanding justice for the suffering they've endured due to the effects of nemagon pesticide. They demand a statement from the Nicaraguan president Bulanos on their behalf, a recognition by the companies of their culpability, and payment of their medical bills.
Katherine Stecker
More information on this issue can be found at http://www.nicanet.org.