Resolution on Chronic Renal Failure Victims

in Nicaragua

 

In view of the heroic struggle that the Nicaraguan Association of People Affected by Chronic Renal Failure (ANAIRC), an IUF affiliate, is carrying out in Managua and its daily protests in front of the Pellas Group.

 

Considering:

 

That the company Nicaragua Sugar Estates Ltd. (NSEL), owner of the sugar mill Ingenio San Antonio, located in Chichigalpa, where the vast majority of the former sugarcane workers affected by this chronic illness is from, is a member of the Pellas Group, Nicaragua’s largest economic consortium;

 

That the most conservative estimates indicate that more than eight thousand people were poisoned during the 1980s and 1990s with the many agrotoxic chemicals sprayed from the air and ground over the sugarcane plantations of Ingenio San Antonio. Of these victims, 3,326 had died from CRF as of May 10, 2009;

 

That many of these sugarcane laborers lived in a settlement built amidst the sugarcane crops by the Pellas Group’s NSEL. The indiscriminate and disdainful fumigation of crops impacted the health of the workers and their families and affected the quality of the water they all drank. When it became evident that there was a Chronic Renal Failure “epidemic” in Chichigalpa, Nicaragua Sugar Estates Ltd. ordered workers to evacuate the settlement;

 

That when workers are diagnosed with CRF, they are immediately fired and sent to the Social Security agency and the public health system;

 

That Nicaragua lacks the economic resources to perform kidney transplants, which means that most of the people suffering from CRF are in fact sentenced to a slow and painful death;

 

That after many years of struggle, the CRF victims are refusing to surrender to this fate, knowing that they would be leaving behind a family condemned to a life of abject poverty and dissolution, and are demanding that NSEL and the Pellas Group compensate them for the damages they have caused, so that they can at least die with some dignity;

 

That since ANAIRC began its current mobilization in Managua, 17 of its members have had to be urgently evacuated due to the rapid deterioration of their health, and one member has died, tragically illustrating the risks the protesters are facing and their committed determination to continue struggling,

 

The Executive Committee of the IUF

 

Resolves to:

 

Provide its broadest support and solidarity to the Nicaraguan Association of People Affected by Chronic Renal Failure (ANAIRC) and its courageous struggle and justified demands.

 

Inform international public opinion and raise global awareness on the situation at Ingenio San Antonio, property of Nicaragua Sugar Estates Ltd., a member of the Pellas Group.

 

Contribute efforts towards establishing a process of responsible and serious negotiation between the Pellas Group and the Nicaraguan Association of People Affected by Chronic Renal Failure, so that the just demands of the victims gathered in ANAIRC are met.

 

 

         Ron Oswald                         Hans-Olof Nilsson

IUF General Secretary                    IUF President