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Protests erupt in Overseas France against pesticide poisoning Over two decades of use of the pesticide chlordecone in banana plantations in Guadeloupe and Martinique have left behind a toxic legacy in these French Caribbean territories. T Rajamoorthy IN February, international media outlets such as the BBC and Radio France International carried reports that the peoples of Martinique and Guadeloupe were staging demonstrations against the failure of France, as the colonial power, to protect them from chlordecone poisoning by the banana industry. France colonised these two islands in what is now called the Caribbean in the 17th century. They still remain its colonies despite claims to the contrary. The French continue to maintain the fiction that these territories are not colonies but overseas ‘departments’ (overseas regions) of France. Colonisation began first with the extermination or marginalisation of the indigenous Amerindians and their replacement with slave labour from Africa to work on the plantations established by French planters. With the abolition of slavery in 1848, the slaves became wage workers, quite often in name only. Whether as slaves or as wage workers, their labour has been an essential component of the colonial project. Without them, it would not be possible to establish plantations in the tropics and extract profits from them. Sugarcane was initially the main crop cultivated in these plantations as it was probably the most profitable. However, bananas were introduced into the French West Indies in 1736, first as a food crop for the slaves, with each slave being required by royal decree to plant 25 banana trees. Unlike these plantain bananas which are used for cooking, the desert banana (Cavendish) was introduced nearly two centuries later, but even then it played a subordinate role in the economies of these colonies compared with coffee and cocoa, the two other plantation crops. However, a powerful cyclone in 1928 which devastated these islands changed all this. Although all the three plantation crops had experienced the full brunt of the destruction, it was decided to revive and expand the banana plantations to replace the coffee and cocoa crops. The decision to forgo coffee and cocoa for bananas alone was made to recoup losses faster as the latter crop has a shorter growth cycle. The decision to go for large-scale banana cultivation was to have fateful consequences. From 1972, the banana plantations began using chlordecone, a toxic pesticide, to eliminate pests, specifically a beetle called the weevil. However, chlordecone, better known under the brand name Kepone in the United States, is an organochlorine compound related to DDT. It is carcinogenic and the continued use of this pesticide on the soil led to a contamination that was ‘long lasting, generalised and deleterious to public health’. Already in 1960, the pesticide had been identified as dangerous in the US, and it was banned in that country in 1975. Four years later, the chemical was classified as potentially carcinogenic by the World Health Organization. But it took more than a decade, until 1990, before it was banned in France. But the ban had no immediate effect on the situation in Overseas France, where its use continued for a further three years. In 1991 the European Union had issued a directive calling on France to ban the use of chlordecone in Guadeloupe and Martinique. Two successive agriculture ministers in François Mitterrand’s government chose to derogate on the directive, due in part to ‘intense lobbying’ by the islands’ planters. It was also revealed that some elected officials in Guadeloupe and Martinique pushed for the continued use of the so-called ‘miracle molecule’ on the grounds of protecting the territories’ economic well-being. Irreparable damage has been done to the health of the peoples of Guadeloupe and Martinique. The planters had dumped on 2,000 hectares of land some 300 tons of a chemical for which there was no viable decontamination method and which could persist in the soil for a couple of hundred years. Not surprisingly, the health impacts on the people were horrendous. Surveys showed more than 90% of the people tested in Martinique and Guadeloupe had chlordecone in their bodies. They had the highest rate of prostate cancer diagnosis in the world. They were also afflicted with a variety of nervous system disorders, including a new disease locally known as ‘Kepone syndrome’, as well as stomach and pancreatic cancers. Mental problems such as stress and depression and suicides became more prevalent as well. Women and children were particularly vulnerable to the health impacts of the chemical. Expectant mothers had to endure the risk of premature births and the likelihood of transmitting the chemical to their offspring through their placenta during the pre-natal period and subsequently through breast milk during the post-natal period. There was also increased risk of adverse brain development in children. In 2009, chlordecone was included in a list of persistent organic pollutants under the Stockholm Convention, which banned its production worldwide. However, it took nearly a decade for France to admit its responsibility for use of the pesticide in Guadeloupe and Martinique, when President Emmanuel Macron in 2018 called it an ‘environmental scandal’ that was enabled by ‘collective blindness’. But, not for the first time, Macron, a master of soundbites, proved himself to be a shifty politician. Less than a year later, he was denying the devastating effects of chlordecone, insisting that ‘it should not be said it is carcinogenic’. A French parliamentary commission which released its findings in November 2019 found that the French government consistently failed to respond to warnings about the environmental and health implications of chlordecone use from as far back as 1969. In 2006, seven organisations filed a complaint against the government for ‘reckless endangerment’. After almost 15 years, the case was finally heard at the High Court of Paris in January 2021. But during the hearing, the organisations were told that French statute of limitation rules may apply to the case, which would prevent them from pursuing their action. The announcement was met with anger in Guadeloupe and Martinique, where demonstrations took place on 27 February – involving up to 15,000 people in Martinique, according to organisers (5,000, according to the police) – demanding ‘No Impunity’. The bitterness was cumulative. The people had never been warned or alerted that the pesticide used was carcinogenic or dangerous to their health. While the authorities could plead ignorance, this plea was not tenable once they had come to know the truth about the carcinogenic nature of the pesticide. The fact that they chose to continue the use of the pesticide after the official ban makes them criminally liable. Moreover, the whole future of the people on the islands is now uncertain. If the soil and water table are seriously contaminated, how are they to survive? In fact, since 2003, local authorities have restricted cultivation of crops and fishing because of contamination. The bitterness of the islanders was succinctly summed up by Tim Whewell in a November 2020 BBC News report from Martinique: ‘First we were enslaved. Then we were poisoned.’
*Third World Resurgence No. 347, 2021, pp 35-36 |
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