COMPANY IS UNDER CONTRACT WITH US GOVERNMENT
MULTIBILLION DOLLAR LAWSUIT ALLEGES MASSIVE DAMAGES TO HUMAN HEALTH, CROPS AND LAND, RAISING NEW QUESTIONS ABOUT US GOVERNMENT?S ?PLAN COLOMBIA?
FOUR CHILDREN REPORTED TO HAVE DIED
AS A RESULT OF THE SPRAYING
FILING OCCURS AS COLIN POWELL ARRIVES IN BOGOTA
WASHINGTON, D.C. A group of Ecuadorian Indians living near the Colombian border will sue the DynCorp Corporation in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday charging the company with reckless spraying of a toxic herbicide over their homes and land in the Amazon rainforest. The U.S. Government has contracted with the Reston, Virginia-based company to conduct the spraying in Colombia as part of its war aimed at eradicating Colombian drug crops.
The Ecuadorian Indians allege that DynCorp?s spraying has destroyed their health, crops, and land and has already killed four young children. In their lawsuit, they charge DynCorp with violations of the Alien Tort Claims Act, the United States Torture Victim Protection Act, international human rights law, and common tort law of the District of Colombia. The Indians seek an immediate halt to the spraying over their land and damages in the billions of dollars.
The class action lawsuit, filed on behalf of more than ten thousand affected people of the Ecuadorian Amazon, threatens to further undermine the credibility of the U.S. Government?s drug war policy in Colombia. The filing is also likely to be a major embarrassment to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell as he arrives in Bogota on Tuesday to try to quell growing dissent in Latin America about the policy, known as ?Plan Colombia?.
The lawsuit marks the second time that Ecuadorian Indians from the Amazon region have sued a U.S. company in U.S. court for endangering human health and destroying the environment. In 1993, a group of Ecuadorian Indians sued Texaco for massive damages caused by the company?s reckless oil drilling practices. That lawsuit is still pending in federal court in New York.
?It is a tragedy of major proportions that, in the same region where Texaco devastated the environment and caused untold suffering to the people of the rainforest, a new enemy now comes from the air, poisoning the people, killing their crops, and destroying their land,? says Cristobal Bonifaz of Amherst, Massachusetts, a lead counsel for the Indians.
?The spraying of a toxic herbicide over people and land is a stupid and reckless action envisioned by arm-chair bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., who do not care about the lives of poor indigenous people,? says Terry Collingsworth of the D.C.-based International Labor Rights Fund, another lead counsel in the case.
?In spite of the tragedies caused in Vietnam by another herbicide,? adds Collingsworth, ?some in Washington continue to believe that the third world poor are disposable. We are calling for an immediate halt of these reckless actions by this company.?
Source: Press Release from the International Labor Rights Fund; suit filed September 11.