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A. LE FLOCH
Are Nicaragua's sugar cane workers, who pick sugar that makes its way to the United States, being poisoned by their employer?
SEFERINO CARBONERO Canales slips off his sandals before climbing a towering tree. High in the canopy of the Nicaraguan jungle Mr. Canales shakes loose a long, four-pound green iguana that plunges to the jungle floor. Unlike the black iguana, it will not bite. Manuel Castro waits below, catches the iguana, bites its gnarled hide loose from behind one claw of each foot, and uses the bared, white tendons to tie front and back feet together. Tonight they and their friends from the impoverished village of Bethel will have iguana stew for supper.
Friends say Mr. Canales loves the iguana chase, but in reality it's a hunt born of necessity. He is a dead man climbing.
Mr. Canales, Mr. Castro, and over 1,500 others lost their jobs at a nearby sugar plantation when their employers discovered that the men suffered from a fatal kidney disease. The men all say their illness is the result of pesticide poisoning, but the powerful conglomerate that runs the operation, Nicaragua Sugar Estates Ltd., has refused to acknowledge the hazard or to care for the men and their families. Without full-time employment, the men lose access to Nicaragua's limited social safety net. Worse, most know they will die of the ailment eventually and leave their families further impoverished. Local officials say perhaps 380 men have already died of the poisoning.