The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

274 the world according to monsantoIt was January 2, 2003. Silvino, who was eleven, was coming home on hisbicycle after buying noodles and a piece of meat in the only shop in the area,several miles from the house. On the road, he was sprayed by a mosquitodriven by a sojero named Herman Schlender. “He came home soaked, complainingof nausea and a violent migraine,” Petrona said. “I told him to liedown and I prepared a meal with the noodles and the meat. I didn’t knowthat the product was so dangerous. In the afternoon the whole family experiencedvomiting and diarrhea. Silvino was feeling worse and worse and Ihad to take him to the hospital.” The boy went home after three days in intensivecare, but the next day another soybean producer, Alfredo Lautenschlager,decided to spray his field, located about fifteen yards from thefamily’s shack. Silvino did not survive the second poisoning. He died in thehospital on January 7.Petrona then began her hard battle, determined that the crime wouldnot go unpunished. Supported by the Coordinadora Nacional de Organizacionesde Mujeres Trabajadoras Rurales e Indígenas (Conamuri, NationalCoordinating Committee of Rural and Indigenous Women Workers), shefiled a claim with the court in Encarnación. In April 2004, the two sojeroswere each sentenced to two years in prison and fined 25 million guaranis.This was a first in the nation. The court found that the child had died as aresult of poisoning by a toxic agricultural product that he “had absorbedthrough his respiratory system and orally, as well as through the skin.” Thetwo sojeros appealed, backed by Capeco, the organization of large-scale soyproducers, the Paraguayan counterpart to the ASA in the United Sates andAapresid in Argentina. The sentence was upheld in July 2006, but the defendantsappealed to the Supreme Court.In November 2006, the appeal was denied, but when I went to seePetrona in January 2007, they were still at liberty. During the three years thecase went on, a group of NGOs was created and frequently organizeddemonstrations so the affair would not be buried. “The sojeros are very powerful,”Petrona said, “more powerful than the government. They threatenedto kill me. They paid several of our neighbors to make our life impossibleand force us to leave. But where would we go? To a slum? Silvino had aclassmate who died recently from poisoning, but her family did not file aclaim for fear of reprisals, and because they couldn’t afford it. How manyParaguayan children have already died in the face of complete indifference?”