INTERVIEW WITH FABIÁN TOMASI

Fabián, how are you?

I am feeling it’s all coming to an end. The doctors said I would have six months to live and I have turned it into ten years. But now I am getting weaker by the day. My mother and daughter are feeding me. I can’t do it myself. I don’t have the strength to move my arm. My lungs are failing. My muscles have disappeared. But I can still talk to you.

Are you taking any medicine?

No, I won’t take the medicine of companies that doubt my disease, caused by agrotóxicos. Some of them make a lot of money selling chemicals that cause cancer. And then they make a lot of money treating cancer with chemotherapy. What a hypocritical business model.

How did it all start?

I worked for the agro-company Molina in my hometown Basa- vilbaso. My mother’s uncles also worked there. I was in charge of refilling the planes with everything from DDT to glyphosate. I loved planes; that’s why I wanted to work there.

At some stage I had a hard time breathing. They diagnosed me with toxic neuropathy. It is the same disease many shoemakers used to get. Part of it was my fault, I didn’t want to wear any protective gear.

Why not?

It is unbearably hot in the summer, 50 degrees Celsius. But nobody ever told me to wear any gear either. The company didn’t care.

What happened then?

I stopped working right away. I was of no use to them anymore. In the meantime both Molina brothers died, both from cancer.

Your world must have come apart.

I was always a happy-go-lucky guy, father of a beautiful daughter, always making jokes; I was a happy fellow and didn’t really worry about my health. That all came to an end. Today I’m a pariah.

I’m the crazy guy who got poisoned with agrotóxicos. Only the children come and visit me. They want to touch this guy with the funny legs and the yellow feet and the frail body.

You are the only one?

No, but the only one who looks so strange. There are so many victims in my town. Only when I got poisoned did I realize: I’m not alone. A lot of workers struggle with diseases ranging from stomach cancer to lung problems.

And then?

I became an activist. I informed myself. I educated myself. I became a “profesor del campo”. And I started to look at the world differently. What is happening to this country? To my town? It used to have all kinds of crops and vegetables. And suddenly it was all soybean, all corn; monocultures. Everything is genetically modified and heavily sprayed with herbicides and insecticides.

You might see me in a weak state here in the hospital on my deathbed but I used to be a fighter.

You still sound like a fighter.

There is nothing more precious than the truth. We live in a world of lies and manipulation and the big companies wield enormous power to twist the truth. That’s why is it so important to hold them accountable.

Monsanto, Bayer…

It is a cartel, the industry and politicians. They always talk of empleo-jobs-and thus everybody falls in line. But what kind of jobs are these? And what did they do to this beautiful diverse landscape? Now it all just monoculture and all the bugs and birds and butterflies are killed by massive machines; planes that spray the poison from above. I can’t believe that the most intelligent generation of human beings that ever existed has forsaken our values.

The industry says it is not harmful to humans.

Nobody knows how these millions of toxins that sink into the ground are affecting our health. There are no longterm studies. Scientists from the University La Plata visited Basavilbaso. They found the poison in our water and in the air. Here in Argentina we were the laboratory for agribusiness and the chemical industry ever since Monsanto entered the country under suspicious circumstances in 1996. Now there are thousands of victims.

Workers like you

Whole families. There have been so many deaths. Take the case of young Nicolas Arévalo from Corrientes. He died after being poisoned with endosulfan. There was a trial but the farmer

was acquitted. I always wonder: What do these scientists and managers at Monsanto and other companies tell their children? “I developed poisons for chemical companies and people died”?

What can you do except protesting and educating others?

If I had the strength I would take them to court, but this country is corrupt. The industry and politicians are in bed with each other. You can’t win, not the legal way. It is disturbing: Everybody in my town is against what is happening but they keep working for big business. If you have a family you do anything to make money.

What has the meda done to uncover these issues?

Big media is part of the problem. They get advertising money from the government and agribusiness. And the lobby sends its candidates into Congress. It is a perfect system.

You have kept your sense of humor.

I like to joke around. Sarcasm is a way to protect me from the inevitable truth that I am dying. It keeps me alive. Today I unplugged the machine just to play a trick with the nurses. They came rus- hing to my bed.