Head of Kerala’s Syro-Malankara Church joins campaign against pesticide causing health problems

(April 27, 2011) The head of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church in southern India’s Kerala State on Monday joined a campaign against endosulfan, a pesticide that is causing serious health problems in the state. “The Church wholeheartedly supports the campaign because a lot of people are suffering,” Major Archbishop Isaac Cleemis of Trivandrum said after joining a day of fasting in Thiruvananthapuram, the state capital. Leaders from communist and pro-Hindu parties also joined the hunger strike, held rallies and collected signatures across Kerala, to press the federal government into banning endosulfan. The protest coincided with the opening of the fifth Conference of the Parties to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in Geneva, Switzerland. The conference aims to consider a global ban on endosulfan. However, the Indian government is among several countries opposing such a ban.
Endosulfan has been blamed for a large number of deaths and genetic deformities in 11 villages in Kerala’s Kasargod district. It was used in cashew plantations in those villages until 1981. Kerala banned the pesticide in 2005 and has since called for a countrywide ban. The pesticide is banned in 60 countries.Archbishop Cleemis said Church leaders cannot ignore the suffering of people. “It is a social issue, and it is our duty to extend moral support to them,” he added.