space Press Releases, News Stories

by JEFF SMITH, The Cambodia Daily

Greenpeace and the Basel Action Network said more tests are needed to determine if other toxins such as cancer-causing dioxin are in the mercury-laced waste. They also called on the Cambodian government to act quickly to enact an anti-dumping law and sign a global convention banning waste imports.

At a press conference in Phnom Penh, the groups also characterized the exporter of the waste, Formosa Plastics Corp. of Taiwan as the true culprit in the case.

They said the company should be issued a 90-day deadline from the date of the dumping to ship the waste out of Cambodia. Environmentalists also expressed concern that although the waste has been picked up and stored in containers, the area has not been closed off to the public.

"This is an example of the worst case of waste dumping we have seen for a long time," said Von Hernandez, a toxins specialist for Greenpeace International in the Philippines. "Cambodia is tragically unequipped to deal with this kind of waste."

Jim Puckett of the Basel Action Network, an alliance of activists against toxic waste, called the Cambodia case "sadly predictable," a recipe for disaster combining a country oozing with waste--Taiwan--with one war-torn, poor and politically unstable.

Said Hernandez: "Keep in mind that hazardous waste follows a path of least resistance."

Public outcry over toxic waste dumping in the mid-1980s led to a global convention prohibiting developed countries from dumping their waste in developing countries. To date, 117 countries have ratified the treaty, but neither Taiwan nor Cambodia is part of the convention.

Puckett said that if Cambodia were to sign the Basel Convention, it would have much more leverage in punishing the culprits.

Cambodia also does not have a specific law banning the import of hazardous wastes.

Greenpeace and the Basel Action Network noted Tuesday that the waste has only been tested for heavy metals such as mercury. Tests by several Asian laboratoties have shown extremely high concentrations of mercury.

But the environmental groups also suspect the waste could contain other toxic substances such as the cancer-causing dioxin. Hernandez said Greenpeace took four samples from the site to be tested for such toxins as dioxin, but results won't be known for about a month.

He called last month's World Health Organization statement that the waste poses no immediate health risk as "at best premature and at worst irresponsible."

Georg Petersen, the WHO's representative in Cambodia, said Tuesday that he stands by the agency's recommendations and noted that they aren't dramatically different from what Greenpeace is advocating. While the WHO assessed that the site does not pose a short-term threat to Sihanoukville's population or its water supply, Petersen said his agency clearly stated that the

waste should be removed as soon as possible, the area should be secured and the water well in a woodcutter's camp close to the site should be closed.

Petersen also noted that the WHO's recommendations call for medical follow-ups of those who may have been exposed to the waste. He said that testing for organic compounds such as dioxin will be conducted in Japan.

A preliminary study by the NGO Forum on Cambodia has documented a number of illnesses and the deaths of a villager and a port worker. But a direct link to the waste has not been estabUshed, and autopsies were not conducted on either man's body.

According to an exploratory mission by Medecins Sans Frontieres last week, the 30-year-old worker who died was diagnosed initially as having an appendicitis. The 16 year-old villager who died slept on a waste bag for four or five nights. While he showed acute poisoning symptoms such as vomiting, he also showed signs of complications from a hernia MSF concluded.

Michele Brandt, legal consultant for Legal Aid of Cambodia, which is representing possible victims in the case, has asked to be included in any settlement negotiations between the government and Formosa.

"I think the needs of the victims of this hazardous dump haven't been adequately considered up to now," Brandt said at the press conference. If those interests aren't considered, she said, legal action will be taken.

Separately, a government environmental official reported Tuesday that 222 bags -- or roughly 10 percent of the Taiwanese shipment were unaccounted for at the time the shipment was unloaded at Sihanoukville port in early December.

Rumors have circulated since then that some waste may have been dumped off shore, but skeptics insist that the bags weighing more than 1 ton would have been difficult to dump at sea.

Heng Nareth, deputy director of pollution control, also said Tuesday that government officials conducted a survey by helicopter of the islands near Sihanoukville last week and no obvious additional dumps were seen.

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy on Tuesday called on top officials to resign over the scandal.