FROM PAGE 23 OF THE I NEWSPAPER PUBLISHED 20 JUNE 2011
By Cahal Milmo
Chief Reporter
Banana labourers in Latin America who claim they were left infertile and crippled by exposure to a dangerous pesticide have filed lawsuits against their former employers and chemical manufacturers, including the British-Dutch oil giant Shell.
In the latest step in their 25-year battle for compensation, 160 former plantation staff from Ecuador, Panama and Costa Rica have lodged the claims in Louisiana in the United States against two of the world’s largest banana producers – Dole and Chiquita – and against Shell’s American subsidiary and the chemical company Dow.
The workers claim all four companies allowed the powerful fumigant known as DBCP to be used across plantations for more than two decades despite knowing it could cause devastating side-effects in humans. Lawyers representing the workers say their clients are entitled to individual awards worth millions of pounds following DBCP’s use from the 1960s until the late 1970s. The claim alleges that use of the fumigant may have continued into the 1990s.
Dole and Dow said they would be strongly contesting the lawsuits. Shell and Chiquita did not respond to requests for comment.
Scott Hendler, the lawyer bringing the cases, said: “It is my belief that… a jury will return verdicts for damages in the millions.”
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
MORE DETAILS:
A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
