Vandana Shiva fights Monsanto at WTO - Indo-Asian News Service

[Guest guest]

No Geneticaly Modified (GM) food for Krishna!

 

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Wednesday, December 14, 2005, Indo-Asian News Service <http://www.ians.in/>

 

Vandana Shiva Takes Fight Against Monsanto to Hong Kong

 

 

 

Indian environment activist Vandana Shiva and French anti-globalisation

crusader Jose Bove Wednesday launched a campaign against US food and

seed giant Monsanto on the sidelines of the global trade talks here.

 

The duo also handed a petition to officials of the World Trade

Organisation (WTO) to oppose the trade dispute filed by the US,

Argentina and Canada under the rules of the multilateral organisation on

genetically modified (GM) food.

 

The petition - which Shiva claimed has been signed by 135,000 citizens

from over 100 countries and 740 organisations representing 60 million

people - was to be given to WTO Director General Pascal Lamy, who

instead sent a representative.

 

"The petition asks the World Trade Organisation not to undermine the

rights of countries like the European Union to take appropriate measures

to protect their ecology and environment from GM Food," Shiva said.

 

The backdrop for the short event were placards and posters that read,

"WTO: Hands Off Our Food" and "Monsanto Plunders and Kills Peasants and

the Planet".

 

The organisers - including Friends of Earth International chairperson

Meena Raman and Member of the European Parliament Carolina Lucas - also

delivered a box of organic food to the WTO official.

 

Concerned by the food related crisis in the 1990s, EU has regulations to

control the GM food industry, which followed a four-year ban on such

produce in 1999. The US, however, says it violates the WTO agreement.

 

"This is not a case of US versus the EU, but clearly Monsanto versus the

civil society," Shiva, registered as a representative of non-government

organisations, told IANS.

 

The EU and the US have a discord over a Brussels regulation on

genetically modified food. The US claims the regulation violates the

WTO trade agreement, but the EU says free trade is not truly free

without informed consent.

 

"The WTO has become a tool for big companies to patent seeds and even

our lives since it allows such measures under the agreement on trade

related intellectual property rights," Bove said.

 

"GM foods make farmers dependent on big companies, threaten food

security and take away consumer choice. A [WTO] ruling that goes in

favour of the US will have a major implications," he warned.

 

Shiva says her next course of action is to launch a satyagraha - the

philosophy of non-violent protest adopted by Mahatma Gandhi - in India

against Monsanto.

 

"We have to protect the rights of Indian farmers and consumers."

 

 

 

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