Quote of the Week:
Today's market is "totally manipulated" by the major economic and political powers, "is blind to the poor, who have needs but do not represent demand, blind to the future generations who are not present, and blind to creation, to life" - Jos' Lutzenberger, former environment minister of Brazil
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French Activist Arrested in Brazil
By TONY SMITH, Associated Press Writer
http://news.excite.com/news/ap/010130/00/int-world-social-forum
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil (AP) - Federal police detained a French activist who led the invasion and occupation of a farm owned by the U.S. agribusiness giant Monsanto and gave him until midnight Tuesday to leave the country.
Jose Bove, who shot to fame for ransacking a McDonalds restaurant in France, was detained by three plainclothes policemen as he returned to his hotel from addressing the World Social Forum, a gathering of opponents of globalization. Bove said the police used force during the arrest, but that he was not injured.
After being held by about five hours in a house next to Porto Alegre's police station, Bove was released after signing a document obliging him to leave Brazil by midnight Tuesday. Bove said he would appeal.
Bove is being ordered to leave Brazil under a statute that allows the government to expel foreigners who engage in acts incompatible with their tourism visas, police superintendent Dagoberto Garcia said.
Bove and about 1,300 farmers destroyed five acres of soybeans at the Monsanto farm near Porto Alegre last Friday, saying the beans were genetically engineered. He has been threatened with litigation.
Accompanied by Landless Workers' Movement leader Joao Pedro Stedile, who was with him in the Monsanto attack, Bove was driven out of the hotel garage in a white police van through a waiting crowd of supporters who shouted "Liberez Jose! Liberez Jose!" - or "Free Jose! Free Jose!"
His characteristic pipe clamped in his mouth, he clenched his fist in a victory salute.
Earlier Monday at the Forum's closing rally, Bove urged the Landless Workers' Movement to reoccupy the farm and turn it into an environmentally friendly operation.
"Monsanto," he said to wild cheers. "What we should do with Monsanto is turn it - after expropriating it of course - into a biological farm that will serve the interests of the small farmer."
Transgenic crops and seeds are illegal in Brazil. Monsanto said the fields had government approval.
"I have 24 hours after signing the police documents and I can appeal to the Supreme Court," Bove told The Associated Press.
Police officers escorting him said he would have to leave within the stipulated period or face deportation.
"What we did at the Monsanto farm should have been the job of the police," Bove told a news conference. "They are trying to scare Brazilian farmers with this action."
Bove and Stedile had earlier fired up the rally with a plea to farmers across the world to rise up and topple capitalism.
"Only a struggle of the masses can change our relationship with capitalism," Stedile said. "Today, it is not enough to fight against landowners. Today we must fight against the economic model.
The gap in wealth between the developed North and Third World nations in the South has dominated the Forum, with the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization as the main targets of criticism.
The idea of the Social Forum was to unite anti-globalization forces into a serious alternative economic platform to worldwide capitalism.