FOCUS ON AFRICA:
http://www.gmwatch.org/africa.asp

Tony Hall, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, has repeated his call for African leaders who refuse the US's GM-contaminated food aid to be tried for "crimes against humanity" (item 2).

When Hall originally called in 2002 for these leaders to be tried, organisations from over 30 different countries around the world responded with a powerful open letter calling for an apology for a "reckless comment" which "reeks of hypocrisy and bad political judgment and has no legal basis in international law". Hall's comment, the letter said, "serves only to further damage the reputation of the U.S. government already suffering for its unilateral, aggressive and abusive foreign policy." (item 6)

But, however ludicrous and inflammatory Hall's comments may have been, it has played its part in a viral marketing strategy aimed at painting the US and biotech as the saviours of Africa and those that raise concerns as villains. This can be seen from item 3 below where the refusal of GM food aid in Africa is listed by an American commentator, in a piece marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, as one of many examples of how crimes against humanity continue in the modern world.

The same kind of viral marketing can be seen at work in CS Prakash's piece for the Nigerian press (item 4) with the sub-heading, "Africa needs GMOs to survive the impending continental famine". In his usual shameless manner, Prakash warns that yields of sweet potato in "African nations are dangerously low - in some cases losing up to 80 per cent of expected yields due to the sweet potato weevil and also the feathery mottle virus (SPFMV)". Prakash then goes on to say, "Research is under way on sweet potatoes that produce their own protection against SPFMV".

But the impact of SPFMV has been shown to have been hugely overstated and not even to be the main viral risk for sweet potatoes. And when Prakash says the "research is underway" he fails to mention that it's already been "underway" for over 12 years!
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=131&page=W

Indeed, the GM sweet potatoes have already been subjected to 3 years of field trials in Kenya where they've been found to actually yield less than the non-GM varieties and to be susceptible to viral attack - the very thing thay were created to resist. Prakash had previously repeatedly cited the GM sweet potato as an example of a GM success for Africa!
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=106

The GM project has so far consumed over 6 million dollars in funding and Aaron deGrassi of the Institute of Development Studies has drawn attention to the striking contrast between the unproven GM sweet potato variety and a successful conventional breeding programme in Uganda which had already produced a new high-yielding variety which was virus-resistant and "raised yields by roughly 100%".
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=131

But how the GM hype continues to have its effect, regardless of reality, can be seen in item 5 where a biotech researcher in Uganda, who has just won an award for non-GM work with bannas, laments not being able to work yet with GM bananas because they "will save us from most if not all the diseases, pests and weevils". No evidence is produced to support this amazing claim (item 5) but this kind of fairytale is successfully promoting the technology in several countries in Africa (see item 1).

Several items shortened:
1.Tanzania to grow GM cotton for trial this year
2.Leaders of Zambia and Zimbabwe "ought to be tried for crimes against humanity".
3.Twin Cultures of Death
4.Africa needs GMOs to survive the impending continental famine
5.GM bananas "will save us from most if not all the diseases, pests and weevils"
6.OPEN LETTER to Tony Hall
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1.Tanzania to grow GM cotton for trial this year
February 8, 2005
Angola Press [via Agnet]

DAR ES SALAAM -- Newspaper Daily News was cited as quoting a government official as saying that the planned GM trials would be carried out in the country's Southern Highland regions where cotton farming was stopped in 1968 in a move to halt the spread of the red ball worm disease that had affected cotton yields.

Wilfred Ngirwa, permanent secretary of the Agriculture Ministry, was cited as saying that Tanzania largely depends on agriculture and cannot afford to be left behind in technology development that increases crop yields, reduces farming costs and augments agricultural profits.

The GM trials in Tanzania will use cotton seeds inserted with a bacterium (baccilus thuringiensis) programmed to kill pests including red ball worms
that try to feed on cotton seeds.
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2.United States Is Key Provider of Food Aid for World's Poor
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
Posted by Patriot on 2005/2/10 7
http://www.allamericanpatriots.com/m-news+article+storyid-5997.html

...Hall spoke passionately about the issue of genetically enhanced food and the promise such food holds for feeding hungry people worldwide. Although he acknowledged the political sensitivity of the issue, he termed the use of -- or, more specifically, the failure to use -- genetically modified foods a "moral issue."

He explained that, while Americans eat biotech food every day that is perfectly safe, it is wrong for the leaders in some countries in Africa, such as Zambia and Zimbabwe, to have obstructed genetically enhanced food aid from entering their countries.

"Anybody who keeps legitimate, good food from hungry people
ought to be tried for crimes against humanity," Hall said.
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3.Twin Cultures of Death
By Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullu
FrontPageMagazine.com, February 3, 2005
'SEND THIS TO YOUR BRIGADE'
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=16861

We commemorated the 60th anniversary of a crime against humanity by remembering the German National Socialist Party death camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau. It is necessary that the world recalls terrible actions. By recalling, we say, we grow as a human race. By remembering we make certain that these events will not be repeated. At least so we say. But do our actions match our words? The 60th memorial of Auschwitz is an appropriate time to ask this question.

...The continent of Africa has been the scene of one after another ghastly massacres, each with uncountable numbers of casualties. A Wall Street Journal reporter, himself an African-American, wrote that he could determine the intensity of the carnage occurring upriver in Rwanda by counting the corpses that flowed past him. In Zimbabwe an erratic dictators forbad distribution of US food to his starving countrymen because European Greens told him wild tales about genetically modified foods. In Sudan, Somalia, Western Sahara and other hell-holes innocents die by the tens of thousands because of government depravity. Where is the outraged world? The UN only began to act in Darfur because then Secretary of State Colin Powell shamed Secretary General Kofi Anan to accompany him on a visit.
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4.Genetically modified crops are good for Africa
February 9, 2005
Vanguard (Lagos, Nigeria)
C. S. Prakash
http://allafrica.com/stories/200502080987.html

Africa needs GMOs to survive the impending continental famine.

...The productivity of most African farms is limited by crop pests and diseases. African cassava farmers typically lose 60 per cent of their crop to mosaic virus. Sweet potato yields in many African nations are dangerously low -- in some cases losing up to 80 per cent of expected yields due to the sweet potato weevil and also the feathery mottle virus (SPFMV). And the European corn borer likewise destroys approximately seven per cent, or 40 million tons, of the world's corn crop every year - equivalent to the annual food supply, in calories, for 60 million people. Banana and plantains are seriously threatened with a fungal 'Sigatoka' disease.

Biotechnology is working to solve these problems by producing plants that resist these pests and diseases. Biotech corn, which is already widely used now in South Africa, produces its own protection against the corn borer. Research is under way on sweet potatoes that produce their own protection against SPFMV, as well as beans, cassava and other staple foods with enhanced natural tolerance to diseases, pests, and physical stresses.
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5.Banana Researchers Scoop Regional Award
New Vision (Kampala, Uganda)
February 8, 2005
http://allafrica.com/stories/200502081115.html

A young scientist at Kawanda Agricultural Research Institute is set to boost banana produce in the country.

Priver Namanya, tissue culture supervisor at the research centre has extracted cells from the male bud of local banana varieties from which, plantlets of the same genotype can be reproduced.

Some plantlets are already out in experimental plots.

..."The absence of the bio-safety laws is our only limitation to developing the first genetically modified bananas in Africa. We have the capacity to manage genetic improvement of bananas.

Our colleagues in the Diaspora have identified some of the desired genes, which if incorporated in our indigenous bananas, will save us from most if not all the diseases, pests and weevils," he said.

NARO's efforts to improve bananas in the past using the conventional means was difficult because the banana does not produce seed, needed in conventional breeding.

"These results are promising and with bio-technology, we cannot afford to lag behind in science," Dr Nape said.
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6.OPEN LETTER TO: Tony Hall
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization

Dear Ambassador Hall,

We the undersigned citizens of many countries on every continent deplore your inflammatory remarks (Reuters News Service, December 9) suggesting that African leaders who reject genetically engineered food aid should be tried "for the highest crimes against humanity in the highest courts of the world." This reckless comment reeks of hypocrisy and bad political judgment and has no legal basis in international law. It serves only to further damage the reputation of the U.S. government already suffering for its unilateral, aggressive and abusive foreign policy. An apology is in order.

The U.S. has never supported the highest court in the world, the U.N.-sponsored International Criminal Court. To the contrary, it sought to prevent its existence and since its establishment in July 2002, the U.S. has used intense diplomatic pressure to weaken its implementation by other countries. To invoke this institution now in challenging Zambia and other African nations over their sovereign right to reject foods that European countries and many others have similarly rejected is utterly disingenuous.

In fact, the only country depriving Africans of much-needed food relief is the U.S., when it insists that its donation of $51 million be spent ONLY for U.S.-sourced grains. The purchase of non-genetically engineered food from other African countries, Brazil, China, Hungary, Russia and other regions as yet free of genetic contamination would readily alleviate the impending famines and at the same time stimulate agricultural productivity and economic development in these regions. In fact, some 70% of all corn produced in the U.S. is still not genetically engineered - so we could even procure what the Africans prefer from our own farmers.

You criticize African leaders for protecting their people, while our government sends food aid containing StarLinkTM, a variety of genetically engineered corn that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved for human consumption in this country. Perhaps the U.S. should be tried for this crime against humanity.

Why should Zambians be expected to eat food that Americans, Europeans and others will not? Why should any people be expected to eat food that has not been adequately tested by the manufacturers or the U.S. government for safety in humans, especially if this untested food will comprise two-thirds of their daily caloric intake? Why should Zambians ingest genetically engineered corn that may affect the stomach lining and cause allergies, and contains an antibiotic-resistant gene - when their immune systems are already weakened by malnutrition?

Your crude remarks seem intended to divert attention from a far more troubling issue: the political reasons that the U.S. government is foisting genetically modified corn on people in need around the world, not just in drought-stricken Africa, when supplies of conventional grain are
available.

The U.S. has a corn surplus here, because genetically engineered foods are rejected in many commercial markets. Do you also propose that the leaders of these countries be tried for high crimes against the U.S.?

A cynical food aid strategy that dumps unsaleable corn in vulnerable communities, relieves the U.S. of these burdensome stocks while giving Monsanto and other biotechnology companies a boost by destroying competing sources of non-genetically engineered grains from the world marketplace.

Mr. Hall, you have sacrificed a fine reputation as an advocate for the hungry to serve Monsanto and the rest of the biotechnology industry that has captured the voice of the Bush Administration's White House.

Zambian President Levy Patrick Mwanawasa invoked the sovereign rights of governments to protect their citizens. He said that foods untested for human consumption posed "a danger to the lives of citizens" and that the import represented an immediate possible threat of "contaminating local indigenous and hybrid seed stocks" needed to reconstruct the region's agricultural capacity and food security. His view is shared by more than 100 other governments around the world that have signed the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the Convention on Biological Diversity - both international treaties negotiated under auspices of the United Nations.

It is also shared by those of us signing this letter below on behalf of 52 organizations and 45 individuals from 31 countries. Are we also to be tried for high crimes?

Sincerely,
[signatures at
http://www.connectotel.com/gmfood/ia160103.txt]