LATIN AMERICAN NEWS
NETWORK FOR A GE FREE LATIN AMERICA
June 2005

Bolivian Government authorities authorize GM Soybean

Turning the recent Bolivian political crisis into a convenient distraction, the former president Carlos Mesa's administration authorized the use of GM Soybean as a proper culmination of its office days.

This has occurred when the indigenous and peasant organizations, the most threatened by this decree, had focused all their attention on the struggle for sovereignty over their energy resources.

The Executive's approval has taken place despite the "Communication Minute" addressed by the Chamber of Representatives to the President and Ministry of Sustainable Development and Environment, recommending the banning of introduction and use of GM Soybean seed, and providing clear instructions for the Executive's definite suspension of any approval requests for the introduction of any food and plant GM seeds.

Conversely the Environment and Sustainable Development Committee of the Chamber of Senators has presented an Annulment Resolution for the administrative resolution, and an Administrative Resolution to avoid the consolidation of Multinational MONSANTO's business, which profits from collecting royalties and patents from producers using GM Soybean, Event 40-3-2

Facing such a threat to the country’s food security, also a threat to people’s health and environment, the organizations in the "Unity Pact" reject and demand from the Honorable Bolivian Congress the annulment and derogatory of the Administrative Resolution that allowed the entrance of RR Soybean in Bolivia, for being an anti-peasant resolution, and a threat to biodiversity and consumers’ health.

With the new government, the environmental movement is hopping that some changes can take place in the country in relation with the authorization of the RR soy.

Send by: Solidarity Campaign for Food Safety (Bolivia)
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Free Trade Agreement (TLC) between Andean nations and United States will dismantle national production and worsen unemployment.

"National production will be dismantled and unemployment will become worse especially in the country side. The most vulnerable sector is Agriculture but at present the industry is already going bankrupt", stated Luis Macas, President of the Confederation of Indigenous Nations of Ecuador (CONAIE), in a recent presentation in the Peoples’ Forum on TLC.

"Alleged negotiations are no other than impositions of US transnational business, and will NOT bring any benefit for Ecuadorians; it’s the other way around!"

CONAIE will keep on insisting in the withdrawal from the negotiation rounds in order to clear the path for a National Popular Consultation process on TLC (FTA). We demand the government and the negotiating staff not to attend a new round in Washington D.C. where agriculture issues -where no agreement has been achieved- will be imposed, the U.S. will provide no concession affecting its interests and subsidized farmers.

In the issue of Intellectual Property, national seeds will no longer be farmers’ own; these will have to be bought from transnational companies as MONSANTO. Our countries’ seed diversity and varieties will disappear, and GM Seeds will be imposed, with devastating consequences for our people’s Food security and sovereignty, Macas added.

The 10 TLC official rounds for "have taken place without awareness of the whole Ecuadorian society, no social and citizen sector has been involved in the process. TLC is a territorial extension of what has already happened with Mexico and Central America," he added.

Quito June 8th, 2005
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The Paraguay National Coordination of the Rural and Indigenous Working Women Organizations (CONAMURI) demand justice for child Silvino Talavera.

Eleven year old Silvino Talavera died in the Encarnacion Regional Hospital, on January 2003 poisoned by agrotoxics (Monsanto’s Roundup + cipermetrin) to which he was exposed to in RR Soybean plantations.

The Trial took place in the Palace of Justice in the city of Encarnacion, of the Paraguayan Itapúa department. On Jnuy 7th, the Court found HERNAN SCHLENDER and ALFREDO LAURO LAUSTENLAGER guilty of homocide. They have to serve just two years in prision.
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g8 QUOTES

"THE French Situationist philosopher, Guy Debord, once wrote that the consumerist society that exploits the world does so not simply through its economic power but 'in its capacity as the society of the spectacle'. The G8 summits have become an essential part of this spectacle. The rulers of the globe today insist on a passive acceptance of the world they have created." - Tariq Ali
http://www.sundayherald.com/50343

"The parade of celebrities backslapping each other because they managed to turn up [to Live8] on Saturday may have helped to make so many people come along but it may not have helped the world's poor one bit. Having what was essentially a party and then saying 'we've done our bit now you do yours' to the G8 leaders is not only an abdication of responsibility it's like asking an MRSA bug* to run a hospital."

G8 Blog: http://www.spinwatch.org
*virulent "flesh-eating superbug"