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Just Say NO TO GEOs - as
well as to their CEOs!
Seed and Gene Wars in East
Africa
- A time witness and whistle blower observes - by John Bamau
While it has transpired that in
Kenya the importation and the transhipment of genetically
engineered organisms (GEOs) - formerly known also as genetically
modified organisms (GMOs) - to even more vulnerable countries like
Somalia and Sudan is not controlled, their use and utilization in
the country itself goes likewise totally unchecked. The use of
seeds or plants from GEOs in agriculture and even in forestry
apparently has been secretly promoted and spread through its in/famous
National Youth Service - a paramilitary post school training
entity - and other often not informed extension services for years
and wide into the rural areas of this East African country.
Foreign Domination
Behind reinforced perimeter fences
and steel gates collaborating foreign propagator companies of
genetically engineered and artificially modified seeds and plants
can do in Kenya apparently whatever they want, while neither the
legislative, the governance nor independent control organs are
able or willing to face the threats and challenges. No ethics
commission is checking the "research grants" (and their
true sources) to institutions who should serve the country and its
people with independent and sound advise. The mainstream media
mostly only show off with (well paid for?) articles promoting GEOs
and limelighting the CEOs of these companies as if all of us
wholly depend on embracing them both as the one and only future.
Most farmers are wholly unaware
what really goes on in the sector and Consumer Organizations in
East Africa are not able to tell their citizens, which of the food
they consume is still natural and GEO free. None of the
Supermarket chains there has even thought of asking any questions
to the producers or informing their customers. GM labelling is
unheard of, while the mainly South African GEO promoters spearhead,
push and bully to get the markets into their hands. This will be
easier
for them now with the recently signed provisions of the East
African Union in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
The War is On
Africa wide the war against the
traditionally and organically grown natural food and its producers
is on,
while multi billion dollar corporations like Monsanto, Bayer
CropSciences, Syngenta and Dow AgroSciences - to name but a few -
through their overpaid local CEOs and promoted by national stirrup
holders - up to the level of Vice President - can obviously do
whatever they want. Those, who signed NEPAD are fully in the grip
of the US rulers and the WTO allows nobody to step aside
unpunished, while green-smokescreen organizations are created as
surely well funded NGOs by the GEO/GMO corporations themselves to
take off the pressure, serve as their own lobby groups and so to
secure the total ruling by these conglomerates of economic and
political power. Like in Europe or the Americas the Statesmen, who
stand up against such modern enslavement are becoming an
endangered and nearly extinct species also in Africa, while
business friendly turncoat politicians
drive off in their new Mercs and become the role model for the
young and not yet so stinking rich exceptions within impoverished
countries, where the average income is around one dollar and the
minimum wage is two dollars a day.
Differences
There is a clear downslide in
awareness, consciousness, and responsibility in Africa from Egypt
down to South Africa. While from SA only GMOs and big machinery
are pushed to "improve" agriculture, Egypt is already
the biggest exporter of e.g. certified organically grown and
natural cotton and spices from Africa and their end users in
Europe and the Americas demand more. Are the Egyptians again (or
still) the most wise and clever on this continent ?
A Countercheck
Reminds me of a Kamba farmer near
Machakos in Kenya, wo was visited by one of the GEO promoters on
his farm, where he grows natural varieties of different crops
improved through traditional selection over many decades and
adapted to the unpredictable rainfall patterns of that area. The
white South African tried to tell him that such agricultural
practice was completely outdated and that the farmer should change
to growing GE maize, whereby he would help him. The local farmer
had only one quick thought and then he told that man, that it
could well be that he wouldn't understand modern agriculture and
that he therefore might consider to embrace growing GM maize, but
under one condition: The "extensionist" should advise
him during this possibly last season of organically growing his
assorted natural crops and if the results would be better than in
the years before, which would
show that this GE promoter really had more knowledge in
agriculture than himself, then he would follow also his other
ideas. The farmer never saw this GMO agent of a foreign power
again.
Africa intentionally kept in the
Dark ?
Since East Africa is caught right
in the middle of the global divide concerning GEO/GMOs and due to
the (instigated?) neglect of the past two decades, a major effort
is required to safeguard the natural health of its foods and its
people. Since the Apartheid regime ended in South Africa many
mainly white economic mercenaries on the payroll of european and
US corporate businesses flood the markets and the governmental
offices also in other African states with their "better
knowledge" and brainwash local governance and business to go
for the quick buck. Many others implant their network structures
into the remotest village too, incorporating the inhabitants into
the "global village", where the local people then will
have no say. In Uganda even plans are underway to introduce
genetically engineered fish into their waters, from where it is
only a small step to Lake Victoria, which is shared by three
Nations and down the Nile to Sudan and Egypt. Do all this
people and sovereign states have no longer any say,
just because some Dr. Frankenstein can make it and
some corporation pays for it ?
The genetic manipulation of our
most important food crops and species as well as the continued use
of persistent and/or ozone layer depleting pesticides (the ban of
methyl bromide just recently has been delayed again due to the
pressure of the european and US producer lobby, while UNEPs
Director Toepfer stood helpless aside) are effecting the lives and
livelihoods of millions of people in Africa directly ! Where is
"Democracy" by and for the people in this war ?
The Way Forward
We need open information,
appropriate legal safety belts, honest certification and
independent, well
funded institutions in all African States in order to honestly
guide and truly implement the will of their
prior and fully informed people. While countries like Britain,
Germany and Austria make life difficult
for the corporate gene-manipulators and rebel against the
dictatorship of the EU, which has been softened in its stand on
GMOs due to the US/EU trade wars, African need to look out if the
the companies who like Bayer shut down their operations e.g. in
the UK do not just transfer their set into any African country.
Not at least we need the clear
outline of personal responsibilities and severe punishments if
something goes wrong - not just decisions by faceless corporations
or their paid civil servants in public office, who are untouchable
or just retire without consequences.
To set up an independent commission
in order to first and thoroughly check what really has happened
during the last twenty years in the food and agricultural sector
of all the East African countries, is paramount, long overdue and
required for each country.
Is any so called developed nation
out there ready to fund African Independence also in this respect
?
---end
© 2004 ECOTERRA Intl. - For
Natural Life on Earth !
We would like to hear from anti-GE
committed organizations, Non-GM farmers, GE-free retailers and
concerned consumers in East Africa, who like to join the defence
lines.
Pls. send an e-mail to: antiGEO@ecoterra.org.uk
pls. check also:
http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/a.pusztai/
http://www.geneethics.org
http://www.genewatch.org
http://www.africanfront.com/food.php
"Genetically engineered food
is corporate bioterrorism."
-- musings of a
human guinea pig
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