[3/9/05] MST Update #85: Approval of GMOs is Unconstitutional
*The MST distributes biweekly updates that FMST-US volunteers translate and make available. Please read the latest below.*
This update includes:
1) FEATURE ARTCLE: Approval of GMOs is Unconstitutional
MST NEWS BRIEFS
1) Budget for Agrarian Reform is Cut in Half
2) Landless Women Celebrate the 8th of March
3) Victory in the Terra Prometido (Promised Land)
1) FEATURE ARTCLE: Approval of GMOs is Unconstitutional
Dear Friends of the MST,
It is exactly one week since the approval of the Law for Biosafety in the National Congress on March 4th. There were 352 votes by representatives in favor of the total release of the planting and trade of genetically engineered seeds in Brazil. Nobody noticed. Thanks to the joint publicity on the parts of the Lula government and the Congress, it entered into the great realms of communication: the population gained knowledge only of the controversy on stem cell research, an extremely distinct subject from the genetically modified foods issue.
Sent to the Chamber of Deputies in December of 2003, the initial project of the government was considered reasonable for the social and environmental movements, and entities of civil society. Still, in this bill there was already a mixing of the questions of genetic modification with the research in stem cells. The right to the precaution and the right to the exhaustion of the scientific research on the subject were the only completed requirements. However, the project left the Senate considerably different from how it entered the Chamber. Totally distorted, it gave able ample and absolute power to the CTNBio (National Commission on Biosafety Techniques), which was composed of 15 technicians, chosen without democratic criteria and allowed to decide all of the biosafety rules, despite not having a mandate. It ignored all of the experience accumulated in the Ministry of the Environment and the Health department, who are the agencies responsible under the constitution to take such precautionary decisions. It is commonly known that the tradition of the CNTBio technicians is to take actions promoting the total permission for commercial planting of GMO seeds, without ever asking for environmental impact assessments. Only IBAMA (Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Natural Resources) has the ability to conduct environmental impact assessments and to do risk assessments regarding the health of human beings and animals. Again returning to the Chamber, under command of the flaming Severino, the project came from the Senate with preposterous changes, and was approved in its totality.
The representatives of agri-business and the transnational corporations left triumphant. The companies will be able to freely charge royalties for soy, cotton, corn, sunflower and all the more to come. But in the last year there were R$80 millions in taxes collected for Monsanto alone in Rio Grande do Sul. It now remains for the environmental groups to prove to the Supreme Federal Court (STF) that the Law of Biosafety is clearly unconstitutional, on the basis of Article 225 of the Federal Constitution which guarantees the right to safety and defense of the environment. Another possible exit is to ask for the president of the Republic to veto the articles that free the GMO products until they have been duly tested.
Therefore, we ask all friend of Via Campesina and the MST who fight for food sovereignty, the exhaustion of the research and the right for farmers to have their seeds free of GMOs, to please write to Minister Jose Dirceu (josedirceu@planalto.gov.br) and to the Cabinet of the Presidency of the Republic (gabpr@planalto.gov.br) asking for the veto of following articles: Article 14, interpolated proposition XX and paragraphs 1 and 2; and Article 16, paragraphs 2 and 3.
Warmly,
National Secretariat of the MST.
MST NEWS BRIEFS
1) Budget for Agrarian Reform is Cut in Half
From R$ 3.7 billion to R$ 1.7 billion. This was the cut announced for the temporary Minister of Planning, Nelson Axe, on February 25th, for the 2005 expenses of the Ministry of Agrarian Development (MDA). In practice, the measure reduces the goal of 115,000 newly settled families this year to only 40,000 families. Moreover, the decision reaches projects of qualification of staff, land dispossession and programs of assistance technique. But not only the MDA was affected: the reduction is part of the general contingencies in the budget of R$ 15.9 billion, following the goals established in the agreement with International Monitary Fund (IMF). The IMF agreement projects a fiscal surplus of 4.25% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) this year.
2) Landless Women Celebrate the 8th of March
On International Women's Day, thousands of landless agricultural workers congregated in diverse mobilizations around the country. Under the theme "Landless Women in the fight for Agrarian Reform, Peasant Agriculture and New Gender Relations," they debated the situation of Brazilian agriculture, the place of women in society and the rescue of seeds. The urgency of Agrarian Reform and the end of the violence in the field were also demanded in the demonstrations.
3) Victory in the Terra Prometido (Promised Land)
The encampment in Felisburgo (Minas Gerais), will be destined for Agrarian Reform. In a public hearing in the Vara de Conflitos Agrários (Pole of Agrarian Conflicts) in Belo Horizonte, it was proven that 568 hectares of the Fazenda Nova Alegria (New Joy Farm), where the encampment is, are vacant lands. In this exact place, on November 20 last year, gunmen hired by Adriano Chafik Luedy, a large estate owner, assassinated 5 landless peasants and they left 20 wounded, in addition to burning the canvas tents and all of the belongings of the MST settlement there. One hundred families will be settled on the land.