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Instead,
Chengal Reddy headed a lobby for big commercial farmers in
Andhra Pradesh that aspired to becoming the operational arm
of the trade association for the agrochemical companies active
in India. Similarly, the "media contact" for the
march and for the "Bullshit award" was the daughter
of a US lumber industrialist, who had worked out of various
free market NGOs, such as the Washington-based Competitive
Enterprise Institute. Her specialty was "counter protest".
Of
course, such attempts to position biotech's soap box behind
a black man's face neither began nor ended in Johannesburg.
In late 1999, for instance, a street protest against genetic
engineering in Washington DC was disrupted by a group of African-Americans
bearing placards such as "Biotech saves children's lives."
A Baptist Church from a poor neighborhood had, the New York
Times revealed, been paid by Monsanto's PR firm to bus in
the counter-demonstrators. But Johannesburg does seem to have
been a kind of watershed. Since then, Monsanto's fake parade
has really begun to hit its stride. And from US administration
platforms to UN headquarters, from Capitol Hill to the European
Parliament, we've been treated to a veritable minstrelsy of
lobbying.
Let's
pick up the trail amidst the Martin Luther King Day observances
in New York City this January. That was when the Congress
of Racial Equality (CORE) invited some 700 diplomats, scientists,
journalists, and Gotham high-school students to come and consider
the "implications and reality" of biotechnology
at UN headquarters. CORE's "World Conference" was
presided over by His Excellency, Aminu Bashir Wali, the Ambassador
of Nigeria, and after lunch came the premiere of the film
"Voices from Africa", showcasing the results of
"CORE's fact-finding trip to Africa". The film opened
and closed with comments by CORE's National Chairman, Roy
Innis, who explained that it was his concern about hunger
in Africa that led him to go there to see for himself and
to investigate the potential for biotechnology. The film concluded
with Innis saying, "We have to do everything possible
to ensure that the African farmer has access to this new technology
which potentially can do so much to improve his quality of
life."
In
a talk on biotechnology at the Natural History Museum in London
in May 2003, the world-renowned American botanist, Dr Peter
Raven, noted CORE's strong concern about the obstruction of
technological advancement. "Last month, the Congress
of Racial Equality (CORE), one of America's most venerable
and respected civil rights groups, confronted Greenpeace at
a public event and accused it of "eco-manslaughter"
through its support of international policies limiting development
and the expansion of technology to the developing world's
poor."
CORE's
national spokesman, Niger Innis, described that counter-protest
as "just the first step in bringing justice to the Third
World." And so it proved. In September 2003, CORE's national
spokesman presided over a mock awards ceremony at the World
Trade Organization meeting in the Mexican resort of Cancun.
The ceremony included participants carrying "Save the
Children" placards while the awards went to those Innis
termed advocates of "lethal eco-imperialism." "Their
opposition to genetically engineered foods, pesticides and
energy development," Innis explained, "devastates
families and communities and kills millions every year".
Cyril Boynes Jr., the director of international affairs for
CORE, said the ceremony was important "to draw attention
to the destructive and murderous policies of these eco-terrorists".
Four months later CORE organised a "Teach-In" in
New York entitled, "Eco-Imperialism: The global green
movement's war on the developing world's poor". In a
press release CORE's Niger Innis said that after the teach-In
"eco-imperialism'" would be a household word, adding,
"We intend to stop this callous eco-manslaughter".
CORE'S
rhetoric has been shaped by PR man Paul Driessen, CORE's white
Senior Policy Advisor, who moderated two of the panels at
its "UN World Conference" on biotech. Driessen is
the author of "Eco-Imperialism: Green Power - Black Death".
The book, which has a foreword by Niger Innis, lays at the
door of the environmental movement "the hunger and suffering
of millions of the world's poor who are denied the benefits
of genetically engineered food." Driessen and Innis are
also listed as Directors of the Economic Human Rights Project
- '"an initiative of the Center for the Defense of Free
Enterprise, in cooperation with the Congress of Racial Equality",
which aims to "correct prevalent environmental myths
and misguided policies that help perpetuate poverty, misery,
disease and early death in developing countries."
Driessen's
book is published by the Free Enterprise Press, the publishing
arm of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, where
Driessen is a Senior Fellow. According to a review of Driessen's
book on CDFE's website, it helps the reader "understand
why the environmental movement is engaged in the most appalling
example of genocide the world has ever known!" CDFE is
led by Alan Merril Gottlieb and Ron Arnold, who founded the
anti-environmental Wise Use movement. Arnold was once a consultant
for Dow Chemical, as well as Head of the Washington State
chapter of the American Freedom Coalition, the political arm
of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church (which has
also shared offices with CDFE). In 1991 Arnold told the New
York Times, "We [CDFE] created a sector of public opinion
that didn't used to exist. No one was aware that environmentalism
was a problem until we came along." CDFE's previous main
focus had been opposing gun controls. According to the Times,
Gottlieb shifted the organization's focus when he realized
the fundraising potential of opposing environmentalism: "For
us, the environmental movement has become the perfect bogeyman."
Gottlieb, who describes himself as "the premiere anti-communist,
free-enterprise, laissez-faire capitalist'" and who has
spent time in jail for tax-evasion, also says, "Facts
don't really matter. In politics, perception is reality."
The
night before CORE's UN biotech conference this January, the
organisation hosted a reception at the New York Hilton to
honor, amongst others, Karl Rove - the Bush election strategist
widely credited with having overseen black voter disenfranchisment
in Florida and Ohio. This might seem a curious way of marking
the MLK holiday, particularly for an organisation that features
on its website images of murdered freedom riders killed during
the drive for black voter registration in the Civil Rights
Summer of 1964. Recently, however, those images were joined
by Monsanto's logo. The organisation now styles Monsanto,
which also sponsored its film "Voices from Africa",
"CORE's corporate partner".
CORE took its "first step in bringing justice to the
Third World" on May 8 2003. Just under a fortnight later
George W. Bush accused Europe of undercutting efforts to feed
starving Africans by blocking genetically modified crops because
of "unfounded, unscientific fears." Bush also called
on European governments to "join - not hinder - the great
cause of ending hunger in Africa". The following day,
the Bush administration announced plans to sue the European
Union at the World Trade Organisation unless it opened up
its markets to American GM products.
The
WTO case was filed by the US in the name of Africa, although
Egypt - the only African country which could be persuaded
to sign up in support - promptly disassociated itself from
the US action. Egypt's defection prompted American retaliation:
the US withdrew from planned bilateral trade talks. At the
press conference at which the WTO case was announced, the
US Trade Representative, Robert B. Zoellick, introduced a
number of people of color who expressed their support for
the lawsuit. One was a South African farmer, TJ Buthelezi,
who is exceptionally well travelled. In the last couple of
years Buthelezi has been brought not just to Washington but
to Brussels, Pretoria, St Louis, Philadelphia and London for
GM promotionals. He was also at the World Summit on Sustainable
Development in Johannesburg, where he took part in the fake
parade.
Unlike
Chengal Reddy, Buthelezi is a real farmer -- just not the
kind of farmer he is made out to be. Buthelezi is exhibited
as a "small farmer" leading a "hand-to-mouth
existence", or a "small farmer struggling just at
the subsistence level," as the head of USAID put it when
introducing him to US congressmen. In fact, with two wives
and more than 66 acres, Buthelezi is one of the largest and
wealthiest farmers in his area, and Aaron deGrassi of the
Institute of Development Studies suggests Buthelezi's accounts
of his experiences with GM cotton might be embellished, since
they are suspiciously similar to Monsanto press releases.
"These South African farmers," deGrassi says, "...are
plucked from South Africa, wined and dined, and given scripted
statements about the benefits of GM... Critics have coined
the nickname 'Bt Buthelezi', to illustrate this farmer's unconditional
support to Bt cotton: during a trip to Monsanto's headquarters
in St. Louis, Buthelezi was quoted as saying, 'I wouldn't
care if it were from the devil himself.'"
The
"principal orator" at Zoellick's press conference
was CS Prakash, a biotech professor of Indian origin at Tuskegee
University in Alabama. Prakash travels the world promoting
GM crops on behalf of the U.S. State Department. He also serves
as the principal investigator of a USAID project "to
promote biotechnology awareness in Africa". But he is
best known for his AgBioWorld campaign, under whose banner
he has sent a stream of petitions and press releases in support
of GM crops to international bodies and meetings, as well
as to science journals and the media. AgBioWorld presents
itself as a mainstream science campaign "that has emerged
from academic roots and values" but its co-founder and
"Deputy President" is Greg Conko of the Competitive
Enterprise Institute, whose multi-million dollar budget comes
from corporations like Monsanto, Dow Chemical and Exxon/Mobil.
CEI was among the organisers of the Cancun event where CORE's
Niger Innis handed out awards to the advocates of "lethal
eco-imperialism". Conko was also an invited guest at
Zoellick's press conference.
Conspicuous
in its absence from Zoellick's guest list was the corporation
that stood to gain most from the WTO action. But when it came
to honoring Bush's election strategist at CORE's celebratory
dinner at the New York Hilton, Monsanto was certainly no ghost
at the feast. Hugh Grant - not the actor but the CEO of Monsanto
-- presided as chairman of the occasion. A little black-washing
at an MLK event was a PR opportunity too good to pass up,
particularly in light of other recent events. Only days before
Grant's appearance, news had broken that his company was to
pay $1.5 million in penalties under US anti-bribery laws,
for passing $50,000 to a senior Indonesian environmental official
in an unsuccessful bid to amend or repeal the requirement
for an environmental impact statement on new crop varieties.
The bribe in question was just the tip of the iceberg: Monsanto
has admitted to paying over $700,000 in bribes to more than
a hundred officials over a five year period. The Monsanto
executive in charge of Indonesia at the time the bribery got
underway was none other than Hugh Grant.
Grant
and Rove were far from the only controversial invitees to
CORE's King Day celebrations. Others have included the Austrian
politician and Nazi-sympathizer Jorg Haider, and the right-wing
radio host Bob Grant, who once called Martin Luther King a
"scumbag". But CORE itself has become increasingly
controversial--and in some ways downright strange--since Roy
Innis took its helm. Innis once branded opponents of racial
segregation in the US as "house niggers", and dismissed
the struggle against Apartheid as "a vicarious, romantic
adventure" with "no honest base". When asked
in 1973 why CORE supported Idi Amin despite the Ugandan president's
hatred of Jewish people and praise of Hitler, Innis is reported
to have said, "we have no records to prove if Hitler
was a friend or an enemy of black people."
Innis
has had no corresponding difficulty working out the enemy
of black people when it comes to biotech. At Cancun his son
Niger, a protégé of Armstrong Williams, handed
out "lethal eco-imperialism" awards to the European
Union and Greenpeace. But there was another award - an "Uncle
Tom" award, presented in front of an audience of grinning
corporate lobbyists and libertarians to the Malaysia-based
Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific. PANAP is an
organisation that works with small-scale and family farmers,
peasants' movements, indigenous people, landless laborers
and women in countries throughout the Asia-Pacific region.
Innis denounced PANAP for "selling out its own people".
Their crime? Opposing pesticides and biotechnology in exchange,
Innis claimed, for funding from wealthy foundations.
CORE,
by contrast, supports pesticides and biotechnology in exchange
for funding from its wealthy "corporate partner".
As to "selling out" the people of the developing
world, it's worth recalling Monsanto's history in Indonesia.
So strong was the popular opposition to genetically modified
crops in Indonesia that Monsanto decided to bring its GM seed
into the country under armed guard. The farmers who bought
into the company's promises and grew that seed did a lot less
well from it than the officials who took the bribes. The GM
cotton crop succumbed to drought and a pest population explosion
that bypassed other cotton varieties. When the crop failed
to produce the results Monsanto had boasted about, the farmers
found that their poor yields had trapped them in a debt cycle,
leading one farmer to comment, "The company didn't give
the farmer any choice, they never intended to improve our
well being, they just put us in a debt circle, took away our
independence and made us their slave forever." This is
not an unknown situation: sales of GM seeds, which are more
expensive, are often supported in the developing world with
special credit arrangements. In TJ Buthelezi's South Africa,
for instance, farmer indebtedness has sharply escalated in
the area where GM cotton has been introduced. In Indonesia,
Monsanto's GM cotton proved so unsuccessful that within two
years the Indonesian Minister of Agriculture was announcing
that the company had pulled its GM seed out of the country.
The company's legacy there is broken promises and systematic
illegality.
That's
not, of course, the kind of story detailed in CORE's "Voices
from Africa," where GM crops are presented as the only
hope of salvation for resource poor farmers. Nor is it the
kind of story told by CORE's Paul Driessen in his syndicated
op-ed pieces, which were timed to coincide with CORE's UN
"World Conference". Driessen informed his readers
that "these safe, delicious foods" were vital for
Africa because they could "replace staples devastated
by disease -- including Kenyan sweet potatoes". Interestingly,
just a week or so before Driessen made that claim, the Kenyan
journalist Gatonye Gathura, received a Kalam award for journalistic
excellence for his article on the sweet potato project, "GM
Technology fails local potatoes." Gathura's piece blew
the whistle on the abject failure of Monsanto's showcase project
in Africa -- a project that had garnered literally thousands
of column inches of positive press.
Aaron
deGrassi, in a detailed analysis* of such projects, confirms
that the benefits from GM crops are much lower than can be
obtained "with either conventional breeding or agro-ecology-based
techniques"--both of which require just a fraction of
the investment in research that GM does. He notes, for instance,
that conventional sweet potato breeding in Uganda was able--in
a much shorter time and with a small budget--to develop a
well-liked, virus-resistant variety that had yield gains of
nearly 100 percent. Any excitement over GM crops in the developing
world, deGrassi argues, stems largely from the biotech industry's
PR campaign, which is designed to increase GM's public legitimacy,
and to reduce trade restrictions, biosafety controls, and
monopoly regulations.
Near
the end of "Voices from Africa" there's a telling
moment. Over the image of a woman menacingly beating a club
in the palm of her hand someone says, "We cannot just
harshly or violently oppose this technology". The film
presents no evidence of violent opposition to GMOs in Africa,
and in truth there has been none, only courage and resilience.
But then, as Paul Driessen's boss at CDFE reminds us, "Facts
don't really matter. In politics, perception is reality."
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