AGAINST
MONSANTO
AGAINST GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS
AGAINST ANY PRODUCTION OF DEATH
The so-called "forth revolution" should be considered as a
fundamental
expansion of capital all over the world (informatics, biotechnologies,
agriculture, food industry, etc.)
Genome, human clone, vegetable and animal species: every aspect of life is
being manipulated and inserted into the profit process.
The capitalist dominion is not painless and it has serious consequences. In
addition to labour accidents, road accidents, pollution (benzene, asbestos
dust, electro-smog, dioxin, nuclear energy , etc.), incinerators for urban
garbage, now people are also dying because of the adulteration of food-chain
(mad cow disease, dioxin chicken, GMOs, etc.).
In order to maximize profits, capitalism has no scruples.
It aims at the destruction of local cultivations and traditional foods, of
natural seeds and reproduction. The industrial cycle is being extended to
food stuffs in order to homologate and standardize our consumption. This
cycle tends to exert a total control over the consumers of the "first
world"
and it imposes poverty, destruction and death on the peoples of the "third
world".
Intensive agriculture and breeding, besides creating well-known health
problems, impose a food blackmail on these populations and put them under
the control of a few multinational groups. Of course, according to them,
this should solve the problem of starvation in the world!
The international demonstrations have strengthened the idea that WTO, WB,
IMF, OECD, NATO, European Union, etc., regardless of their specific
characteristics and contradictions, are the instruments for putting our
planet in the hands of capitalist multinationals.
Seattle has no doubt represented an important stimulus for the growth of
movements and for the awareness of the stakes. From Seattle on, numerous
anti-summits have taken place. A lot of people participated in them and they
contributed to a widespread renewal of consciousness against the capitalist
system.
Nevertheless, a constructive criticism must be expressed. It is useless to
show ourselves in the shop-windows of global capitalism if we don't fight
effectively against those designs in our own countries. In the "Fair
Country", we can't help denouncing the foul role played by the Labour
Party
now in charge. Like in all other sectors, they have smoothed the way for the
multinationals' assault. Notwithstanding Green Party "colonels"'s
ridiculous
reassurances about various labels, niche products and a presumed "Italian
healthy agriculture", the multinationals, thanks to the European
legislation, have entered the agribusiness' market. To do so, starting from
the early 90's, they removed any political obstacle, no holds barred
(tangentopoli, bombs, abrogation referendums, etc.).
Suffice it to say that, with the cancellation of the Ministry of
Agriculture, we lost the main instrument by which Italy could participate in
the determination of European lines in the agricultural sector.
Subsequently, Prodi's Labour Party now in charge presented American
colossuses with the best food industries of the IRI.
During these last years, in various Italian regions, multinationals like
Monsanto and Novartis promoted research and experimentation on transgenic
cultivation (especially soya bean, corn, beet). There are about 470
experimental fields known and at least five universities where they are
making experiments on "rubbish". This experimentation went on
stealthly,
without remarkable obstacles, and it must have given good results if
Monsanto obtained permission to produce in Italy, at Ravenna, the herbicide
glyphosate (better known as Roundup) for the cultivation of GMOs.
In 1999, in Indianapolis, Dow Chemical and Monsanto (producer of the
notorious agent "Orange", containing dioxin, used as defoliant during
Vietnam War) signed an agreement for the utilization of the Roundup patent.
Dow Chemical and Finanziaria Finagro constituted a joint-venture for the
creation in Italy of a plant for an export-led production of Roundup.
An enormous plant that can produce glyphosate, the powerful pesticide used
for transgenic cultivations, will be built in Ravenna. It will have a
world-wide relevance since it will produce 15% of the world-wide consumption
and one third of the European consumption.
The regional government of Emilia Romagna expressed an unanimous vote in a
territory with high concentration of polluting chemical factories. This is
the "industrial-pestiferous pole" of Ravenna, to which will be added
(for
now!) the new plant, with an initial capacity of 20,000 tons per year of the
Monsanto's deadly pesticide: the glyphosate.
In the short run, the construction of a new European chemical pole is also
planned. This pole is related to the same world-wide corporation,
represented in Italy by I.C.R.-Intermedi Chimici Ravenna S.p.A. actually
controlled by FINAGRO.
In this town, previously a PCI (Italy's Communist Party) feud, 80% of the
population contract tumors (1st cause of death), and are hosted 17 high-risk
factories, along with a very high production and incineration of toxic waste.
The same region has the highest concentration of tumor diseases in Europe,
thanks to pesticides and herbicides, with Europe's highest consumption.
There has been a sort of pacification with the territory, which has been
chosen for the construction of a European pole for the production and the
distribution of GMOs, with the development of the harbor, new plants,
cultivations and so on.
This is a classical example of how the control of producers by reformists
can lead to cultural and environmental disasters.
The nullifying of the social conflict makes the areas previously governed by
PCI attractive for productions with a high technological content,
facilitating the acceptance of harmful productions to the workers and the
population. Examples are the chemical cycle, the refineries, the nuclear
plant, the PEC in Brasimone.
We believe that the project for the construction of Roundup in Ravenna must
be hindered not only at a local level, but also at a national and European
level, for the not symbolic significance of the ecological fraud, helped by
the Labour Parties now in charge, related to the GMOs question and the
agribusiness.
It is clear that this is not a local problem, since the consequences have an
immediate world-wide impact.
While preparing for the hinder in order to avoid the construction of this
new deadly plant in an already tormented territory, urging the involvement
of all those who are willing to build "a different possible world",
it is of
paramount importance the preparation of all those instruments and
initiatives that allow a massive participation for the common goal.
One of these is the campaign aimed to introduce in all the refectories -
factories, cafeterias, hospitals - biological food with an urging plan for
the substitution of "chemical food / GMOs".
If the effort is certain and univocal in this direction, it is clear to
everybody that this will trigger an extraordinary participation, aimed to
win back health and life, and to fully understand, by fighting it, what kind
of enemy the capitalism (and its products) can be.
A virtuous circle like the one resulted by the winning epopee against the
nuclear for civil use, where every entity put something of its own and all
together acted supporting the direct action and the global clash, achieving
the appointed goal.
WTO, IMF, WB, OECD, NATO, USA, EU, etc.
exploit the whole humanity, destroy the planet, also with bombs and genocides,
and perpetuate the domain of the capital and its shameful market.
They represent the infinite greed of those who control them:
a bunch of multinational corporations, organized like barracks, that impose
a price to everything (from seeds to genes, to your blood), patenting life!
THEY ARE CAUSING THE WAR
The war against humanity and the earth
The war that kills men and nature
The war of the capital against poor people and workers
The war of money that, in order to feed profits, kills life !
Sunday, February 18, 2001 - 10:00 AM in Via
AVESELLA 5/A, BOLOGNA
In order to build the
NATIONAL DEMONSTRATION
AGAINST ANY PRODUCTION OF DEATH
FOR LIFE AND ITS QUALITY
SATURDAY, MARCH 10, 2001 - RAVENNA
Coordinamento Salvaguardia Biodiversitą - Emilia Romagna * Red Ghost -
Ravenna * PelleRossa autogestito - Cesena * Comitato contro la
Manipolazione
Genetica degli Alimenti - Torino * ASCI - Associazione di Solidarietą per la
Campagna Italiana * Associazione Primula Verde * Prix Leonardo- festival
internazionale multimediale sulla scienza ed ecologia - Parma * L'avamposto
Degli Incompatibili * Animalisti Italiani - PeTA - Bologna * Centro
documentazione "Francesco Lorusso" - Bologna * Collettivo KontroVerso
-
Bologna * Associazione "Primo Moroni - Bologna * Centro Comunicazione
Antagonista "Migrantes" - Acerra * Cobas Confederazione dei Comitati
di Base *
Coordinamento M.AG.M.A. - Manziana * Collettivo Antagonista Primavalle - Roma
* Associazione Ecomarxista "Cantieri Liberi" * Csoa Askatasuna -
Torino *
Redazione nazionale di "Vis-ą-Vis" * Soccorso Popolare - Padova *
Selvatici,
per la Rete Bioregionale Italiana * La giustizia degli erranti - Treviso *
Comitato Senza Frontiere - Bologna * Comitato Cittadino Antirazzista - Bologna
* Collettivo Spartakus - Vicenza * Ass. Cult. Punto Rosso - Vicenza *
Ass.Culturale Punto Rosso - Massa Carrara * Gruppo ATTAC - Massa Carrara *
Comitato Contro l'inquinamento elettromagnetico del Trullo e il CSO Ricomincio
dal Faro - Roma * Arti e Mestieri USI-AIT - Bitonto Bari * Spazio Antagonista
Nevroz - Pisa * Comitato Carlos Fonseca - Roma * Gruppo Zastava Trieste *
Voce Operaia * Centro di Iniziativa Popolare Foligno * Circolo Anarchico
Berneri - Bologna * Kollettivo Malavida - Lecco * CGP(100%Cani
Sciolti)Cividate - Bergamo *
FOGLI D'ORTICA Volantone dall'ecologismo radicale - Puglia * Unione
Sindacale
Italiana (USI-AIT) * Centro ARCADIA Desenzano del Garda - Brescia * csa
Castellazzo - Ivrea * csa Mattone Rosso - Vercelli * coll. Zone di Conflitto
- Torino * Comitato Umbro di Salute Pubblica * lavoratori socialmente
utili
Cobas di Acerra NA * Gruppo
anarchico Aurora - RA * Campo Antimperialista * LIBertari Berici * CSOA Totem e
Tabł di San Benedetto del Tronto * Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici sez.
Nestor Makhno - Pesaro Fano * collettivo cozzeamare di Porto San giorgio AP *
Comunicazione Antagonista "Volsci Video-Byte" - Roma * Gruppo
anarchico
Malatesta di Ancona * Associazione Punto Rosso Fermo/Porto San Giorgio (AP) *
Circolo Universitario Pablo Neruda di Camerino MC * associazione Senzaconfine *
Coordinamento Territoriele Anti-OGM di Cremona * gruppo Mobilitebio contro le
manipolazioni genetiche di Genova * Comitato di lotta del Quadraro - Roma *
Comitato cittadino per l'Autonomia di Classe - Roma * compagni e compagne di
Viterbo * Lista Reno - Bologna * Circolo "Iqbal Masih" - Bologna *
Kollettivo
Settimana Rossa - Ancona * csoa il Molino di Lugano * U.S.I. Unione Sindacale
Italiana Federazione Regionale Marche * Individualitą antagoniste e
libertarie (Civitanova - MC) * Convoglio di solidarietą internazionalista
Giorgiana Masi *
Centro di Documentazione Internazionalista * comitato romano contro la
repressione Mumia Abu Jamal *