Monday, October 19, 2009

"A Nobel Prize for Evo Morales" : Fidel Castro

IF Obama was awarded the Prize for winning the elections in a racist society despite being African-American, then Evo deserves it for winning in his country despite being an indigenous man, and moreover for keeping his promises.

It was the first time in the two countries that someone from each of their respective ethnic groups became president.

More than once, I noted that Obama was an intelligent, educated man in a social and political system in which he believes. He aspires to extend health services to almost 50 million U.S. people, to pull the economy out of the profound crisis it is experiencing, and to improve the image of the United States, deteriorated due to its genocidal wars and torture. He does not conceive of or desire, nor can he change, his country’s political and economic system.

The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to three U.S. presidents, a former president and a presidential candidate.

The first was Theodore Roosevelt, elected in 1901, the man of the Rough Riders that landed their riders – without their horses -- in Cuba for the U.S. intervention in 1898 to prevent our country’s independence.

The second was Thomas Woodrow Wilson, who took the United States into the first war to divvy up the world. In the Treaty of Versailles, he imposed such harsh conditions on defeated Germany, that it laid the foundations for the emergence of fascism and the breakout of World War II.

The third is Barack Obama.

Carter was the former president who, several years after ending his mandate, was awarded the Nobel Prize. Without a doubt, one of the few presidents of that country incapable of ordering the assassination of an adversary, as others did; he returned the Canal to Panama, created the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, and avoided falling into large budget deficits or squandering money for the benefit of the military-industrial complex like Reagan did.

The candidate was Al Gore when he was already vice president, the U.S. politician who knew the most about the terrible consequences of climate change. He was the victim of electoral fraud when he was a presidential candidate and had victory snatched away from him by W. Bush.

Opinions about the awarding of this prize have been very much divided. Many are based on ethical concepts or reflect evident contradictions in the surprising decision.

They would have preferred that prize to be the fruit of a task fulfilled. The Nobel Peace Prize is not always awarded to people who deserve that distinction. Sometimes individuals have received it who are resentful, arrogant or even worse. Lech Walesa, upon hearing the news, said disdainfully, "Who, Obama? It’s too fast. He hasn’t had time to do anything."

In our press and on CubaDebate, honest and revolutionary comrades have been critical. One of them said, "In the same week that Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the U.S. Senate passed the largest military budget in history: $626 billion". During the television newscast, another journalist commented, "What has Obama done to achieve such a distinction?" Others asked, "And what about the war in Afghanistan and the increase in bombings?" Those are viewpoints based on reality.

In Rome, the filmmaker Michael Moore made a lapidary statement: "Congratulations, President Obama, on the Nobel Peace Prize; now, please, earn it."

I am sure that Obama would agree with Moore’s statement. He possesses sufficient intelligence to understand the circumstances surrounding the case. He knows that he has not yet earned that prize. That morning, he stated, "I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who have been honored by this prize."

It is said that there are five members on the famous committee that awards the Nobel Peace Prize, all of them members of the Swedish Parliament. A spokesperson said that it was unanimous. One question fits here: did they or did they not consult the winner? Can a decision of this type be made without first notifying the winning individual? This cannot be judged morally in the same way if the person knew or did not know beforehand about the awarding of the prize. It is also fitting to affirm that about those who decided to award it to him.

Perhaps it is necessary to create a Nobel Prize for Transparency.

Bolivia has major gas and oil deposits and holds the largest known reserves of lithium, a mineral greatly needed in our era for storing and using energy.

Evo Morales, a very poor indigenous farmer, traveled throughout the Andes, together with his father, before he was six years old, shepherding the llamas of an indigenous group. They led them for 15 days to reach the market where they sold them to buy food for the community. Responding to a question of mine about that unique experience, Evo told me that at the time, "they stayed in the 1,000-star hotel," a beautiful way of referring to the clear skies of the mountains where telescopes are sometimes placed.

During those hard years of his childhood, the alternative for the farmers in the community where he was born was to cut sugar cane in the Argentine province of Jujuy, where part of the Aymara community sometimes took refuge during the sugar cane harvest.

Not very far from La Higuera, where Che, wounded and disarmed, was murdered on October 9, 1967, was Evo, who was born on the 26th of that same month in 1959, not yet 8 years old. He learned to read and write in Spanish, walking to a little public school five kilometers from the hut where, in a rustic room, he lived with his brothers and sisters and parents.

During his eventful childhood, wherever there was a teacher, Evo was there. From his race, he acquired three ethical principles: not to lie, not to steal, and not to be weak.

When he was 13, his father permitted him to move to San Pedro de Oruro to go to high school. One of his biographers tells how he was better in geography, history and philosophy than in physics and mathematics. The most important thing is that Evo, to pay for his studies, would wake up at 2 a.m. to work as a baker, construction worker, or in other physical labor. He attended classes in the afternoon. His classmates admired him and helped him. From the very start, he learned to play wind instruments and was a trumpet player in a prestigious band in Oruro.

When he was still an adolescent, he organized his community’s soccer team, and was its captain.

Access to the university was not within his reach, being an Aymara Indian and poor.

After his last year of high school, he served his mandatory military term and returned to his community, located high up in the mountains. Poverty and natural disasters forced his family to migrate to the subtropical region of El Chapare, where they were able to obtain a small land parcel. His father died in 1983 when he was 23 years old. He worked hard on the land, but he was a born fighter; he organized all of the workers, created labor unions and with them filled the vacuums to which that the state was not paying attention.

The conditions for a social revolution in Bolivia had been created over the last 50 years. On April 9, 1952, before the start of our armed struggle, the revolution broke out in that country with the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement of Víctor Paz Estenssoro. The revolutionary miners defeated the forces of repression and the MNR took power.

Revolutionary objectives in Bolivia were far from being met. In 1956, according to well-informed people, the process began to fall apart. On January 1, 1959, the Revolution was victorious in Cuba. Three years later, in January 1962, our country was expelled from the OAS. Bolivia abstained. Later, all of the governments except for Mexico broke off relations with Cuba.

Divisions in the international revolutionary movement made themselves felt in Bolivia. Still to come were 40 years more of blockading Cuba, neoliberalism and its disastrous consequences, The Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela and the ALBA; still to come, above all, were Evo and the MAS in Bolivia.

It would take to long to sum up that rich history on a few pages.

All I will say is that Evo was able to overcome the terrible and slanderous campaigns of imperialism, its coups d’état and interference in internal affairs, and to defend Bolivia’s sovereignty and the right of its millenary people to have respect for their customs. "Coca is not cocaine," he exclaimed to the largest marijuana producer and largest consumer of drugs in the world, whose market has maintained the organized crime that costs thousands of lives every year in Mexico. Two of the countries where the yanki troops and their military bases are located are the largest producers of drugs on the planet.

Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador are not falling into the deadly trap of drug trafficking; they are revolutionary countries that, like Cuba, are members of the ALBA. They know what they can and should do to bring health, education and well-being to their peoples. They do not need foreign troops to combat drug trafficking.

Bolivia is going forward with a program of its dreams under the leadership of an Aymara president who has his people’s support.

In less than three years, he eradicated illiteracy: 824,101 Bolivians learned to read and write; 24,699 did so in the Aymara language and 13,599 in Quechua; it is the third country to be free of illiteracy after Cuba and Venezuela.

Free medical attention is provided to millions of people who had never received it. It is one of seven countries in the world that in the last five years has most reduced its infant mortality rate, with the possibility of reaching the Millennium Goals before 2015, and it is the same case with maternal deaths, in a similar proportion. Restorative eye surgery has been performed on 454,161 people, 75,974 of them Brazilians, Argentines, Peruvians and Paraguayans.

An ambitious social program has been established in Bolivia: all of the children in public schools from first to eighth grade receive an annual donation to help pay for their school materials, benefiting almost two million students.

More than 700,000 people over the age of 60 receive a voucher for the equivalent of some $342 annually.

All pregnant women and children under the age of 2 receive assistance of approximately $257.

Bolivia, one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere, has placed under state control the country’s principal energy and mineral resources, respecting and compensating each one of the interests affected. It marches along carefully, because it does not wish to retreat a single step. Its hard currency reserves have been growing. Evo has no less than three times what the country had at the beginning of his administration. It is one of the countries that makes the best use of foreign cooperation and firmly defends the environment.

In a very short time, he has been able to establish the Biometric Electoral Register, and approximately 4.7 million voters have been registered, almost one million more than on the last electoral register, which in January 2009 had 3.8 million.

On December 6, there will be elections. It is a sure thing that the people’s support for their president will grow. Nothing has been able to stop his growing prestige and popularity.

Why isn’t he awarded the Nobel Peace Prize?

I understand his big disadvantage: he is not a U.S. president.

Courtesy : Granma)

AIKS Statement on Bt Brinjal

The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) met on October 14th 2009 to discuss the Report of the Bt Brinjal Expert Committee and take a final decision on the environmental release/commercial cultivation of Bt Brinjal in India. Reports suggest that the GEAC has decided to approve the environmental release of Bt Brinjal from Monsanto/Mahyco in India which would for all purposes permit the use of transgenic and Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and products for edible purposes. In the event of such a decision Bt Brinjal will be the first transgenic vegetable to be cultivated and sold in Indian markets. This is happening even as there are many unresolved issues surrounding the environmental release of the transgenic vegetable as well as genuine concerns expressed over its safety for human consumption. There is also the added threat of all future seeds and therefore Indian agriculture to come under the control of global MNC's and the charging of extortionate prices from Indian farmers.

The Brinjal in question also is part of an USAID programme called Agri-Biotechnology Support Programme [ABSP] where under a Public Private Partnership, 3 Indian institutions, Indian Institute of Vegetable Research, Varanasi, University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad and Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore are working with Monsanto and Mahyco. There are also serious misgivings about the GEAC itself which has been transgressing its role as a regulatory body and showing an inherent bias towards big monopoly companies like the Monsanto. It has been pointed out that some of the “experts” in the GEAC have conflict of interests. Certain experts on the Committee are also reported to have expressed strong objections which were however not taken into account. If the GEAC carries forward the environmental release of Bt Brinjal floodgates will be opened for nearly 60 genetically modified food crops in India, some of which are already in the pipeline like rice, corn, okra etc. In this regard it may be noted that the European Union has followed strict norms and countries in the EU have banned the genetically modified food crops.

The monopoly of the MNCs like Monsanto over the seeds is another major concern. Seeds are no longer in the public domain as they are now the “intellectual property” of these MNCs. The withdrawal of State regulation has aided the creation of seed monopolies and the Governmental policies are abetting the gradual elimination of the Public Sector Seed Corporations. In India today, MNCs directly or indirectly control a major share of the seed market. The government has made no efforts to generate self-reliance in seeds by combining the ingenuity of farmers and the technical know-how of scientists. Instead it has only sold out Indian agriculture to big agri-businesses, making IARI and other agricultural research bodies colloborate with global MNC's as virtual junior partners.

After the GEAC had given approval to Monsanto to launch its Bt Cotton technology between 2002 to 2005 Monsanto charged an exorbitant trait value (Royalty) of Rs.1200/- per packet of 450g. Bt Cotton seeds were being sold at an exorbitant price of Rs.1800/- to Rs.2000/- per packet. Based on the complaints of the Andhra Pradesh Ryotu Sangham, the Government of Andhra Pradesh referred the matter to the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC). The MRTPC indicted Monsanto and passed an interim order stating that Monsanto is indeed following restrictive trade practices and this had resulted in some relief for the farmers. The MNCs however retain the monopoly over seeds and there is no regulation on them.

There has been no transparency in the discussions in the run up to this meeting and MNCs have violated rules for open field trials. In the case of Bt Cotton earlier Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka had protested against Bt Cotton trials by Mahyco-Monsanto. Kerala and Orissa have announced that they will not allow field trials of GM crops. Officials from the states of Uttar Pradesh, Chattisgarh, and West Bengal have written to the Centre pointing out irregularities and violations in the conduct of field trials on GM brinjal, okra and rice. While hearing an appeal on safety of GM products, the Supreme Court, through its order on 8 May 2007, clearly upheld the importance of bio-safety. The need for rigorous bio-safety tests has also not been met in a manner so as to dispel doubts raised about the implications of these crops for humans, animals and the environment.

Concerns regarding the health and environmental risks associated with GM crops are too serious to be disregarded. The seed monopolies that threaten Indian agriculture and farmers’ livelihoods should also be reined in. The All India Kisan Sabha demands that there be no hasty introduction of Bt Brinjal without addressing these concerns. It also demands complete transparency from the GEAC and making public the nature of the trials carried out and the bio-safety of the products. Without a public examination and a debate on the safety of Bt Brinjal, this product should not be approved for environmental release.

S.Ramachandran Pillai K.Varadha Rajan

President Gen.Secretary