How Monsanto brought GM to Indonesia

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How Monsanto brought GM to Indonesia

" GM WATCH " <info

Mon, 10 Jan 2005 20:59:46 GMT

 

 

 

 

How Monsanto brought GM to Indonesia

http://www.gmwatch.org

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We now know that, as part of its campaign to promote GM in Indonesia,

Monsanto sought to corrupt over 140 well-connected Indonesians,

including current and previous government officials, spending over

$700,000 on

bribes in the process.

 

It's interesting, in the context of these extraordinary revelations, to

revisit the way in which Monsanto's GM seed was finally brought into

the country in March 2001.

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Biotech Sentries - Genetic State

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3207

 

" Monsanto officials..Air Force guarding..40 tons..U.S.-based Monsanto..

denied reports.. military area..concealed..tightly guarded..barred..

security reasons..must back off..amid strong protests.. " THE JAKARTA POST

March 17, 2001 Genetically modified cotton seed arrives in Makassar

from S. Africa

 

" All technologies have some negative impacts and can marginalise

people, creating inequality. This is the same with genetic

engineering... " -

Pak Siawang, Jene'berang Village, Gowa, Indonesia from 'A farmer's eye

view': http://www.grain.org/publications/reports/isaaa.htm

 

In a lecture last summer sponsored by Australia's right-wing Institute

of Public Affairs, CS Prakash lashed " the poor's new enemy " .

[http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,912898^421,00.html]

 

Prakash claimed GE was absolutely essential to solving problems of poor

health, inadequate nutrition, food security and poverty in developing

nations and went on:

 

" What I see is extremist groups opposed to biotechnology, using

arguments about food safety and environmental impact to frighten Western

consumers and to deprive the Third World of new technology that it

desperately needs. "

 

They thus hypocritically " keep Third World farmers in poverty " .

 

Third World farmers " don't want authoritarian activists in wealthy

industrialised nations preaching to them.. " He also argued that western

anti-biotechnology activists represented a " new imperialism " that would

condemn developing nations to permanent poverty and despair.

 

" They have a broader agenda -- they want to control the production and

distribution of food, on their terms. But I would rather see it done by

multinational companies with enormous skills, resources and investment,

which are all badly needed in the Third World. "

 

What happened in Makasser just over a week ago, as reported in the

Jakarta Post on March 17 (2001)gives the lie to all of this.

 

The arrival of 40 tons of Monsanto's GM cotton seed was greeted by

" strong protests " , not by Western activists but a whole raft of local

NGOs:

1. YLK Sulsel

2. Yayasan JATI

3. YKPM

4. Yasmid

5. Yapta-U

6. YTMI

7. FIK Ornop Sulsel

8. JKPO Sulsel

 

Indonesia's wide-ranging opposition is not an isolated case. Last

September the Thai newspaper The Nation (17 Sep 2000) reported on a 10

day

farmers rally as part of " The Asian Long March to Protect Bio-diversity "

in which around 1,000 farmers declared their opposition to both trade

and research into GMOs. The Thai farmers were joined by representatives

from the Philippines, Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, Burma as well as

Indonesia.

 

Next in November came the " People's Caravan 2000--Citizens on the Move

for Land and Food Without Poisons! " which called for pesticide reform

and opposed genetic engineering, focusing particularly on the unethical

practices of many transnational corporations as they moved to take

control of local food supplies and agricultural production systems. The

Caravan comprised thousands of farmers, landless peasants, and

farmworkers, as well as representatives of local NGOs, from countries

including

India, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Korea, and Japan, as well, once

again, as Indonesia.

 

Opposition in Indonesia has not just been at the popular level. Even

before the Minister of Agriculture for the district government of

Bantaeng in South Sulawesi finally gave his agreement for the

importation of

the Monsanto's seed, the state Minister for the Environment had

repeatedly expressed his strong opposition, even saying he would order

Monsanto's Indonesian subsidiary to stop using GM cotton seeds.

[http://www.abc.net.au/ra/newsdaily/s176096.htm]

 

Interestingly, there have also been claims that Monsanto's GM cotton

was being promoted in Indonesia through abuse of statistics to give a

totally false impression of its potential yield.

 

There have also been successful projects in Indonesia to boost food

production without chemicals or biotechnology. Jules Pretty has reported

on how a million wetland rice farmers in countries including Indonesia

" have shifted to sustainable agriculture, where group-based farmer-field

schools have enabled farmers to learn alternatives to pesticides whilst

still increasing their yields by about 10 per cent " .

http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/feedtheworld.htm

 

A technique is also being tested, in a research project coordinated by

Cornell University, in Indonesia that has already been proven to boost

rice production in Madagascar on small farms, where already 20,000

farmers have adopted it, by as much as from 3 to 12 tonnes per hectare

using simple, non-chemical techniques and existing rice strains.

 

Contrast these successes with Prakash's claims that, " " The anti-GM

activists claim that organic farming is sustainable, but the only

thing it

is sustaining in India and Africa is hunger, misery and poverty. "

 

In the end, of course, in order to bring in Monsanto's GM cotton, as

reported by the Jakarta Post, they had to use the military and a press

'black out' was attempted.

 

In short, powerful indigenous opposition has been met by the

authoritarian imposition of this technology - the same pattern that is

occurring

globally in multiple guises.

 

The claims of those like Prakash that GM opposition is " imperialist "

and " authoritarian " and in opposition to the peoples of the Third World,

who would welcome the introduction of GM crops and their food

production and distribution coming under greater control from

multinational

companies, are nothing short of a big lie.

 

Prakash's idyll of northern corporate ag benignly controlling the

south's food supply could also be contrasted with the continuing

export to

the Third World of animal feed made from the ground-up remains of

infected cattle long after it knew that the pellets spread BSE to other

cattle. As a result, as the New Scientist recently reported, " the

likes of

Indonesia and Thailand face a disease that even the richest countries

can barely afford to control " .

 

The fact that Prakash gave his speech on a platform sponsored by a

right-wing Australian oganisation enjoying massive corporate sponsorship

and with such friendly multinationals as Phillip Morris, Rio Tinto and

Shell on its board, says it all.

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Genetically modified cotton seed arrives in Makassar from S. Africa

THE JAKARTA POST March 17, 2001

 

MAKASSAR, South Sulawesi (JP): A total of 40 tons of genetically

modified Bollgard cotton seed arrived at the Makassar airport from South

Africa on Thursday amid strong protests from environmentalists. The

cotton

seed, belonging to U.S.-based Monsanto, was imported by Jakarta-based

PT Monagro Kimia. The seed will be distributed to seven regencies based

on the recommendations of Minister of Agriculture Bungaran Saragih. A

number of activists, waving banners reading " Reject Genetically Modified

Cotton in South Sulawesi " , tried to intercept the convoy of trucks

carrying the cotton seeds, which contain Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), and

block them from leaving the airport. A sign reading " Logistic Depot

Rice " was placed on the front shield of the trucks. The activists said

that

genetically modified products should be prohibited from directly

entering the province, because the goods were still controversial. They

should be quarantined for detailed examination before being

distributed, the

activists said. The Ministry of Agriculture issued decree No. 107/2001

on Feb. 6, 2001, allowing limited sales of genetically modified seed in

Sulawesi. This decree was, however, criticized by State Minister for

the Environment Sonny Keraf. Sonny has said that his office had to take

precautionary measures as nobody could assure the safety of such crops

(which are scientifically developed). The authorities had apparently

concealed the seed's arrival from the press. The provincial plantation

office denied reports of the seed's arrival on Thursday morning, but at

approximately 1 p.m. on Thursday The Jakarta Post noticed a Russian

Ilyusin transport plane, with body number IL-76T, unloading the seed

in the

airport's military area. The wide-bodied plane, chartered by Norse Air

Charter from Johannesburg, was tightly guarded, and reporters and

photographers were barred from approaching the plane.

 

Members of the Indonesian Air Force guarding the area said that

reporters must back off for security reasons. Four Monsanto officials,

president director for Indonesia Hans Bijlmer, communications manager Tri

Soekirman, regional manager Edwin Mudahar and public affairs officer

Wahidin Alauddin eventually spoke to reporters in the airport canteen.

Tri

Soekirman said that the cotton seed was imported to meet the needs of the

province's farmers. " It's the first import of such seed into the

country. There are at least 400,000 hectares of cotton plantations to be

developed by the farmers here, " Tri Soekirman said.

 

Responding to the environmentalists' protests, he said that his office

had been approaching the non- governmental organizations. " Apart from

the fact that we hold the permit from the Ministry of Agriculture, we

are also taking precautionary measures. Pros and cons are common in the

world. "

 

" People should not worry about the negative impact of the crops. There

have been no complaints from the U.S., South Africa, China and

Argentina (where genetically modified cotton has been grown), " he

said, adding

that Australia had cultivated genetically modified cotton for the past

five years.

 

 

 

 

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