GMW: Lobbyists in Montreal 3 - paint it black!

[Guest guest]

GMW: Lobbyists in Montreal 3 - paint it black!

" GM WATCH " <info

Fri, 3 Jun 2005 12:00:17 +0100

 

 

 

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

------

Among the lobby groups running side events in Montreal are Monsanto's

blackwashers - the Congress of Racial Equality - who project themselves

as the defenders of the world's poor and the scourge of Monsanto's

critics.

 

Here's the GM WATCH profile. Go to the webpage for loads of links.

------

Congress of Racial Equality - CORE

http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=174

 

CORE - the Congress of Racial Equality - is an African American group

that played a leading role in the American civil rights movement. During

the late 1960s, however, CORE all but collapsed and the remnant was

taken over by Roy Innis who moved the organisation to the Republican

right.

 

In January 2005 CORE organised two events as their Dr Martin Luther

King celebrations. One of these is a 'UN World Conference' promoting GM.

The other was CORE's reception at the New York Hilton Hotel where they

honoured, amongst others, Green Revolution scientist, Norman Borlaug,

and neo-conservative, Karl Rove, George W. Bush's election strategist and

the man who oversaw black voter disenfranchisment in Florida and Ohio

in the 2004 presidential election.

 

Past CORE invitees to their King Day celebrations are reported to have

included Austrian politician and Nazi-sympathizer Jorg Haider, and

right-wing radio host Bob Grant, who once called Dr. King a 'scumbag'.

 

The Chairman for the New York Hilton reception honouring Rove and

Borlaug was Hugh Grant, Chairman and CEO of Monsanto. Monsanto is also

listed as CORE's corporate partner. CORE does not only get support from

Monsanto for its campaigning. In 2003 ExxonMobil gave CORE $40,000

($15,000

of which was earmarked for 'global climate outreach'). (see Black

gold?)

 

CORE's Chairman, Roy Innis, was the 'host' at the Hilton celebrations

as well as the opening speaker at CORE's 'UN World Conference' on GM.

Roy Innis has proven a curious champion of racial equality. He is said

to have called the struggle against Apartheid 'a vicarious, romantic

adventure' with 'no honest base,' and when asked in 1973 why his

organization supported Idi Amin despite the Ugandan president's hatred

of Jewish

people and praise of Hitler, he said, 'we have no records to prove if

Hitler was a friend or an enemy of black people.' Amin's decision to

expel 50,000 Asians from Uganda was hailed by Innis as 'a bold step'.

 

CORE's GM campaign got underway in 2003. In September 2003 CORE was

among groups, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute, taking part

in pro-GM protests during the WTO summit in Cancun, Mexico.

 

A few months earlier, in May 2003, CORE was reported as planning a

protest against Greenpeace, alleging that the environmental group had

committed 'eco-manslaughter' through the impact of its policies on the

developing world. Greenpeace's 'opposition to genetically modified foods'

was listed by CORE as among the ways by which 'these zealots' cause

'misery and death'.

 

Roy Innis's son, Niger, who currently serves as CORE's National

Spokesman, was quoted in a press release for the anti-Greenpeace

protest as

saying, 'The carnage has got to end. People should be ashamed to support

these fanatics and the eco-manslaughter they are perpetrating on the

world's most destitute people. Today's protest is just the first step in

bringing justice to the Third World.'

 

Roy's son Niger is no stranger to 'counter protest'. The Competitive

Enterprise Institute noted the involvement of Innis when reporting a

counter protest outside an ExxonMobil shareholder meeting in Dallas:

'...faced with the unexpected numbers of free market demonstrators the

anti-corporate protestors finally left. " I think we rattled them. They're

packing up their bags and they're leaving, " said Niger Innis of the

Congress on Racial Equality, one of the groups conducting a

counter-demonstration. " Victory is sweet. " '

 

In late January 2004 CORE organised a 'Teach-In' in New York entitled,

'Eco-Imperialism: The global green movement's war on the developing

world's poor'. Contributors included the lobbyists Patrick Moore, CS

Prakash, and Roger Bate. In a press release CORE's Niger Innis, another

contributor, said that after the Teach-In 'eco-imperialism' would be a

household word, adding, 'We intend to stop this callous eco-manslaughter'.

 

Another contributor was Paul Driessen of the Center for the Defense of

Free Enterprise (CDFE), the Godfather among lobby groups attacking the

environmental movement. CDFE are also behind The Economic Human Rights

Project, descibed as 'an initiative of the Center for the Defense of

Free Enterprise, in cooperation with the Congress of Racial Equality',

and as a 'growing coalition... dedicated to correcting prevalent

environmental myths and misguided policies that help perpetuate poverty,

misery, disease and early death in developing countries.' Driessen is

also

said to be a senior policy advisor to CORE.

 

Niger Innis also serves as an Advisory Committee member for Project 21

an initiative of the National Center for Public Policy Research - a

conservative/free market foundation with a strongly anti-environmental

agenda.

 

Black American journalists Glen Ford and Peter Gamble describe Project

21 as a 'Black front group' and 'a network and nursery for aspiring

rightwing operatives'. They are equally scathing about CORE -'a tin cup

outstretched to every Hard Right political campaign or cause that finds

it convenient - or a sick joke - to hire Black cheerleaders'. They also

report how James Farmer, the former head of the original Congress of

Racial Equality confronted Roy Innis on TV for turning 'the organization

into what Farmer called a " shakedown " gang.' Ford and Gamble describe

Innis as a 'gangster " civil rights " caricature'.

 

Dr. Herschelle S. Challenor, Professor at Clark Atlanta University, in

an address on Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, given

at the United States Embassy in Kinshasa in January 2000, drew a sharp

contrast between the character of Farmer and that of Innis: 'James

Farmer, the leader of CORE during the highpoint of the civil rights

movement, was a bright, dedicated activist of unimpeachable integrity.

His

immediate successor, Roy Innis was seen as a chameleon prepared to change

his political ideology as necessary. There were rumors that he worked in

later years as an FBI informant.'

 

In 2005 CORE produced a Monsanto-funded video called 'Voice from

Africa'. The director and script-writer had worked on previous Monsanto

projects. It drew heavily on interviews with GM cotton farmers in South

Africa who claimed sizeable benefits from Monsanto's GM cotton.

However, a

five year study has shown that small-scale South African cotton farmers

have not benefited from GM cotton and that the impression that they

have is due to media hype created by American biotechnology companies to

try and convince the rest of Africa that they should approve genetically

modified crops. Another damning report, on the biotechnology industry's

showcase projects in Africa, from Aaron deGrassi, a researcher in the

Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, UK, came

to very similar conclusions.

------

For more on CORE see The Uncle Tom Award

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4987

 

 

 

 

 

 

-----------------