GMW: Monanto's blast from a dark past

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GMW: Monanto's blast from a dark past

" GM WATCH " <info

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 10:14:31 GMT

 

 

 

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

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EXCERPT: From Vietnam to Socsargen [where Monsanto's GM corn is

growing]. Old practices, it seems, die hard.

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A blast from a dark past

The Mindanao Daily Mirror (The Philippines), Jan 30 2006

http://bond.lanesystems.com/sitegen/article.asp?wid=125 & cid=453 & aid=35288

 

Over the weekend, agribusiness giant Monsanto was cast under the glare

of international publicity. The reason? Survivors of Agent Orange, the

defoliant it manufactured for use during the Vietnam War, just came out

victorious from a historic class suit.

 

The Seoul Supreme Court charged that Monsanto and Dow Chemical, another

multimillion dollar company, were not immune from being responsible for

the lethal effects of the chemical spray upon humans, both combatants

and civilians, at the height of the controversial war.

 

South Korea had supported Washington's fight against the Vietnamese in

the 1965-73 conflict. In the wake of Agent Orange, more than 20,000

South Koreans sued for damages.

 

The high court ordered the two multinational companies to pay $62

million in medical damages to 6,800 people.

 

Monsanto will expectedly appeal the court's decision. But as it now

stands, the ruling is groundbreaking. It certainly behoves the company,

which prides itself as " a leading provider of agricultural products and

solutions, " to take stock of history and consider moral redemption over

corporate conceit.

 

That, admittedly, won't be easy. Not for a global organization that has

been field-testing mutant corn in the South Cotabato-Sarangani-General

Santos (Socsargen) area.

 

Activists have been banging the doors of the country's legislators to

stop Monsanto from testing the genetically-modified Bt corn, purported

to boost the crop's resistance to pests and increase productivity. But

despite the protests, commercial planting of the mutated crop has

expanded since 2003 to now cover some 70,000 hectares. Tribal

residents in

Polomolok, South Cotabato living within a hundred meters of the testing

site have once complained of an array of ailments from headaches to flu,

from vomiting to skin allergies.

 

From Vietnam to Socsargen. Old practices, it seems, die hard.

 

 

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