GEO Watch | Vandana Shiva | GMOs and intelligence agencies

What can I do for seed freedom? Credit: porevit-eko

Moderator’s Note: We have previously reported on
the connection between private intelligence and security corporations and
the tar sands oil and fracking industry sectors. Thousands of former military (Navy, Army, Marines),
counterintelligence, and intelligence community soldiers and experts staff these corporations.  [See
our report on the use of the U.S. Army’s Counter-insurgency Manual by security outfits hired by fracking
operators and their ancillary services.] It seems that wherever environmental
struggles are unfolding, the private and state-run security and intelligence
agencies will be involved, on the corporate side of course.

The militarization of intelligence
gathering and security surrounding intensive energy development installations
has led to the criminalizing and harassment of legal forms of citizen protest
and organizing. This includes targeting activists for domestic spying and
infiltration of organizations for purposes of disruption and surveillance. COINTELPRO is back,
and with a vengeance since the privatization of security was made into a
billion dollar for-profit sector ever since mercenary outfits like Blackwater
(qua Xe Services, LLC, qua Academi)
came on line. Former Navy SEALs and Army Special Ops (a.k.a. Green Berets) are
among the ‘mercs’ working for these corporations that serve as privatized
intelligence and security services for the fracking and tar sands industrial
capitalist sector.

This has already proved true in
the case of the no-GMO movement. We have all heard of the relationship between
Monsanto and Blackwater (now Academi). Despite early rumors, Monsanto
did not buy Academi but the later does have a security and intelligence
contract with the Gene Giant. Academi’s home page
reveals the evolution of an organization dedicated to security and intelligence
based on “expertise forged in the most challenging environments”. It will make
for an interesting analysis to see how places like Jackson County, Oregon or
the entire State of Vermont will fare as “challenging environments” as the
anti-GMO battle continues to spread.

In the USA, this Congress will do
little to protect citizens from attacks on these democratic rights by private
and state agencies who justify their unconstitutional actions as part of the
‘War on terror’ since anti-fracking and tar sands resistance movements are
inaccurately and purposefully pegged as “eco-terrorists”. Ranchers and farmers
opposed to Keystone XL are included among those target for this sort of
harassment and suppression.

 

List of Indian activists targeted for
surveillance By Intelligence Bureau (IB). Source: Indian
Botanists

 

Now comes this report from Vandana
Shiva revealing how India’s Intelligence Bureau (IB) is also working with the
commercial agricultural biotechnology sector to promote acceptance of GMOs and
marginalize the opposition as a dangerous threat to food security.  India’s citizens and farmers face many of the
same obstacles and threats as they try to secure their seed and food
sovereignty against the profiteers of GMOs and their governmental lackeys. Shiva addresses some of the concerns raised by a recent report from the Indian CIA, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) , which apparently regards native activists as agents of foreign NGOs that are blocking progress on development in India. 

This is typical neoliberal trickery: Blame your opponents for the very thing you are guilty of. This will not stop the movement; stay tuned for more.

We are reposting this essay from
the original source in today’s Asian Age
– with a link here, “Generously
motivated”.

Image credit: wakeupworld

 

Biosafety is the real national security issue

INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES PROMOTE FOREIGN CORPORATE INTERESTS

Vandana Shiva | New Delhi, India | June 18, 2014

Upholding our laws to defend
biosafety is in national interest. But this is not the motivation guiding the
IB, whose report repeats the false claims of the GMO industry about Bt cotton.

Intelligence agencies are supposed to protect
the safety and security of a nation and its citizens from external threats.
Tragically, we now have a report from the Intelligence Bureau that promotes the
very foreign interests that are threatening our seed and food sovereignty, the
livelihood of our farmers and the health of our citizens. The IB report, which
was commissioned by the UPA government but submitted to the newly elected NDA government,
blindly promotes genetically-modified organisms (GMOs). GMOs are the source of
genetically modified foods.

The report names seven agitations pursuing “anti-developmental activities”. The
“Anti-Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO)” activism is ranked third and this
section begins with this sentence: “The pro-GMO debate in India centres round
the resounding success of Bt cotton in the last 10 years.” This sounds more
like propaganda of the GMO industry than the result of an investigation by an Indian
intelligence agency.

Ronald Herring makes red herrings?

Image credit: washingtonsblog

A later paragraph further reinforces the
evidence that the IB was not investigating but transmitting messages from the
foreign GMO industry and its lobbyists. In paragraph 35, the report cites
Ronald Herring of Cornell University. Herring has systematically attacked
Indian farmers, scientists and plant breeders and Cornell University has become
a hub of the pro-GMO lobby. Cornell worked with USAID and Monsanto/Mahyco to
try and impose Bt brinjal on India, unscientifically, undemocratically and
illegally. That is why the then environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, ordered a
moratorium on Bt brinjal after organising seven public hearings across the
country.

India is governed by a biosafety law embodied
in the “Rules 1989 for the manufacture/use/import/export and storage of
hazardous micro-organisms/genetic engineered organisms and cells”. Biosafety
laws are designed to protect the biodiversity, the environment and public
health from the negative impacts of GMOs. I was appointed by the UN in an
expert group to frame the international law on biosafety. I also worked with
our government to strengthen our biosafety framework. The IB is clearly
ignorant of the laws of the land, as well as our parliamentary and judicial
processes. That’s why, in paragraph 34, it states that five individuals
“contributed to the three year moratorium on Bt brinjal and the ban/moratorium
regimes recommended by the Parliamentary Standing Committee (August 9, 2012)
and the technical expert committee (TEC) appointed by the Supreme Court.”

The IB, like the foreign interests seemingly
influencing its analysis, clearly holds the institutions created by the
Constitution of India — the government, Parliament, the courts — in contempt of
foreign commercial interests. It presents them as being manipulated by five
individuals.

The IB report is not just biased in favour of foreign MNCs, it is also
factually inaccurate. It states in paragraph 31 that the “anti-GMF activism was
initiated in 2003 by Vandana Shiva”.

Let me inform the IB of the facts. In 1987,
when I was attending a conference on biotechnology, organised by the Dag
Hammarskjold Foundation at the UN in Geneva and Bogeve, the old agrichemical
industry stated clearly that they were going to introduce GMOs in order to take
patents on seeds, so that they could collect royalties from every farmer, in
every season, in every country of the world. That is when I committed myself to
defend our country’s seed and food sovereignty.

In 1998, when Monsanto, a US-based MNC,
started field trials of its GMO Bt cotton illegally, I sued them in our Supreme
Court for violation of our biosafety laws. That is why they could not
commercialise their Bt cotton until 2002.

Upholding our national laws to defend our
biosafety and seed and food sovereignty is a democratic imperative and in
national interest. Clearly these are not the motivations guiding the IB. The IB
report repeats the false claims and myths of the GMO industry about Bt cotton.
It hides the fact that in 1996-97, before Bt cotton, we exported 168.2 million
bales of cotton, and in 2012-13, after Bt, we are importing 145.9 million
bales. It hides the failure of Bt cotton to control pests, and that farmers are
having to spend more on Bt pesticides. It hides the reality of the falling yields
of Bt cotton. It hides the reality that the high cost of seeds for which
Monsanto collects royalties has left our farmers trapped in debt which has
pushed more than 284,000 farmers to suicide since 1995. Most of these suicides
are concentrated in the Bt cotton regions.

An intelligence agency committed to national
interest would have addressed the epidemic of farmers’ suicides. Instead, the
IB report talks of a 2-3 per cent drag in the growth of the national economy
because of those of us working for the protection of our ecological heritage
and people’s rights — the seven agitations pursuing “anti-developmental
activities” are the ones against nuclear power plants, coal fired power plants,
genetically modified organisms, Posco and Vedanta in Orissa, against extractive
industries in the Northeast, and the Narmada Bachao Andolan.

Each life is precious and priceless. But since
the IB has put a loss figure, we decided to assess the cost of farmers’
suicides using the US’ calculation of the value of life (used for insurance and
accident claims). For 284,000 farmers’ suicides since 1995, this translates to
$1.99 trillion. India’s GDP was $1.82 trillion in 2012. Besides the cost of
farmers’ life there is also an economic drain on the national economy. Just the
royalties collected for Bt cotton amount to `5,000 crore. Can you imagine the
economic drain if all seeds were GMOs bought from global companies?

Henry Kissinger had said, “Food is a weapon.”
Today control over seeds through genetic engineering and patents has become the
key to using food as a weapon. That is why for 30 years we have been saving
seeds and defending seed freedom. We have been promoting organic farming that
protects our biodiversity, the livelihood of our farmers and the health of our
citizens. This should be the agenda for a free and prosperous India. Not the
seed slavery through GMOs being promoted by the Intelligence Bureau.

The
writer is the executive director of the Navdanya Trust.

Dr.
Vandana Shiva

Navdanya/Research Foundation for Science Technology & Ecology

A-60 Hauz Khas,

New Delhi 110016 INDIA

www.navdanya.org