To prevent a hold-up of multinationals on life

This is a call presented by ATTAC  ---  Action pour une Taxation des 
Transactions financières pour l'Aide aux Citoyens before the European 
Parliaments and the Union´s one on the subject of manipulations on life.  
ATTAC is the fastest growing movement against neoliberalism all over the 
world.   Though having just 13 months of existence in France, its country 
of 
origin,  ATTAC's  first world congress last June gathered about 1,500 
delegates from 71 countries.


From: "Laurent JESOVER" <jesover@attac.org>
To: <welcome@attac.org>     Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 
Subject: [ATTAC] To prevent a hold-up of multinationals on life

Original document: http://attac.org/fra/cons/inter7en.htm

RTF : http://attac.org/fra/asso/doc/tele/berlanen.zip
PDF: http://attac.org/fra/asso/doc/tele/berlanen.pdf


CALL ON THE PUBLIC AND ITS ELECTED MEMBERS


To prevent a hold-up of multinationals on life

The current hold-up on life (in the name of "progress" and
"competition") is a threat to our future and the one of this planet.
With the avent of biotechnologies (the transformation of living matter
into a source of profit), the seeds industry has been taken over by a
small number of multinational companies of the chemical-pharmaceutical
sector in the last fifteen years (Monsanto, Novartis, DuPont, Zenaca,
Aventis.). Yet the seeds industry determines the evolution of
agriculture as well as to a large extent that of nutrition since the
success of agricultural innovations depends on how plants and animals
react to them.

Up to now, this genetic factor widely remained under the control of
public research in agronomy.  The companies that lead the
transformation of agriculture during this century (through
mechanization, chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides)
preferred that the plants (or animals) be adapted to their innovations
by the taxpayers. Neither McCormick nor International Harvester would
fund any research to develop some varieties of corn or wheat fit for
mechanical harvesting. All over the world, public research in agronomy
therefore had this important responsibility of adaptation which in
fact was dictated by the agro-industry. Its objective part - it
matters little that all of it was done in the name of general interest
or the one of farmers- was to ensure the disappearance of the
pre-capitalist farming production. At its heart is the improvement of
plants and animals.

This improvement, although useful, was not directly a source of
profit: as long as the plants and animals would reproduce in the
farmer's field, the seed breeder's capital could not. This situation
has been deeply altered by biotechnologies. And this privatization of
living matter logically induces the one of public research. The
(molecular) biologists who replace traditional agronomists don't have
their ethical scruples (I).

The ultimate aim of the multinational seed producers is to avoid, at
all costs, that plants and animals reproduce at the farm. In other
words, they want to manufacture sterile plants and animals. This is
nothing new (2), except that the amount of money that these powerful
investors allocated to biotechnologies during the least fifteen years
leaves them no other choice then to tighten their grasp on the living.
For their capital to live, life itself needs to be sterilized. The
political economics of our society, so good at walking on dead bodies,
as well as the financial voracity of the shareholders now impose that
objective with a sense of urgency.


Terminator, the well-named necrotechnology


In this line, the Terminator biotechnology (immediately acquired by
Monsanto) allows plants to be genetically modified so as to destroy
their own germ once mature. A complex genetic system is introduced
into the plant (transgenes, i.e. genes coming from other species) and
it works according to the principle of an antipersonnel mine: a
neutralizing device (repressor gene), a detonator (promoter gene) and
an explosive (gene producing the suicide-toxin). Before their being
sold, the seeds are soaked in a tetracycline bath (but many methods of
activation exist) in order to "unpin" the system.  The detonator then
comes into contact with the explosive. The plant's state of ripeness
triggers the promoter, that activates the gene producing the toxin
which finally kills the developing germ. The seed harvested by the
farmer is then biologically sterile.

As emphasized by the director for plant production research unit at
the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), this
technique  - of which there exist many versions with patent pending -
" also allows a complete collection of the genetic resources". (3)
Actually, as farming started with our ancestors putting apart some of
the harvested seeds and sowing them the next year, this confiscation
of the most fundamental property of living beings  - to be able to
re-produce and to multiply - is the final blow to farmers and farming.
What comes afterwards will still be called "farming": as we continue
to call "breeding" (and even subsidize) pig plants floating on a sea
of excrements. A few multinationals are thus in the process of
acquiring with no other control than the "markets" they shape an
tremendous power upon our food resources and our lives, in
industrialized as well as Third World countries.


Patents versus farmers and farming


Terminator is such a disgusting (necro)technology that the current
international campaign for its ban will perhaps succeed in outlawing
it. But this tree must not hide the forest. The patent permits the
same goal to be reached, as shown by the example of the USA. When a
farmer wishes to use Monsanto patented and GMOed seeds, he must sign a
contract on not sowing his harvested grain. If the farmer has obtained
his seeds without any contract, from neighbors for instance (a current
practice), Monsanto then has the possibility to sue him for using
patented seeds. Yet the farmer was guaranteed that his practice - to
sow his harvested grain - was a right. But according to Monsanto and
the bio-industry, this right is applying only to seeds obtained by
ordinary methods of selection and not to the ones with a GMO patent!

Therefore, the patent is used against the farmer, against the ability
of plants and animals to reproduce, against life and, consequently,
against each one of us. The same way that the Multilateral Agreement
on Investment (MAI) meant to protect investors against economic risks,
the patent protects them against the unfortunate possibility of living
beings to reproduce by declaring plants and animals legally sterile.
Isn't the mystification of an ultraliberal society the creation of new
priviledges, as we celebrate the two hundred years of their abolition?
The patent is a formidable incentive for the generalization of
transgenetic techniques at the expense of research work on the
improvement  of plants and animals using available, efficient, but
devoid (for the time being) of priviledges for anybody.

Leading the way, Monsanto invites farmers to report their "pirate
 neighbors and puts at their disposal a free informer line. The patent
is a legalized Terminator with the big advantage to spare the
multinationals the manufacturing of this complex biologic
sterilization and have the tax-payer-and-citizen pay for the costs of
its own expropriation! Indeed, the patent allows a "complete
collection of the genetic resources" too.


GMO's rape of the public


The same seed producers concurrently organize the rape of the public
by trying to make us consume products manufactured from GMOs that we
do not want. And this for two ligitimate reasons: they are useless and
expose us to long-term risks. The majority of scientists are against
the widespread use of poorly controlled techniques that were not
subject to any health danger assessment and that introduce into our
environment a new risk: a genetic pollution which nobody knows how get
rid of.

To create genetic chimeras like pesticide or herbicide plants (2/3 of
the current GMOs) is to accelerate the movement towards a yet more
industrial agriculture and nutrition, factors of the alarming advance
of diseases like obesity (one fourth of the population in the United
States), cancers and cardiovascular diseases.That means turning our
back on sustainable agriculture and the respect of biodiversity. That
means increasing the level of chemical pollution. That means going on
with the announced destruction of farming jobs and of our
extraordinary agricultural heritage.


Brussels helps the "investors ".


It is worrying to see that in July 1998 the European Parliament and
Council passed, within the frame of the codecision procedure, a
directive (98/44/CE) for the "legal protection of biotechnological
inventions". July 30, 2000, is the deadline for the member States to
conform their legislation to this directive.

On october 21, 1998, the Netherlands appealed against the directive to
the European Court of Justice in order to have it cancelled. Certain
points put forth by La Haye are of legal order but others go to the
heart of the problem. The appeal addresses for instance the violation
of the convention on biodiversity and the one on fundamental human
rights: "Under directive 98/44/CE, it will be possible to patent
individual parts of the human body. Such a materialistic partition of
the human body is against human dignity". Italy as well as Norway, a
member of the European Economic Area (EEA) also appealed against the
directive, arguing that it should have been accepted by unanimous
approval according to article 235 of the CE treaty and not by a
qualified majority (article 100 A of the treaty).

The legal services of the Parliament and the Council now draw up a
report for the Court of Justice in the hope to convince the recently
elected Parliament not to come back on last year's decision. According
to certain officials, this would trigger a legal and political mess.
The French government also is preparing such a report via the National
Institut for Industrial Property and the legal affairs department of
the Foreign Ministry. Since in both cases the work has been given to
"technicians", public representatives are put aside. It is important
that they take back the advantage and this time be fully informed
about the issue. This to counter the life patent lobbyists' hope that
since the appeal has no suspensory effect, the directive has already
been transposed to a national level at the time the Coiurt of Justice
takes its decision. It will then be too late to step back .

The European Commission, which prepared the text passed by the
Parliament and the Council is also flying to the rescue of the
directive, with its own report to the Court of Justice. Neither the
Commission nor the executive officials of the Union seem to recognize
that they organize a worldwide hold-up of living matter by a handful
of multinationals, i.e. on our biological future and the one of this
planet. Do they realize the absurd character of directive 98/44/CE ?
The re-production and multiplication of plants and animals are as
ubiquitous as sunshine. They are even the fundamental property of
living beings. What a shame ! We better be careful : this logic will
soon force us shut our doors and windows to let candel retailers fight
against the unfair competition from the sun. And why ? To support the
investments of the cartel of multinationals in genetic chimeras that
neither farmers nor the public want!


Génoplante or the private ownership  of public research

In any case, this dimension entirely escaped to the management of INRA
and its guardian ministers who just celebrated the "wedding between
computer science and biology" with the program Génoplante aimed at
"manufactuting industrial property", i.e. patents. The operational
responsible of Génoplante goes as far as to invite scientists to be an
active part of the "Economic war". Génoplante, with its two
technological platforms (in Evry and Montpellier) and a FRF1.4 billion
budget over five years associates public research institutions (INRA,
CIRAD, IRD, CNRS) and private companies into a scientific interest
group meant to spawn into an economic interest group. The private
companies will mostly benefit from it since they only pay 30% of the
funds and have the majority in the executive boards: the "strategic
committee" of Génoplante counts the head of the INRA (also member of
the board of directors of Rhône-Poulenc Agro from 1989 to 1994), the
head of Rhône-Poulenc Agro and the president of Limagrain who has
close tights to Rhône-Poulenc.

Génoplante will partly subcontract its projects through invitations to
bid. The laboratories, whose fundings were first punctured to finance
the scientific interest group, will then have to send in proposals to
it in order to stay afloat. Public research is being funneled towards
private interests. The non-profit globalization of genetic resources
and knowledge, the common good of humanity are being replaced by the
promoters of Génoplante with a market cartelization and an "economic
war". This represents a tremendous regression.

The self-proclaimed multinational "life sciences" companies have
declared war to living beings and to farmers, i.e. to humanity. We do
not accept these threats on our freedom. We refuse that the farmer
become a "pirate". We refuse a biototalitarian society governed by
multinationals and their allies. We refuse the denaturation of the
powerful fundamental research tools of transgenetics. We refuse that
war.


ATTAC asks the European and National Parliaments, via their
governments to :

-         demand the setup of a moratorium on genetically modified
organisms by the European Commission and its Council of Ministers.

 -         outlaw necrotechnologies like the Terminator.

 -         File reports with the European Court of Justice to back up
the request made by the Netherlands, Italy and Norway to cancel the
European directive on a "legal protection of biotechnological
inventions".


ATTAC particularly asks the French deputies and senators to:

-         convince the Foreign Ministry to act against and in favor of
this directive.

-         demand from the Minister for Research to stop the Génoplante
project, which aims at making more social the price to pay for the
privatisation of living matter, and in the contrary to restructure
research for a sustainable, autonomous and farmer-oriented
agriculture.

-         create  democratic controls for the powerful tool of
biotechnological research to serve life, not profit or death.

-         ask the French government, then the European Union and
finally the United Nations to solemnly proclaim a new human right: the
right on living matter and genetic resources as a common good of
humanity, not subject to property.

NOTES

(1) Those great agronomists would reject with disdain the offer of
reap a personal advantage from their works. The traditional public
moral collapse, the general disorder of the minds appears in this,
that now, a socialist government incites the public researchers to
deposit patents in their names and for valorization.

(2) Read Jean-Pierre Berlan and Richard Lewontin. " La menace du
complexe genetico-industriel " (genetic-industrial threats.)  Le Monde
diplomatique. Décembre 1998. And Jean-Pierre Berlan. " Confiscation du
vivant "  (Confiscation of the living). Transversales Science/Culture,
n°55. Février-Mars 1999.

(3) Le Monde. 12 Mars 1999.

(4) That concerns some plants made tolerant by genetic manipulations
to its main herbicide: the Round-up. Those plants can keep it in stock
in their texture without damage. Those chemical firm's aim is then to
increase the use of herbicides. So much for the genetically modified
Organisms (GMO) which "protect the environment."

(5) The INRA Genoplant aims to " fabricate industrial property". They
transfer part of the public laboratories resources to Genoplant which
might conclude an agreement with it in order to recover the credits
they have been deprived of. Thus the promoters hope mobilize I8O
scientists, that means the most part of the INRA researchers in
vegetal biology. The " strategic board of Genoplant is made by the
general director of INRA (member of the board of directors of
Rhône-Poulenc agro- chemie from 1989 to 1994), the general director of
Rhône-Poulenc Agrochimie, and the president of Limagrain who holds
straight contacts with Rhône-Poulenc.


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