Mexico: Maya campesinos beat Monsanto in court

[Judi Lynn]

Mexico: Maya campesinos beat Monsanto in court
Submitted by Weekly News Update... on Tue, 08/05/2014 - 07:27 Mexico Theater

A district court judge in the eastern Mexican state of Yucatán ruled in July against a license that the federal Agriculture Secretariat (Sagarpa) had granted the Missouri-based multinational Monsanto Company in 2012 for sowing 253,500 hectares with genetically modified (GM) soy in Yucatán and six other states. A group of campesinos from the Maya indigenous group filed a suit charging that the license endangered the traditional production of organic honey in a region including the Yucatán communities of Ticul, Santa Elena, Oxkutzcab, Tzucacab, Tekax, Peto and Tizimin. The judge's ruling was "a great achievement because there is recognition of our legitimate right to make decisions about our territory and our livelihood," Maya farmer Lorenzo Itzá Ek said. "Beekeeping is the main traditional economic activity we carry out, and we don't want our honey contaminated with transgenics or with toxic products like agrochemicals that kill our bees."

This was the third defeat for GM soy in eastern Mexico this year. In March and April a court in Campeche ruled in favor of two suits brought by Maya beekeepers from the Hopelchén and Pac-Chen communities in Campeche's Cancabchen municipality. The decisions on GM soy follow a ruling in October 2013 by a federal judge that restrained Sagarpa and the Environment Secretariat (Semarnat) from granting further licenses for planting GM corn in Mexico. But Ximena Ramos, an adviser for the Litiga OLE legal assistance group, said the July ruling in Yucatán was especially important because the judge ordered a public consultation with the affected indigenous communities before any resolution could be made about the sowing of GM soy. This enforces "the multicultural principle in the Constitution, along with the human rights implied in the right to prior consultation with the Maya," she said. (Terra Mexico, July 22; El Ciudadano, Chile, July 30)

In related news, Brazilian farmers are calling on four multinational seed manufacturers to reimburse them for pesticide they used on GM corn they planted this year. According to Ricardo Tomczyk, president of the Aprosoja farm lobbying group in the southern state of Mato Grosso do Sul, the Spodoptera frugiperda (also known as the "corn leafworm" or "southern grassworm&quot has developed a resistance to the poisonous protein in the type of GM corn known as "Bt corn." The result is that farmers had to spend an average of 120 reais (about US$54) per hectare on pesticide to protect their crop, he said. The seed's manufacturers are the US-based companies Monsanto, Dow Chemical Co and DuPont, and Syngenta AG, which is based in Switzerland. (Reuters, July 28)

http://ww4report.com/node/13427

(Short article, no more at link.)

[Peace Patriot]

1. It's so good to see that at least one judge somewhere has not been...

...bought and paid for by Monsanto & brethren.

Three judges, actually, in Mexico! Two at the district level; one at the federal level. Wow! I will be very surprised, however, if Monsanto doesn't get reversals, via legal maneuvering, bribery and power-playing, at the federal level.

The article mentions some special provisions of the Mexican Constitution, having to do with Indigenous rights. I first learned of these during the Oaxaca uprising. The Indigenous and others in Oaxaca were trying to disempower a cruel, murderous, fascist governor and his henchmen, and tried to establish an alternative government, which they have a right to do under the Mexican Constitution. The Oaxaca uprising was crushed, however, by Mexico's president, Felipe Calderon (who had just been elected) and federal troops. So much for Indigenous rights, I thought.

It is heartening to see several judges confirm the right of people to prevent the food supply from being poisoned and their livelihoods destroyed, and further to confirm Indigenous rights under the Constitution. I hope these farmers can hang on to their victories. A lot is riding on their success--possibly the fate of the entire world food chain and the fate of planet Earth itself. Monsanto and other transglobal corporate poisoners, and land and resource thieves, must be stopped!

[Xipe Totec]

2. If only it was literally true. nt

[djean111]

3. Fantastic.