Letter No. 9: Tragedies and Dams (the struggle does not end there nor here)

In an unprece­dent­ed step, the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment has met pro­tes­tors’ demands by fly­ing the entire indige­nous occu­pa­tion – as well as their legal coun­cil and accom­pa­ny­ing jour­nal­ists – from Altami­ra to Brasil­ia to dia­logue with Pres­i­dent Rousseff’s Chief of Staff Gilber­to Car­val­ho and oth­er high offi­cials and min­is­ters. 

Led by the Mundurukú peo­ple of the Tapa­jós Riv­er basin, occu­pa­tions of Belo Monte’s main work camp spanned 17 days from May to June demand­ing the sus­pen­sion of dam con­struc­tion and envi­ron­men­tal fea­si­bil­i­ty stud­ies for future dams on indige­nous lands, and the guar­an­tee of the con­sti­tu­tion­al right to pri­or con­sul­ta­tion.

The 150 indige­nous pro­tes­tors who have staged a coura­geous nine-day occu­pa­tion of the Belo Monte dam’s main work camp have trav­eled to Brasil­ia today to meet in the Pres­i­den­tial Palace with high offi­cials from the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment. Today the indige­nous groups issued a 9th let­ter to the gov­ern­ment (see below)

Let­ter No. 9:
Tragedies and Dams (the strug­gle does not end there nor here)

We have left our occu­pa­tion of the Belo Monte dam and have come to dia­logue with the gov­ern­ment.

We have not come to an agree­ment with you. We accept this meet­ing in Brasil­ia because the more we said we would not leave, the more you sent police to the work camp. And on the same day that we were to be removed by force by the police, you killed a one of our rel­a­tives, a Ter­e­na in Mato Grosso do Sul. There­fore we decid­ed that we did not want anoth­er death. We avoid­ed a tragedy, not you. You do not pre­vent tragedies, you com­mit them.

We came here to speak to you of anoth­er tragedy that we will fight to pre­vent: the loss of our ter­ri­to­ry and our life. We did not come to nego­ti­ate with you, because one can­not nego­ti­ate with ter­ri­to­ry nor life. We are against the con­struc­tion of dams that kill indige­nous land, because they kill cul­ture when they kill fish and drown the land. This kills us with­out need­ing a weapon. You con­tin­ue killing a lot, sim­ply a lot. You have killed too much, for 513 years.

We did not come to talk only about dams on the Tapa­jós, as you are telling the press. We came to Brasil­ia to demand the sus­pen­sion of fea­si­bil­i­ty stud­ies and the con­struc­tion of dams on the Xin­gu, Tapa­jós, and Teles Pires Rivers. You are not only talk­ing with the Mundurukú peo­ple. You are talk­ing with Xipaya, Kayapó, Arara, Tupinam­bás, and with all the peo­ple who are togeth­er in this strug­gle, because this is a major strug­gle of us all.

We did not bring wish lists. We are against dams. We demand the fed­er­al government’s com­mit­ment to con­sult us and ensure our right to veto projects that destroy us.

But no. You tram­ple every­thing and do what they [the dam build­ing com­pa­nies] want. And to achieve that you do every­thing to divide indige­nous peo­ples. We came here to tell you to stop, because we will resist togeth­er and stand unit­ed. We have been gath­ered for 35 days in Altami­ra, and for 17 days we occu­pied the main hydro­elec­tric dam that you are build­ing. Along with this let­ter we are send­ing all the let­ters from the two occu­pa­tions that we car­ried out. Read every­thing care­ful­ly to under­stand our move­ment. And in so doing respect us, as you have not done up until today.

Dis­re­spect does not come only from words. It is demon­strat­ed by your actions.

In the region of the Xin­gu River’s Big Bend, every­thing is being destroyed and has been turned upside down since you approved the con­struc­tion of the Belo Monte dam. Every­one very sad and only the rich are doing well. Our indige­nous rel­a­tives have fought a lot. Even the con­struc­tion work­ers suf­fer.

On the Teles Pires and Tapa­jós Rivers, you are begin­ning this process now, but have already grave­ly dis­re­spect­ed us.

In August 2012, your researchers began to invade our lands, cap­ture our ani­mals and plants, count hectares, mea­sure the water, and drill our land.

In Octo­ber, [the indige­nous agency] FUNAI and Eletro­bras said in the meet­ing that the dams would be built in any cir­cum­stance, whether or not we want them. And that they would send the police force to our land if nec­es­sary.

In Novem­ber, the fed­er­al police attacked and destroyed the Teles Pires vil­lage, where we are all against dams. Ade­nil­son Mundurukú was killed, shot three times, and anoth­er 19 indige­nous peo­ple were wound­ed. At the end of the month we went to Brasil­ia denounce the police oper­a­tion to the Min­istry of Jus­tice, FUNAI and the Gen­er­al Sec­re­tari­at of the Pres­i­den­cy. We also went to pros­e­cu­tors from the Fed­er­al Pubic Min­istry.

In Jan­u­ary 2013, we held a large assem­bly in the Mundurukú vil­lage of Sai Cin­za, where a doc­u­ment with 33 demands was deliv­ered to a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Gen­er­al Sec­re­tari­at of the Pres­i­den­cy.

The fol­low­ing month, we returned to Brasil­ia demand a response from the Gen­er­al Sec­re­tari­at on these 33 points. We man­aged to find the min­is­ter, but he ignored our demands and tried to get us to sign a doc­u­ment accept­ing dams on the Tapa­jós Riv­er.

To ensure that envi­ron­men­tal impact stud­ies of these dams were car­ried out, the gov­ern­ment issued a decree in March 2013 autho­riz­ing the entry of police troops on our land. On the fol­low­ing day our vil­lages were raid­ed by police squads.

On the Teles Pires Riv­er, the ancient bones of our rel­a­tives were unearthed. You are destroy­ing a sacred place.

We could not accept this sit­u­a­tion any­more. For this rea­son we occu­pied your work camp, bring­ing our claims, demand­ing the government’s com­mit­ment to respect the orig­i­nal peo­ples of this coun­try, to respect our right to land and to life. Or, at least for the gov­ern­ment to respect its own law: the Con­sti­tu­tion and the inter­na­tion­al treaties you sign. Yet you want to destroy the laws that pro­tect us, indige­nous peo­ples, with oth­er laws and new decrees. You want to legal­ize destruc­tion.

And now we come here to you. Hop­ing that you final­ly lis­ten to us, rather than lis­ten­ing to those who pay for your polit­i­cal cam­paigns. Even if you are not will­ing to learn to lis­ten, we are will­ing to teach.
– Con­struc­tion site of the Belo Monte dam, Vitória do Xin­gu, June 4, 2013

I Am Writing To You On the Motor Hood of a Knocked-over Police Car, Taksim Square 4th June

A barricade in Taksim Square, Istanbul, Turkey

A bar­ri­cade in Tak­sim Square, Istan­bul, Turkey

A barricade in Taksim Square, Istanbul, Turkey

A bar­ri­cade in Tak­sim Square, Istan­bul, Turkey

Rais­ing Our Voic­es in Tak­sim Square

What began in Turkey sev­en days ago as the takeover of Gezi Park turned into a nation­al upris­ing from Istan­bul to oth­er major cities. A small protest to pro­tect pub­lic space – which the gov­ern­ment had ordered to be razed to make room for a shop­ping mall – unit­ed a wide range of cit­i­zens protest­ing what they see as the Prime Minister’s pro-busi­ness, author­i­tar­i­an, and reli­gious poli­cies. Tomor­row, June 4, the pub­lic sec­tor union coali­tion, KESK, will strike in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the protests.

This is a first-hand account from Tak­sim Square in Istan­bul, writ­ten by trade union leader Kıvanç Eli­açık, orig­i­nal­ly post­ed at Equal Times.

My trade union, the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Work­er Unions Con­fed­er­a­tion of Turkey (DISK), is part of a plat­form with pro­fes­sion­al asso­ci­a­tions and neigh­bor­hood organ­i­sa­tions.

This plat­form protests the con­struc­tion work in Tak­sim Square, Istan­bul, that will demol­ish the park there, replac­ing it with a shop­ping cen­tre.

When I heard that bull­doz­ers came and cut the trees in the park on Tues­day, I ran to the park.

Instead of shut­ting down the ille­gal con­struc­tion – the court revoked the con­struc­tion project – the police used tear gas against peo­ple who want to save the trees.

On that first night, we took tents and sleep­ing bags and went to the park. We sang and chat­ted till dawn. In the evening, thou­sands of peo­ple were gath­ered. A con­cert took place on a stage.

We were dis­cussing urban regen­er­a­tion, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion, human rights and work­ers’ rights. The high­light of all these dis­cus­sions was that they are all the result of gov­ern­ment poli­cies. An ever-chang­ing and grow­ing com­mit­tee was estab­lished.

When I woke up in the morn­ing the camp was drowned into tear gas and every­one was run­ning around. The police set the tents on fire. They uproot­ed the saplings that were plant­ed a day before. The bull­doz­ers were work­ing under the pro­tec­tion of riot police.

We did not want to get revenge. Some­one was read­ing a nov­el to the police using a mega­phone that was saved from the fire. Anoth­er per­son was ask­ing “why did you set my gui­tar on fire?” but by singing.

When we suc­ceed­ed in enter­ing the park we set up big­ger tents. In the evening there were tens of thou­sands peo­ple in the Square. Renowned musi­cians can­celled their con­certs and came to the park.

Peo­ple from var­i­ous views came togeth­er: peo­ple and work­ers on strike from regions that have been harmed by cor­po­rate and gov­ern­ment greed; foot­ball fans; rad­i­cal left par­ties; stu­dent organ­i­sa­tions; fem­i­nists; anar­chists; and veg­ans.

The fol­low­ing night we were bet­ter pre­pared. The garbage was peri­od­i­cal­ly cleared. Vol­un­teer secu­ri­ty staff were on patrol. Women were able to walk com­fort­ably in the camp area.

The government’s new alco­hol reg­u­la­tions [Turkey’s pres­i­dent is this week expect­ed to approve strict leg­is­la­tion that will pro­hib­it the sale of alco­hol in shops between 22.00 and 06.00, ban all alco­hol adver­tis­ing and pro­mo­tion, and stop new shops and bars from open­ing with­in 100m of schools and mosques] con­vert­ed drink­ing to a polit­i­cal action. Peo­ple were chant­i­ng slo­gans, on the oth­er hand they were singing songs, and drink­ing.

Towards the morn­ing hun­dreds of gog­gles, gas masks, lemon, vine­gar, home-made anti-tear gas solu­tions pre­pared by stom­ach pills were dis­trib­uted.

There were thou­sands of peo­ple in the park when the police attacked at 05.00 in the morn­ing. There were no warn­ings and sud­den­ly we were unable to see any­thing. We evac­u­at­ed the park in-line with the plan we made ear­li­er.

Clash­es in the street con­tin­ued till morn­ing. I man­aged to sneak in the park qui­et­ly, tak­ing advan­tage of the tired police. I watched the Bospho­rus sip­ping my tea in the shad­ow of a tree. I hope it won’t be the last time I see this view.

The pro­tes­tors tried to enter the park by gath­er­ing in back streets again and again. The police pre­vent­ed them by using exces­sive use of force. The whole city turned into a ral­ly are­na. Some demon­stra­tors walked the Bospho­rus Bridge that con­nects Asia and Europe.

So, who are these peo­ple that gath­ered in the square? It won’t be true to say that these peo­ple have com­mon views and com­mon aims. The only com­mon thing was they were angry to the gov­ern­ment… The police vio­lence against the youth who want­ed to pro­tect the trees trig­gered peo­ple and all the peo­ple who are against the gov­ern­ment were out on the streets.

Thou­sands of women and men who have not par­tic­i­pat­ed in a polit­i­cal demon­stra­tion before clashed with the police till late at night. The entered a new demon­stra­tion with­out event hav­ing break­fast.

With their home-made gas masks they revolt­ed against the police some­times by singing, some­times by swear­ing.

There were demon­stra­tors from wealthy fam­i­lies, but also unem­ployed peo­ple. There were peo­ple from Mus­lim asso­ci­a­tions and social­ist par­ties – every­one stand­ing shoul­der to shoul­der.

Peo­ple, who sought refuge in the bar­ri­cades, were tweet­ing and upload­ing pho­tos to Insta­gram. Pupils were draw­ing nasty graf­fi­ti address­ing the Prime Min­is­ter, Recep Tayyip Erdo­gan.

I met a cou­ple who were mak­ing plans for their wed­ding in the tele­phone booth where I shel­tered as rub­ber bul­lets rained down around me.

For the past five days, a grow­ing num­ber of demon­stra­tors are hav­ing fun and demon­strat­ing at the same time with­out sleep­ing or rest­ing. The most com­mon slo­gan chant­ed by the pro­tes­tors is “Resign Gov­ern­ment!”

Police vio­lence is not dri­ving us away. Fear has been defeat­ed now. We have learned to raise our voice when we are angry.

Some peo­ple are fight­ing, oth­ers are danc­ing. Some are lash­ing out drunk; oth­ers are col­lect­ing garbage and treat­ing stray ani­mals.

I do not know what is going to hap­pen tomor­row. But today is a new day and we are all new peo­ple.

What am I doing now? While tens of thou­sands of demon­stra­tors across the coun­try are ask­ing the Prime Min­is­ter to resign for many dif­fer­ent rea­sons, I am writ­ing to you on the motor hood of a knocked-over police car.

Kıvanç Eli­açık is the Direc­tor of the Inter­na­tion­al Rela­tions Depart­ment of the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Pro­gres­sive Trade Unions of Turkey (DISK).

 

URGENT: “We will die. We will not leave without being heard.” 4th June

Only two days after the reoc­cu­pa­tion of the Belo Monte Dam began, the fate of 170 indige­nous peo­ple is at stake. Yes­ter­day, the Fed­er­al Court in Altami­ra ordered them to leave by 4 pm today or they would be removed by Fed­er­al Police. They respond­ed by tear­ing up the order and refused to leave by the dead­line. Instead, they are stand­ing strong and are demand­ing that Pres­i­dent Dilma’s Chief of Staff, Gilber­to Car­val­ho, come meet with them. Their let­ter to the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment is below. Read, share and take urgent action right now!

You can also show your sup­port by donat­ing to the indige­nous occu­pa­tion on CAUSES.

Let­ter No. 8:
The mas­sacre has been announced and only the gov­ern­ment can avoid this fate

(Orig­i­nal ver­sion in Por­tuguese here)

We have occu­pied the con­struc­tion site of the Belo Monte Dam. We are defend­ing our lands. These ancient lands have always been ours and you have already tak­en a part of them. And now you are try­ing to take more. We will not leave.

You will come to kill us and we will die. We will not leave with­out being heard.

The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment announced a mas­sacre of indige­nous peo­ples, the 170 war­riors, women, chil­dren, lead­ers and shamans who are here. This mas­sacre is going to hap­pen at the hands of police, Funai, and the judi­cial sys­tem.

You have killed at Teles Pires and will kill again when you need to. You killed us because we are against the dams. We know what you are capa­ble of doing.

This time the gov­ern­ment and cor­po­ra­tions have asked Norte Ener­gia to kill us. Norte Ener­gia pled their case to a fed­er­al judge, who sub­se­quent­ly autho­rized the police to beat and kill us if need­ed. Gov­ern­ment of Brazil and cor­po­ra­tions build­ing Belo Monte, it will be your fault if any of us die.

Enough with the vio­lence! Stop threat­en­ing us! We want our peace and you want your war. Stop lying to the press that we are kid­nap­ping work­ers and bus­es and caus­ing an incon­ve­nience. The occu­pa­tion is qui­et The unrest is caused by the police sent by the judge, Norte Ener­gia, and the gov­ern­ment. You are the ones who are humil­i­at­ing us, threat­ing us, intim­i­dat­ing us, and assas­si­nat­ing us when you don’t know what else to do.

We demand the sus­pen­sion of the order to repos­sess the con­struc­tion site, until Thurs­day morn­ing, May 30th, 2013. The gov­ern­ment needs to come here and hear us. You already know our agen­da. We demand the sus­pen­sion of all works and stud­ies of dams on our lands. We demand the removal of the Nation­al Force from our lands. The lands are ours. You have wast­ed enough of our lands.

You want us to be tame and qui­et, obey­ing your civ­i­liza­tion with­out ques­tion. But in this case, we know you would rather see us dead because we are mak­ing noise.

Sea Turtle Activist Murdered in Costa Rica 4th June

Jairo Mora San­doval, a 26 year-old sea tur­tle con­ser­va­tion­ist and activist, was mur­dered late last week in Cos­ta Rica. Accord­ing to news reports from Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, San­doval and four oth­er sea tur­tle vol­un­teers, includ­ing three Amer­i­can women and a woman from Spain,  were kid­napped on Thurs­day,  May 30, by armed men.

San­doval was found tied up, beat­en and shot dead in the head on the beach the fol­low­ing day. The four vol­un­teers had escaped or been released.

Ini­tial reports on the police inves­ti­ga­tion point to the mur­ders being poach­ers after sea tur­tle eggs.

San­doval is yet anoth­er in a long list of fall­en war­riors mur­dered for defend­ing life on Earth.

60,000 in Tokyo Protest Government Plans to Restart Nuclear Power 3rd June

Approx­i­mate­ly 60,000 peo­ple ral­lied in Japan’s cap­i­tal of Tokyo on Sun­day, June 2nd in order to protest recent gov­ern­ment plans to restart the country’s idled nuclear reac­tors. Peo­ple gath­ered in Shi­ba Park and lat­er marched towards the par­lia­ment build­ing. Among the orga­niz­ers was Ken­z­aburo Oe, a Nobel lit­er­a­ture lau­re­ate, who called on the Japan­ese gov­ern­ment to leave the nuclear pow­er plants in sus­pen­sion out of fears for safe­ty.

The Japan­ese gov­ern­ment has pre­vi­ous­ly stat­ed that it will most like­ly allow those reac­tors to return to pow­er which have been approved by the Nuclear Reg­u­la­tion Author­i­ty (NRA), whose new safe­ty guide­lines are sched­uled to be adopt­ed in July. One of Japan’s largest-ever protests saw 170,000 peo­ple gath­er in a sim­i­lar fash­ion in July 2012, around the same time that then-Prime Min­is­ter Yoshi­hiko Noda decid­ed on the first two reac­tor restarts since the March 2011 Fukushi­ma dis­as­ter. As of now, the anti-nuclear pro­tes­tors say they have col­lect­ed over 8 mil­lion sig­na­tures of those opposed to reac­tor restarts.

As they marched through the streets, the pro­tes­tors car­ried signs and ban­ners that had mes­sages such as “No Nukes! Unevolved Apes Want Nukes!” As of today, the two reac­tors that were restart­ed last sum­mer, locat­ed in Oi, Fukui Pre­fec­ture, are the only ones out the country’s 50 that have returned to oper­a­tion. While Sunday’s ral­ly was orga­nized between three dif­fer­ent groups, Kyo­do news report­ed that the Tokyo Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police Depart­ment had put the num­ber of pro­test­ers between 20,000 and 30,000.

A Few Inspiring Moments from Turkey, Occupy Gezi. 2nd June

There is a lot of fear, there is a lot of anger, there is a lot of bloodshed.

There is a lot of fear, there is a lot of anger, there is a lot of bloodshed.
But there is also a lot of beauty.

OccupyGezi1

Istanbul Government Truck, one of many destroyed last night. Graffiti reads "You are not innocent anymore" #gezi pic.twitter.com/yFAKG78SYL

Istan­bul Gov­ern­ment Truck. Graf­fi­ti reads “You are not inno­cent any­more” pic.twitter.com/yFAKG78SYL

 

occupygezi2

Clean up in Gezi Park

peoplesbulldozeroccupygezi4

San Francisco Activists Liberate Park in Solidarity with Turkish Resistance 2nd June

On June 1st, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the mas­sive resis­tance in Turkey which began six days ago, Lib­er­ate the Land activists in San Fran­cis­co marched to a park space known as “Hayes Val­ley Farm” and began an occu­pa­tion.

On June 1st, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the mas­sive resis­tance in Turkey which began six days ago, Lib­er­ate the Land activists in San Fran­cis­co marched to a park space known as “Hayes Val­ley Farm” and began an occu­pa­tion. The piece of land is sched­uled to be turned into con­do­mini­ums, a devel­op­ment project which the pro­tes­tors plan to stop. Not only are they phys­i­cal­ly hold­ing the space with their bod­ies and mul­ti­ple treesits, the group is also plant­i­ng a “Free Farm” for the com­mu­ni­ty, shar­ing reg­u­lar meals, and hold­ing com­mu­ni­ty-build­ing and per­ma­cul­ture work­shops.

Par­tic­i­pants have renamed the space “Gezi Gar­dens” in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the cur­rent rebel­lion in Turkey, which began with the occu­pa­tion of Gezi park in Istan­bul. Pro­test­ers in Istan­bul began occu­py­ing Gezi park when devel­op­ers start­ed rip­ping up the trees to make way for a shop­ping mall. The insane police response sparked an upris­ing that has swept the coun­try. There have been oth­er sol­i­dar­i­ty demon­stra­tions all over the world, includ­ing the reoc­cu­pa­tion of Zuc­cot­ti park in New York City, the orig­i­nal home of Occu­py Wall Street.

Lib­er­ate the Land plans to occu­py indef­i­nite­ly, and has released a state­ment ask­ing oth­ers to join them:

Lib­er­ate the Land invites every­one to join this net­work in the days fol­low­ing today’s lib­er­a­tion, to plant food, cre­ate and pro­mote per­ma­cul­ture, host and attend work­shops, teach and take class­es, play and enjoy music, build, gath­er, exper­i­ment, play, learn, and be togeth­er.  A vibrant com­mu­ni­ty of plants and peo­ple are liv­ing on this land as of this first of June rather than the first lay­ers of con­crete foun­da­tion for con­do­mini­ums.  We invite our neigh­bors in Hayes Val­ley to join us in open dia­logue to fur­ther decide what Gezi Gar­dens will become.

Lib­er­ate the Land is bring­ing into dia­logue the con­cept of com­mon space, a clas­si­fi­ca­tion of space that goes out­side of the dichoto­my of pri­vate and pub­lic and instead places itself as the com­mons. The com­mons exist as the spaces owned and oper­at­ed nei­ther by gov­ern­ments and states, nor cor­po­ra­tions and pri­vate indi­vid­u­als. Instead, the com­mons are owned, or stew­ard­ed, by all peo­ple, with an under­stand­ing that the gifts of the earth are for all to enjoy and that peo­ple need land bases for grow­ing food, har­vest­ing med­i­c­i­nal plans, main­tain­ing healthy forests for build­ing mate­ri­als and fire­wood, wild­craft­ing plants for fab­rics, and host­ing wildlife habi­tat.

Read the rest of the state­ment here, and fol­low @LiberateLand on twit­ter for more updates on Gezi Gar­dens

Monsanto Set to Halt GMO Push in Europe 2nd June

The march against Mon­san­to,

The march against Mon­san­to, Ger­many. (Image from twit­ter user@@HarvestPM)

Mon­san­to plans to halt lob­by­ing for its genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied plant vari­eties in Europe due to low demand from local farm­ers, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the US agri­cul­tur­al giant told a Ger­man dai­ly.

“We are no longer work­ing on lob­by­ing for more cul­ti­va­tion in Europe,” Bran­don Mitch­n­er a rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Monsanto’s Euro­pean branch, Tageszeitung, said in an inter­view set to be pub­lished on Sat­ur­day.

“Cur­rent­ly we do not plan to apply for the approval of new genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied crops. The rea­son is, among oth­er things, low demand of the farm­ers,” he con­tin­ued.

A spokes­woman for Mon­san­to Ger­many, Ursu­la Luttmer-Ouazane, admit­ted that Mon­san­to rec­og­nizes that GMO crops were cur­rent­ly not embraced on the Euro­pean mar­ket.

“We’ve under­stood that such plants don’t have any broad accep­tance in Euro­pean soci­eties,” Luttmer-Ouazane said. “It is coun­ter­pro­duc­tive to fight against wind­mills,” she added.

A spokesper­son for the Ger­man Min­istry of Econ­o­my and Tech­nolo­gies described the move as an “entre­pre­neur­ial deci­sion” which need­ed no fur­ther com­ment. The min­istry added, how­ev­er, it has long made its oppo­si­tion to gene mod­i­fi­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies known.

“The promis­es of the GM indus­try have not come true for Euro­pean agri­cul­ture, nor have they for the agri­cul­ture in devel­op­ing and emerg­ing economies,” the min­istry said in a state­ment.

Eight nation­al gov­ern­ments in the Euro­pean Union have already banned Monsanto’s MON810 maize and oth­er forms of GMO cul­ti­va­tion in their coun­tries under an envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion pro­vi­sion known as the ‘Safe­guard Clause’.

Par­tic­u­lar­ly fierce protests in Ger­many prompt­ed the gov­ern­ment to intro­duce the mea­sures in 2009 due to con­cerns that such cul­ti­va­tion could lead to eco­log­i­cal degra­da­tion.

Monsanto’s rivals, such as Bay­er Crop­Science, BASF and Syn­gen­ta, had by and large pulled out of the Ger­man mar­ket because of large-scale pub­lic oppo­si­tion, the Ger­man dai­ly report­ed.

Aus­tria, Bul­gar­ia, France, Greece, Hun­gary, Lux­em­bourg and most recent­ly Poland are among oth­er EU mem­ber states enforc­ing the ban. In April, Italy joined the ranks of EU states look­ing to ban the cul­ti­va­tion of GM crops on its soil.

The march against Monsanto, Germany. (Image from twitter user@Julia_etc)

The march against Mon­san­to, Ger­many. (Image from twit­ter user@Julia_etc)

The announce­ment comes amidst a series of recent pub­lic rela­tions bat­tles that have brought the US firm con­sid­er­able world­wide atten­tion.

On Wednes­day, the US Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture (USDA) said it had con­duct­ed genet­ic tests on wheat from an 80-acre farm in Ore­gon this past April. The tests revealed the wheat was an exper­i­men­tal vari­ety cre­at­ed by Mon­san­to that had nev­er been approved for sale.

The dis­cov­ery prompt­ed Japan­ese author­i­ties to can­cel part of a ten­der offer to buy US west­ern white wheat and have sus­pend­ed imports of both that vari­ety and feed wheat, while sev­er­al oth­er large importers of US-wheat through­out Asia said they were close­ly mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion.

The Euro­pean Union for its part said it will test any incom­ing ship­ments, with plans to block those con­tain­ing GMO wheat.

The USDA announce­ment fol­lowed a mas­sive, glob­al “March Against Mon­san­to” held on Sat­ur­day that saw demon­stra­tions against the Mis­souri-based firm in 52 coun­tries.  Orga­niz­ers for the glob­al protest said around 2 mil­lion pro­test­ers showed up at ral­lies being held in 436 cities to protest against the seed giant and the genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied food.

 

The march against Monsanto, Munich. (Image from twitter user@nasimjo)

The march against Mon­san­to, Munich. (Image from twit­ter user@nasimjo)

 

Plea from Turkey 1st June

Turkey’s protests against the log­ging of trees in  Gezi Park have grown into a nation-wide upheaval. The heavy-hand­ed police response, using tear gas and pep­per spray against bystanders and pro­tes­tors, alike, has ignit­ed a pro­found response against state repres­sion in Turkey.

Envi­ron­men­tal­ism in Turkey as well as East­ern Europe/West Asia has been on the rise in the last 5–10 years, and this mas­sive demon­stra­tion ris­ing from anti-log­ging protests presents a land­mark in the his­to­ry of this region.

Thou­sands of pro­tes­tors have swelled in the streets of every major city in Turkey. More sol­i­dar­i­ty demon­stra­tions are planned from Ger­many to the US. From Athens to Lon­don, San Fran­cis­co to Boston, protests are already draw­ing thou­sands of peo­ple, and more are planned for the future.

Gezi Park is one of the small­est parks in Istan­bul, but the sym­bol­ic val­ue of replac­ing it with an Ottoman-style bar­racks aggra­vates the anti-impe­r­i­al dri­ve of the Turk­ish peo­ple. The police bru­tal­i­ty is shock­ing even to vet­er­ans of pro-democ­ra­cy strug­gles.

Here is an urgent mes­sage from an anony­mous source in Turkey right now: “I am writ­ing you all to ask that you please share any and all infor­ma­tion you can about the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in Istan­bul. There is des­per­ate need of int‘l sup­port from what I wit­nessed last night and from the news com­ing via social net­work­ing, etc. They are get­ting no domes­tic media atten­tion, and the Prime Min­is­ter has offered no expla­na­tions for the unprece­dent­ed police vio­lence. Gov‘t sup­port­ers also went com­plete­ly unchecked by police last night, beat­ing (and as i under­stand it) killing at least one pro­test­er on their walk home.”

New Teargas Crackdown on Anti-government Protesters in Turkey 31st May

Turk­ish police fired tear gas and water can­non on Fri­day at pro­test­ers occu­py­ing a park in cen­tral Istan­bul, injur­ing scores in the lat­est vio­lent crack­down on anti-gov­ern­ment demon­stra­tions.

Turk­ish police fired tear gas and water can­non on Fri­day at pro­test­ers occu­py­ing a park in cen­tral Istan­bul, injur­ing scores in the lat­est vio­lent crack­down on anti-gov­ern­ment demon­stra­tions.

The protest at Gezi Park start­ed late on Mon­day after devel­op­ers tore up trees but has widened into a broad­er demon­stra­tion against Prime Min­is­ter Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist-root­ed Jus­tice and Devel­op­ment Par­ty (AKP).

Riot police recent­ly clashed with tens of thou­sands of May Day pro­test­ers in Istan­bul. There have also been protests against the government’s stance on the con­flict in neigh­bor­ing Syr­ia, a recent tight­en­ing of restric­tions on alco­hol sales and warn­ings against pub­lic dis­plays of affec­tion.

Police staged a dawn raid on demon­stra­tors who had been camp­ing for days in Gezi Park in anger at plans to build a shop­ping mall, and clouds of tear gas rose around the area in Tak­sim Square that has long been a venue for polit­i­cal protest.

“We do not have a gov­ern­ment, we have Tayyip Erdogan…Even AK Par­ty sup­port­ers are say­ing they have lost their mind, they are not lis­ten­ing to us,” said Koray Caliskan, a polit­i­cal sci­en­tist at Bospho­rus Uni­ver­si­ty who attend­ed the protest. “This is the begin­ning of a sum­mer of dis­con­tent.”

The Istan­bul Med­ical Cham­ber, a doc­tors’ asso­ci­a­tion, said at least 100 peo­ple sus­tained minor injuries on Fri­day, some of them when a wall they were climb­ing col­lapsed as they tried to flee clouds of tear gas.

Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al said it was con­cerned by what it described as “the use of exces­sive force” by the police against what had start­ed out as a peace­ful protest.

Erdo­gan has over­seen a trans­for­ma­tion in Turkey dur­ing his decade in pow­er, turn­ing its econ­o­my from cri­sis-prone into Europe’s fastest-grow­ing. Per capi­ta income has tripled in nom­i­nal terms since his par­ty rose to pow­er.

He remains by far Turkey’s most pop­u­lar politi­cian, and is wide­ly viewed as its most pow­er­ful leader since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk found­ed the mod­ern sec­u­lar repub­lic on the ash­es of the Ottoman Empire 90 years ago.

The unrest has been far from the sort of mass demon­stra­tions seen in oth­er parts of the Mid­dle East or even parts of Europe in recent years, but it reflects grow­ing oppo­si­tion con­cern about Erdogan’s author­i­tar­i­an­ism.

DEFIANCE

Hun­dreds of mil­i­tary offi­cers have been jailed on charges of plot­ting a coup against Erdo­gan in recent years; oth­ers includ­ing aca­d­e­mics, jour­nal­ists and politi­cians face tri­al on sim­i­lar accu­sa­tions.

Erdo­gan has made no secret of his ambi­tion to run for the pres­i­den­cy in elec­tions next year when his term as prime min­is­ter ends, exac­er­bat­ing oppo­si­tion con­cerns.

“These peo­ple will not bow down to you” read one ban­ner at the Gezi Park protest, along­side a car­toon of Erdo­gan wear­ing an Ottoman emperor’s tur­ban.

Post­ings on social media includ­ing Twit­ter, where “Occu­py Gezi” – a ref­er­ence to protests in New York and Lon­don last year – was a top-trend­ing hash­tag, and Face­book said sim­i­lar demon­stra­tions were planned for the next few days in oth­er Turk­ish cities includ­ing Ankara, Izmir, Adana and Bur­sa.

“Kiss protests” – in which demon­stra­tors are urged to lock lips – had already been planned for Istan­bul and Ankara this week­end after sub­way offi­cials were report­ed to have admon­ished a cou­ple for kiss­ing in pub­lic a week ago.

Erdo­gan is push­ing ahead with a slew of mul­ti-bil­lion dol­lar projects which he sees as embody­ing Turkey’s emer­gence as a major pow­er. They include a ship­ping canal designed to rival Pana­ma or Suez, a giant mosque and a third Istan­bul air­port billed to be one of the world’s biggest.

Speak­ing just a few miles from Gezi Park at the launch on Wednes­day of con­struc­tion of a third bridge link­ing Istanbul’s Euro­pean and Asian shores, Erdo­gan vowed to pur­sue plans to rede­vel­op Tak­sim Square.

Archi­tects, left­ist polit­i­cal par­ties, aca­d­e­mics, city plan­ners and oth­ers have long opposed the plans, say­ing they lacked con­sul­ta­tion with civic groups and would remove one of cen­tral Istanbul’s few green spaces.