Gandhi, Guevara Fifty-Fifty

by Satya Sagar

http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/23475

"How do we make non-violent activism sexy?" asked a friend in a letter to me recently.

His question was posed in the context of the ongoing debate in the national media and elsewhere about the supposed threat to national security from Maoists who are mobilising tribals in central and eastern India for a protracted war to overthrow the Indian State. The State on its part is marshalling its paramilitary and other troops to ‘flush out' the Maoists, unfazed by the collateral damage this civil war is likely to cause among the already severely exploited tribal population.

My friend's point was really that peaceful, democratic social movements never seem to get the same kind of publicity or government attention given to bloodshed by dissident groups of various hues. For example, the reason why the Maoists get so much play from the government and national media is precisely because of their regular use and explicit promotion of armed action as a means to further their cause. The same national political elite and media that calls on the Maoists to enter the mainstream, abjure violence and work within the framework of the Indian Constitution, would not pay any attention to their demands at all if the latter really give up the gun.

Just look around India right now and there are dozens, maybe even hundreds, of social activists and groups working peacefully and democratically on a range of important issues for many years. There are movements against forced displacement, struggles for land and forest rights, education and health facilities or the rights of oppressed castes and ethnic minorities- some of them successful, many of them not so. All are dismissed by those in power as not ‘threatening enough' to be taken seriously. Ironically or deliberately, for all its official abhorrence of violent means, the Indian State and its bulldog media are promoting the perverse idea that if you want to be heard, you have to use the gun.

One good example is that of the Manipuri poet and activist Sharmila Irom, who on 2 November 2009 entered her tenth straight year of fasting demanding the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in Manipur- a world record if there is one for hunger fasts anywhere. The AFSPA is one of the most draconian laws anywhere in the world and allows even foot soldiers of the Indian army to shoot ‘suspected' militants, a privilege they abuse with frightening abandon. Sharmila's marathon fast though is not the kind of stuff that makes the Indian government even think, leave alone blink. Instead the soft-bellied but hard-nosed politicos who run this country must be simply laughing their guts out at her non-violently starving herself for democratic rights.

Violence Vs Non-Violence

I personally don't have any absolute position on the issue of violence versus non-violence because both terms are in my view impossible to define with precision and no meaningful debate is possible around them.

For example, do not the speculative flows of global capital that leave in their wake thousands upon thousands destitute, driving many to commit suicide, constitute a clear form of violence? Nobody puts a gun to the heads of the 2.5 million Indian children who die every year due to malnutrition- so are these supposed to be ‘non-violent' deaths?

Further the ethical and moral dimension of any action depends on the specific context and cannot be pre-judged or prescribed in a cast-in-iron manner. The Muslims who died in Gujarat's 2002 pogrom for example surely had the right- if they had got the chance at all- to shoot the fascist mobs that managed to lynch them because they found them unarmed.

In many ways the concept of ‘non-violence' also depends crucially on how ‘violence' is defined and by looking at the kind of ‘violence' that is perpetrated. In other words, the notion of proportionality is very crucial to understanding what is ‘non-violence' and what is not. For instance, if I am threatened by a regime that merely sends me to jail for dissent then the corresponding ‘non-violent' strategy will different than if my oppressor tries to bomb me and my entire neighbourhood out of existence, a la Iraq or Afghanistan.

On a purely theoretical plane my own answer to the question ‘Gandhi or Guevara?' is ‘fifty-fifty'. Both had their spectacular successes and abject failures in different contexts.

Gandhi for example after leading a non-violent struggle for India's freedom could do little to prevent the Partition of the sub-continent that led to the deaths of over 2 million people and displacement of 14 million more within the space of just a few months. This was violence on a scale shocking even for a planet just emerging from two successive World Wars and showed the limitations of Gandhi's politics of non-violence, that could not take into account the machinations of various other forces operating around him.

Che on the other hand after participating in the violent overthrow of Cuba's Batista dictatorship got murdered in Bolivia, after failing to get local peasants and workers to join his attempts to spark off an armed rebellion. Four decades later, in the same Bolivia, a revolutionary new government has been elected to power under the leadership of Evo Morales, who successfully mobilised the country's much oppressed indigenous population through militant but unarmed movements.

The Indian Context

In the Indian context, unfortunately, the language of physical force and bloodshed has been preferred by the Indian ruling elites over that of peace and persuasion not just in modern times but for millennia. One has simply to delve into Indian mythology to easily recognise the horrific militarism that permeates every ancient epic and the routine valorisation of intrigue, bloodshed and the murderous mindset it represents.

So in the famous sermon on the battlefield, the Bhagvat Gita, the Hindu deity Krishna exhorts Arjuna to drop his qualms about killing his close relatives, his guru and all those he loves and respects in the ‘enemy' camp as his ‘karma' or ‘duty' to kill is more important than human values. Almost every Hindu god is further depicted carrying war weapons meant to exterminate ‘asuras' and ‘rakshasas'- obvious euphemisms for some tribal character or the other whose resources were being taken over by the ever expanding Aryan ‘deva' population. Even the gods are insecure in this country of ours.

Since Independence the Indian ruling class has simply reverted to such age old traditions of using naked force to deal with social sections considered ‘inferior'- like ethnic or religious minorities, Dalits, Adivasis, workers or peasants. Forget about actual civil conflict of which this country has seen plenty since 1947 in Nagaland, Mizoram, Kashmir, Punjab and so on - just look at the figures of deaths in police custody around the country, the highest in the world, and you can understand how violence is an integral part of the Indian State's day to day functioning.

And why blame the formal Indian State alone, why not take a closer look at the sheer amount of violence that exists in every nook and corner of Indian society itself- where even disputes over parking of cars in the capital city often result in murder. Between dowry deaths, honour killings, female foeticide, infanticide, caste related massacres and jealousies aroused by simple boy-girl romances India is more a Super-Slaughterhouse than the Superpower it wants to be or the Land of Ahimsa it claims to have been in the past.

As for Indian political organizations today, it is not just radical sections like the Maoists but all mainstream national level parties, like the Congress, BJP and CPI(M), that use violent means routinely to establish their hegemony as evident from their respective roles in the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom, the Gujarat genocide and the Nandigram massacre. While operating within the democratic spaces offered by the Indian polity, contesting parliamentary elections and claiming allegiance to the Indian Constitution, they show little respect in actual practice for democratic rights, norms or processes. As far as they are concerned such spaces are to be merely exploited till such a time they are in complete command and the pretence of democracy itself can be cast off like a dispensable cover over their quest for raw power.

Modernity and Violence

There is yet another source of great violence in the world we live in that comes from the notions of modernity that have been in vogue since the nineteenth century. It is violence born out of blind belief in the concepts of the fortified nation state, industrialisation, urbanisation and ever-increasing production and consumption as being synonymous with progress and development.

During the last fifty-two years, some 3.300 big dams have been constructed in India and another 1,000 are under construction leading to the displacement of anywhere between 21 to 33 million people. Over 55 percent of those displaced are from tribal communities who constitute only 8 percent of India's population but pay a disproportionately heavy price for national ‘growth'.

Further the skewed policies in favour of urbanization and industrialization has pauperized India's rural folk, whose survival depends on the callously neglected agricultural sector. Over 180,000 farmers have committed suicide between 1997 and 2007 while millions of villagers are forced to migrate to the cities as economic refugees to live in miserable slums that do not offer even the most basic of amenities leave alone a life of dignity. The urban centers of India are sucking the resources of the countryside dry and with it the very basis of existence of 70 percent of the country's population.

If one adds to all this the annual toll of human lives extracted by the indiscriminate use of pesticides, industrial accidents, pollution of water by toxic wastes, loss of soil fertility due to Green Revolution agriculture and so on the costs of modern progress are exceedingly high indeed.

Reform or Revolution?

So given all these multiple sources of violence what are the brave but increasingly lonely activists advocating ‘non-violence' as a means of social action and political change supposed to do?

I would argue that it is precisely because of all the violence around us that there is an even greater need for non-violent approaches to solving social problems. There is in fact an urgent need to lower the levels of violence not just in India but all over the South Asian sub-continent that is home to two nuclear powers and has already seen several wars and the horrific massacres of the Partition.

Armed actions do produce results sometimes and are highly attractive therefore to impatient youth or groups for whom it is part of ideological faith. However, hard experience tells the victories are very often ephemeral and only lay the foundation for yet another bout of bloodshed and the cycle keeps spinning out of control well beyond the original objectives with which the violence started. The examples of such violence begetting violence without end are strewn all over the planet from the killing fields of Cambodia to the tropical forests of Colombia.

Armed actions are also elitist in nature and do not allow mass participation thereby depriving an opportunity to politicise the greatest number and build the basis for a genuinely democratic movement or a democratic future. A handful of Robin Hoods do not a Revolution make and it is ultimately the political experience of millions of ordinary citizens that can ensure one dictatorship is not merely replaced by another.

Talking about revolution, political parties that describe themselves as revolutionary and which have the integrity and even perhaps the right social vision should also stop looking down on unarmed movements as ‘reformist' or conflating all ‘revolutionary' work with armed action alone. ‘Reform or Revolution?' is in fact a trick question - like ‘food or freedom', ‘love or money', ‘democracy or development'? As if any of these two terms are mutually exclusive and as if anybody really knows where one ends and the other begins. Is it not simply absurd for some of the most sincere and committed political activists we have to be willing to give up their lives for a cause because this is ‘revolutionary' but not give a glass of water to someone dying of thirst because this is seen as ‘reformist'?

Finally, the reason why armed actions should be avoided as much as possible in the current Indian context is simply because a hell of a lot of problems in the country like the caste system, religious bigotry, honour killings, female foeticide, patriarchy or environmental destruction are extremely complex and cannot be solved by merely shooting bullets or setting off bombs. They require intelligent long-term interventions with a lot of care and perseverance and the involvement of millions in a country as large as India. The weapons of choice are really that of knowledge and courage combined with creative ways or organising the diverse people of this land. The objectives should be to achieve tangible goals such as ensuring basic standards of nutrition, health, education and the infrastructure needed to lead a decent life of dignity.

In that sense they are more like the challenges faced by the farmer trying to grow his crop on hostile soil and battling the vagaries of the weather than that of an engineer trying get a mountain out of his way for a project. The latter can use dynamite but for the former this would be suicidal. Ironically, many advocates of agrarian revolution in the subcontinent seem to be in a tearing hurry to capture the land without doing the hard work of cultivating the soil, waiting for the first rains or planting the seeds of a future society all around. It may be time to learn from the humble Indian peasant and show a little more patience and wisdom instead of ending up harvesting an imaginary crop and cooking a non-existent meal.

Satya Sagar is a journalist, writer and videomaker based in New Delhi. He can be reached at sagarnama@gmail.com

---

FOOD CRISIS (Part One)

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/17632

'The greatest demonstration of the historical failure of the capitalist model'

May 14, 2008 By Ian Angus
Source: Socialist Voice

Ian Angus's ZSpace Page

"If the government cannot lower the cost of living it simply has to leave. If the police and UN troops want to shoot at us, that's OK, because in the end, if we are not killed by bullets, we'll die of hunger."

— A demonstrator in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

In Haiti, where most people get 22% fewer calories than the minimum needed for good health, some are staving off their hunger pangs by eating "mud biscuits" made by mixing clay and water with a bit of vegetable oil and salt.[1]

Meanwhile, in Canada, the federal government is currently paying $225 for each pig killed in a mass cull of breeding swine, as part of a plan to reduce hog production. Hog farmers, squeezed by low hog prices and high feed costs, have responded so enthusiastically that the kill will likely use up all the allocated funds before the program ends in September.

Some of the slaughtered hogs may be given to local Food Banks, but most will be destroyed or made into pet food. None will go to Haiti.

This is the brutal world of capitalist agriculture — a world where some people destroy food because prices are too low, and others literally eat dirt because food prices are too high.

Record prices for staple foods

We are in the midst of an unprecedented worldwide food price inflation that has driven prices to their highest levels in decades. The increases affect most kinds of food, but in particular the most important staples — wheat, corn, and rice.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization says that between March 2007 and March 2008 prices of cereals increased 88%, oils and fats 106%, and dairy 48%. The FAO food price index as a whole rose 57% in one year — and most of the increase occurred in the past few months.

Another source, the World Bank, says that that in the 36 months ending February 2008, global wheat prices rose 181% and overall global food prices increased by 83%. The Bank expects most food prices to remain well above 2004 levels until at least 2015.

The most popular grade of Thailand rice sold for $198 a tonne five years ago and $323 a tonne a year ago. On April 24, the price hit $1,000.

Increases are even greater on local markets — in Haiti, the market price of a 50 kilo bag of rice doubled in one week at the end of March.

These increases are catastrophic for the 2.6 billion people around the world who live on less than US$2 a day and spend 60% to 80% of their incomes on food. Hundreds of millions cannot afford to eat.

This month, the hungry fought back.

Taking to the streets

In Haiti, on April 3, demonstrators in the southern city of Les Cayes built barricades, stopped trucks carrying rice and distributed the food, and tried to burn a United Nations compound. The protests quickly spread to the capital, Port-au-Prince, where thousands marched on the presidential palace, chanting "We are hungry!" Many called for the withdrawal of UN troops and the return of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the exiled president whose government was overthrown by foreign powers in 2004.

President René Préval, who initially said nothing could be done, has announced a 16% cut in the wholesale price of rice. This is at best a stop-gap measure, since the reduction is for one month only, and retailers are not obligated to cut their prices.

The actions in Haiti paralleled similar protests by hungry people in more than twenty other countries.

In Burkino Faso, a two-day general strike by unions and shopkeepers demanded "significant and effective" reductions in the price of rice and other staple foods.

In Bangladesh, over 20,000 workers from textile factories in Fatullah went on strike to demand lower prices and higher wages. They hurled bricks and stones at police, who fired tear gas into the crowd.

The Egyptian government sent thousands of troops into the Mahalla textile complex in the Nile Delta, to prevent a general strike demanding higher wages, an independent union, and lower prices. Two people were killed and over 600 have been jailed.

In Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, police used tear gas against women who had set up barricades, burned tires and closed major roads. Thousands marched to the President's home, chanting "We are hungry," and "Life is too expensive, you are killing us."

In Pakistan and Thailand, armed soldiers have been deployed to prevent the poor from seizing food from fields and warehouses.

Similar protests have taken place in Cameroon, Ethiopia, Honduras, Indonesia, Madagascar, Mauritania, Niger, Peru, Philippines, Senegal, Thailand, Uzbekistan, and Zambia. On April 2, the president of the World Bank told a meeting in Washington that there are 33 countries where price hikes could cause social unrest.

A Senior Editor of Time magazine warned:

"The idea of the starving masses driven by their desperation to take to the streets and overthrow the ancien regime has seemed impossibly quaint since capitalism triumphed so decisively in the Cold War.... And yet, the headlines of the past month suggest that skyrocketing food prices are threatening the stability of a growing number of governments around the world. .... when circumstances render it impossible to feed their hungry children, normally passive citizens can very quickly become militants with nothing to lose."[2]

What's Driving Food Inflation?

Since the 1970s, food production has become increasingly globalized and concentrated. A handful of countries dominate the global trade in staple foods. 80% of wheat exports come from six exporters, as does 85% of rice. Three countries produce 70% of exported corn. This leaves the world's poorest countries, the ones that must import food to survive, at the mercy of economic trends and policies in those few exporting countries. When the global food trade system stops delivering, it's the poor who pay the price.

For several years, the global trade in staple foods has been heading towards a crisis. Four related trends have slowed production growth and pushed prices up.

The End of the Green Revolution: In the 1960s and 1970s, in an effort to counter peasant discontent in south and southeast Asia, the U.S. poured money and technical support into agricultural development in India and other countries. The "green revolution" — new seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, agricultural techniques and infrastructure — led to spectacular increases in food production, particularly rice. Yield per hectare continued expanding until the 1990s.

Today, it's not fashionable for governments to help poor people grow food for other poor people, because "the market" is supposed to take care of all problems. The Economist reports that "spending on farming as a share of total public spending in developing countries fell by half between 1980 and 2004."[3] Subsidies and R&D money have dried up, and production growth has stalled.

As a result, in seven of the past eight years the world consumed more grain than it produced, which means that rice was being removed from the inventories that governments and dealers normally hold as insurance against bad harvests. World grain stocks are now at their lowest point ever, leaving very little cushion for bad times.

Climate Change: Scientists say that climate change could cut food production in parts of the world by 50% in the next 12 years. But that isn't just a matter for the future:

Australia is normally the world's second-largest exporter of grain, but a savage multi-year drought has reduced the wheat crop by 60% and rice production has been completely wiped out.

In Bangladesh in November, one of the strongest cyclones in decades wiped out a million tonnes of rice and severely damaged the wheat crop, making the huge country even more dependent on imported food.

Other examples abound. It's clear that the global climate crisis is already here, and it is affecting food.

Agrofuels: It is now official policy in the U.S., Canada and Europe to convert food into fuel. U.S. vehicles burn enough corn to cover the entire import needs of the poorest 82 countries.[4]

Ethanol and biodiesel are very heavily subsidized, which means, inevitably, that crops like corn (maize) are being diverted out of the food chain and into gas tanks, and that new agricultural investment worldwide is being directed towards palm, soy, canola and other oil-producing plants. The demand for agrofuels increases the prices of those crops directly, and indirectly boosts the price of other grains by encouraging growers to switch to agrofuel.

As Canadian hog producers have found, it also drives up the cost of producing meat, since corn is the main ingredient in North American animal feed.

Oil Prices: The price of food is linked to the price of oil because food can be made into a substitute for oil. But rising oil prices also affect the cost of producing food. Fertilizer and pesticides are made from petroleum and natural gas. Gas and diesel fuel are used in planting, harvesting and shipping.[5]

It's been estimated that 80% of the costs of growing corn are fossil fuel costs — so it is no accident that food prices rise when oil prices rise.

* * *

By the end of 2007, reduced investment in third world agriculture, rising oil prices, and climate change meant that production growth was slowing and prices were rising. Good harvests and strong export growth might have staved off a crisis — but that isn't what happened. The trigger was rice, the staple food of three billion people.

Early this year, India announced that it was suspending most rice exports in order to rebuild its reserves. A few weeks later, Vietnam, whose rice crop was hit by a major insect infestation during the harvest, announced a four-month suspension of exports to ensure that enough would be available for its domestic market.

India and Vietnam together normally account for 30% of all rice exports, so their announcements were enough to push the already tight global rice market over the edge. Rice buyers immediately started buying up available stocks, hoarding whatever rice they could get in the expectation of future price increases, and bidding up the price for future crops. Prices soared. By mid-April, news reports described "panic buying" of rice futures on the Chicago Board of Trade, and there were rice shortages even on supermarket shelves in Canada and the U.S.

Why the rebellion?

There have been food price spikes before. Indeed, if we take inflation into account, global prices for staple foods were higher in the 1970s than they are today. So why has this inflationary explosion provoked mass protests around the world?

The answer is that since the 1970s the richest countries in the world, aided by the international agencies they control, have systematically undermined the poorest countries' ability to feed their populations and protect themselves in a crisis like this.

Haiti is a powerful and appalling example.

Rice has been grown in Haiti for centuries, and until twenty years ago Haitian farmers produced about 170,000 tonnes of rice a year, enough to cover 95% of domestic consumption. Rice farmers received no government subsidies, but, as in every other rice-producing country at the time, their access to local markets was protected by import tariffs.

In 1995, as a condition of providing a desperately needed loan, the International Monetary Fund required Haiti to cut its tariff on imported rice from 35% to 3%, the lowest in the Caribbean. The result was a massive influx of U.S. rice that sold for half the price of Haitian-grown rice. Thousands of rice farmers lost their lands and livelihoods, and today three-quarters of the rice eaten in Haiti comes from the U.S.[6]

U.S. rice didn't take over the Haitian market because it tastes better, or because U.S. rice growers are more efficient. It won out because rice exports are heavily subsidized by the U.S. government. In 2003, U.S. rice growers received $1.7 billion in government subsidies, an average of $232 per hectare of rice grown.[7] That money, most of which went to a handful of very large landowners and agribusiness corporations, allowed U.S. exporters to sell rice at 30% to 50% below their real production costs.

In short, Haiti was forced to abandon government protection of domestic agriculture — and the U.S. then used its government protection schemes to take over the market.

There have been many variations on this theme, with rich countries of the north imposing "liberalization" policies on poor and debt-ridden southern countries and then taking advantage of that liberalization to capture the market. Government subsidies account for 30% of farm revenue in the world's 30 richest countries, a total of US$280 billion a year,[8] an unbeatable advantage in a "free" market where the rich write the rules.

The global food trade game is rigged, and the poor have been left with reduced crops and no protections.

In addition, for several decades the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have refused to advance loans to poor countries unless they agree to "Structural Adjustment Programs" (SAP) that require the loan recipients to devalue their currencies, cut taxes, privatize utilities, and reduce or eliminate support programs for farmers.

All this was done with the promise that the market would produce economic growth and prosperity — instead, poverty increased and support for agriculture was eliminated.

"The investment in improved agricultural input packages and extension support tapered and eventually disappeared in most rural areas of Africa under SAP. Concern for boosting smallholders' productivity was abandoned. Not only were governments rolled back, foreign aid to agriculture dwindled. World Bank funding for agriculture itself declined markedly from 32% of total lending in 1976-8 to 11.7% in 1997-9."[9]

During previous waves of food price inflation, the poor often had at least some access to food they grew themselves, or to food that was grown locally and available at locally set prices. Today, in many countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, that's just not possible. Global markets now determine local prices — and often the only food available must be imported from far away.

* * *

Food is not just another commodity — it is absolutely essential for human survival. The very least that humanity should expect from any government or social system is that it try to prevent starvation — and above all that it not promote policies that deny food to hungry people.

That's why Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez was absolutely correct on April 24, to describe the food crisis as "the greatest demonstration of the historical failure of the capitalist model."

What needs to be done to end this crisis, and to ensure that doesn't happen again?
Part Two of this article will examine those questions.

Ian Angus is the editor of Climate and Capitalism

---

Footnotes

[1] Kevin Pina. "Mud Cookie Economics in Haiti." Haiti Action Network, Feb. 10, 2008. http://www.haitiaction.net/News/HIP/2_10_8/2_10_8.html

[2] Tony Karon. "How Hunger Could Topple Regimes." Time, April 11, 2008. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1730107,00.html

[3] "The New Face of Hunger." The Economist, April 19, 2008.

[4] Mark Lynas. "How the Rich Starved the World." New Statesman, April 17, 2008. http://www.newstatesman.com/200804170025

[5] Dale Allen Pfeiffer. Eating Fossil Fuels. New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island BC, 2006. p. 1

[6] Oxfam International Briefing Paper, April 2005. "Kicking Down the Door." http://www.oxfam.org/en/files/bp72_rice.pdf

[7] Ibid.

[8] OECD Background Note: Agricultural Policy and Trade Reform. http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/52/23/36896656.pdf

[9] Kjell Havnevik, Deborah Bryceson, Lars-Erik Birgegård, Prosper Matondi & Atakilte Beyene. "African Agriculture and the World Bank: Development or Impoverishment?" Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, http://www.links.org.au/node/328

FOOD CRISIS (Part Two): Capitalism, Agribusiness, and the Food Sovereignty Alternative

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/17642
By Ian Angus
Source: Socialist Voice

Ian Angus's ZSpace Page

"Nowhere in the world, in no act of genocide, in no war, are so many people killed per minute, per hour and per day as those who are killed by hunger and poverty on our planet."

—Fidel Castro, 1998

When food riots broke out in Haiti last month, the first country to respond was Venezuela. Within days, planes were on their way from Caracas, carrying 364 tons of badly needed food.

The people of Haiti are "suffering from the attacks of the empire's global capitalism," Venezuelan president Hugo Chàvez said. "This calls for genuine and profound solidarity from all of us. It is the least we can do for Haiti."

Venezuela's action is in the finest tradition of human solidarity. When people are hungry, we should do our best to feed them. Venezuela's example should be applauded and emulated.

But aid, however necessary, is only a stopgap. To truly address the problem of world hunger, we must understand and then change the system that causes it.

No shortage of food

The starting point for our analysis must be this: there is no shortage of food in the world today.

Contrary to the 18th century warnings of Thomas Malthus and his modern followers, study after study shows that global food production has consistently outstripped population growth, and that there is more than enough food to feed everyone. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, enough food is produced in the world to provide over 2800 calories a day to everyone — substantially more than the minimum required for good health, and about 18% more calories per person than in the 1960s, despite a significant increase in total population.[1]

As the Food First Institute points out, "abundance, not scarcity, best describes the supply of food in the world today."[2]

Despite that, the most commonly proposed solution to world hunger is new technology to increase food production.

The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, aims to develop "more productive and resilient varieties of Africa's major food crops ... to enable Africa's small-scale farmers to produce larger, more diverse and reliable harvests."[3]

Similarly, the Manila-based International Rice Research Institute has initiated a public-private partnership "to increase rice production across Asia via the accelerated development and introduction of hybrid rice technologies."[4]

And the president of the World Bank promises to help developing countries gain "access to technology and science to boost yields."[5]

Scientific research is vitally important to the development of agriculture, but initiatives that assume in advance that new seeds and chemicals are needed are neither credible nor truly scientific. The fact that there is already enough food to feed the world shows that the food crisis is not a technical problem — it is a social and political problem.

Rather than asking how to increase production, our first question should be why, when so much food is available, are over 850 million people hungry and malnourished? Why do 18,000 children die of hunger every day?

Why can't the global food industry feed the hungry?

The profit system

The answer can be stated in one sentence. The global food industry is not organized to feed the hungry; it is organized to generate profits for corporate agribusiness.

The agribusiness giants are achieving that objective very well indeed. This year, agribusiness profits are soaring above last year's levels, while hungry people from Haiti to Egypt to Senegal were taking to the streets to protest rising food prices. These figures are for just three months at the beginning of 2008.[6]

Grain Trading

· Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). Gross profit: $1.15 billion, up 55% from last year

· Cargill: Net earnings: $1.03 billion, up 86%

· Bunge. Consolidated gross profit: $867 million, up 189%.

Seeds & herbicides

· Monsanto. Gross profit: $2.23 billion, up 54%.

· Dupont Agriculture and Nutrition. Pre-tax operating income: $786 million, up 21%

Fertilizer

· Potash Corporation. Net income: $66 million, up 185.9%

· Mosaic. Net earnings: $520.8 million, up more than 1,200%

The companies listed above, plus a few more, are the monopoly or near-monopoly buyers and sellers of agricultural products around the world. Six companies control 85% of the world trade in grain; three control 83% of cocoa; three control 80% of the banana trade.[7] ADM, Cargill and Bunge effectively control the world's corn, which means that they alone decide how much of each year's crop goes to make ethanol, sweeteners, animal feed or human food.

As the editors of Hungry for Profit write, "The enormous power exerted by the largest agribusiness/food corporations allows them essentially to control the cost of their raw materials purchased from farmers while at the same time keeping prices of food to the general public at high enough levels to ensure large profits."[8]

Over the past three decades, transnational agribusiness companies have engineered a massive restructuring of global agriculture. Directly through their own market power and indirectly through governments and the World Bank, IMF and World Trade Organization, they have changed the way food is grown and distributed around the world. The changes have had wonderful effects on their profits, while simultaneously making global hunger worse and food crises inevitable.

The assault on traditional farming

Today's food crisis doesn't stand alone: it is a manifestation of a farm crisis that has been building for decades.

As we saw in Part One of this article, over the past three decades the rich countries of the north have forced poor countries to open their markets, then flooded those markets with subsidized food, with devastating results for Third World farming.

But the restructuring of global agriculture to the advantage of agribusiness giants didn't stop there. In the same period, southern countries were convinced, cajoled and bullied into adopting agricultural policies that promote export crops rather than food for domestic consumption, and favour large-scale industrial agriculture that requires single-crop (monoculture) production, heavy use of water, and massive quantities of fertilizer and pesticides. Increasingly, traditional farming, organized by and for communities and families, has been pushed aside by industrial farming organized by and for agribusinesses.

That transformation is the principal obstacle to a rational agriculture that could eliminate hunger.

The focus on export agriculture has produced the absurd and tragic result that millions of people are starving in countries that export food. In India, for example, over one-fifth of the population is chronically hungry and 48% of children under five years old are malnourished. Nevertheless, India exported US$1.5 billion worth of milled rice and $322 million worth of wheat in 2004.[9]

In other countries, farmland that used to grow food for domestic consumption now grows luxuries for the north. Colombia, where 13% of the population is malnourished, produces and exports 62% of all cut flowers sold in the United States.

In many cases the result of switching to export crops has produced results that would be laughable if they weren't so damaging. Kenya was self-sufficient in food until about 25 years ago. Today it imports 80% of its food — and 80% of its exports are other agricultural products.[10]

The shift to industrial agriculture has driven millions of people off the land and into unemployment and poverty in the immense slums that now surround many of the world's cities.

The people who best know the land are being separated from it; their farms enclosed into gigantic outdoor factories that produce only for export. Hundreds of millions of people now must depend on food that's grown thousands of miles away because their homeland agriculture has been transformed to meet the needs of agribusiness corporations. As recent months have shown, the entire system is fragile: India's decision to rebuild its rice stocks made food unaffordable for millions half a world away.

If the purpose of agriculture is to feed people, the changes to global agriculture in the past 30 years make no sense. Industrial farming in the Third World has produced increasing amounts of food, but at the cost of driving millions off the land and into lives of chronic hunger — and at the cost of poisoning air and water, and steadily decreasing the ability of the soil to deliver the food we need.

Contrary to the claims of agribusiness, the latest agricultural research, including more than a decade of concrete experience in Cuba, proves that small and mid-sized farms using sustainable agroecological methods are much more productive and vastly less damaging to the environment than huge industrial farms.[11]

Industrial farming continues not because it is more productive, but because it has been able, until now, to deliver uniform products in predictable quantities, bred specifically to resist damage during shipment to distant markets. That's where the profit is, and profit is what counts, no matter what the effect may be on earth, air, and water — or even on hungry people.

Fighting for food sovereignty

The changes imposed by transnational agribusiness and its agencies have not gone unchallenged. One of the most important developments in the past 15 years has been the emergence of La Vía Campesina (Peasant Way), an umbrella body that encompasses more than 120 small farmers' and peasants' organizations in 56 countries, ranging from the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) in Brazil to the National Farmers Union in Canada.

La Vía Campesina initially advanced its program as a challenge to the "World Food Summit," a 1996 UN-organized conference on global hunger that was attended by official representatives of 185 countries. The participants in that meeting promised (and subsequently did nothing to achieve) the elimination of hunger and malnutrition by guaranteeing "sustainable food security for all people."[12]

As is typical of such events, the working people who are actually affected were excluded from the discussions. Outside the doors, La Vía Campesina proposed food sovereignty as an alternative to food security. Simple access to food is not enough, they argued: what's needed is access to land, water, and resources, and the people affected must have the right to know and to decide about food policies. Food is too important to be left to the global market and the manipulations of agribusiness: world hunger can only be ended by re-establishing small and mid-sized family farms as the key elements of food production.[13]

The central demand of the food sovereignty movement is that food should be treated primarily as a source of nutrition for the communities and countries where it is grown. In opposition to free-trade, agroexport policies, it urges a focus on domestic consumption and food self-sufficiency.

Contrary to the assertions of some critics, food sovereignty is not a call for economic isolationism or a return to an idealized rural past. Rather, it is a program for the defense and extension of human rights, for land reform, and for protection of the earth against capitalist ecocide. In addition to calling for food self-sufficiency and strengthening family farms, La Vía Campesina's original call for food sovereignty included these points:

• Guarantee everyone access to safe, nutritious and culturally appropriate food in sufficient quantity and quality to sustain a healthy life with full human dignity.
• Give landless and farming people — especially women — ownership and control of the land they work and return territories to indigenous peoples.
• Ensure the care and use of natural resources, especially land, water and seeds. End dependence on chemical inputs, on cash-crop monocultures and intensive, industrialized production.
• Oppose WTO, World Bank and IMF policies that facilitate the control of multinational corporations over agriculture. Regulate and tax speculative capital and enforce a strict Code of Conduct on transnational corporations.
• End the use of food as a weapon. Stop the displacement, forced urbanization and repression of peasants.
• Guarantee peasants and small farmers, and rural women in particular, direct input into formulating agricultural policies at all levels.[14]

La Vía Campesina's demand for food sovereignty constitutes a powerful agrarian program for the 21st century. Labour and left movements worldwide should give full support to it and to the campaigns of working farmers and peasants for land reform and against the industrialization and globalization of food and farming.

Stop the war on Third World farmers

Within that framework, we in the global north can and must demand that our governments stop all activities that weaken or damage Third World farming.

Stop using food for fuel. La Vía Campesina has said it simply and clearly: "Industrial agrofuels are an economic, social and environmental nonsense. Their development should be halted and agricultural production should focus on food as a priority."[15]

Cancel Third World debts. On April 30, Canada announced a special contribution of C$10 million for food relief to Haiti.[16] That's positive - but during 2008 Haiti will pay five times that much in interest on its $1.5 billion foreign debt, much of which was incurred during the imperialist-supported Duvalier dictatorships.

Haiti's situation is not unique and it is not an extreme case. The total external debt of Third World countries in 2005 was $2.7 trillion, and their debt payments that year totalled $513 billion.[17] Ending that cash drain, immediately and unconditionally, would provide essential resources to feed the hungry now and rebuild domestic farming over time.

Get the WTO out of agriculture. The regressive food policies that have been imposed on poor countries by the World Bank and IMF are codified and enforced by the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Agriculture. The AoA, as Afsar Jafri of Focus on the Global South writes, is "biased in favour of capital-intensive, corporate agribusiness-driven and export-oriented agriculture."[18] That's not surprising, since the U.S. official who drafted and then negotiated it was a former vice-president of agribusiness giant Cargill.

AoA should be abolished, and Third World countries should have the right to unilaterally cancel liberalization policies imposed through the World Bank, IMF, and WTO, as well as through bilateral free trade agreements such as NAFTA and CAFTA.

Self-Determination for the Global South. The current attempts by the U.S. to destabilize and overthrow the anti-imperialist governments of the ALBA group — Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua and Grenada — continue a long history of actions by northern countries to prevent Third World countries from asserting control over their own destinies. Organizing against such interventions "in the belly of the monster" is thus a key component of the fight to win food sovereignty around the world.

* * *

More than a century ago, Karl Marx wrote that despite its support for technical improvements, "the capitalist system works against a rational agriculture ... a rational agriculture is incompatible with the capitalist system."[19]

Today's food and farm crises completely confirm that judgment. A system that puts profit ahead of human needs has driven millions of producers off the land, undermined the earth's productivity while poisoning its air and water, and condemned nearly a billion people to chronic hunger and malnutrition.

The food crisis and farm crisis are rooted in an irrational, anti-human system. To feed the world, urban and rural working people must join hands to sweep that system away.

Footnotes

[1] Frederic Mousseau, Food Aid or Food Sovereignty? Ending World Hunger in Our Time. Oakland Institute, 2005. http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/pdfs/fasr.pdf.
International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development. Global Summary for Decision Makers. http://www.agassessment.org/docs/Global_SDM_210408_FINAL.pdf

[2] Francis Moore Lappe, Joseph Collins, Peter Rosset. World Hunger: Twelve Myths. (Grove Press, New York, 1998) p. 8

[3] "About the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa."
http://www.agra-alliance.org/about/about_more.html

[4] IRRI Press Release, April 4, 2008. http://www.irri.org/media/press/press.asp?id=171

[5] "World Bank President Calls for Plan to Fight Hunger in Pre-Spring Meetings Address." News Release, April 2, 2008

[6] These figures are taken from the companies' most recent quarterly reports, found on their websites. Because they report the numbers in different ways, they can't be compared to each other, only to their own previous reports.

[7] Shawn Hattingh. "Liberalizing Food Trade to Death." MRzine, May 6, 2008. http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/hattingh060508.html

[8] Fred Magdoff, John Bellamy Foster and Frederick H. Buttel. Hungry for Profit: The Agribusiness Threat to Farmers, Food, and the Environment. Monthly Review Press, New York, 2000. p. 11

[9] UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Key Statistics Of Food And Agriculture External Trade. http://www.fao.org/es/ess/toptrade/trade.asp?lang=EN&dir=exp&country=100

[10] J. Madeley. Hungry for Trade: How the poor pay for free trade. Cited in Ibid

[11] Jahi Campbell, "Shattering Myths: Can sustainable agriculture feed the world?" and " Editorial. Lessons from the Green Revolution." Food First Institute. www.foodfirst.org

[12] World Food Summit. http://www.fao.org/wfs/index_en.htm

[13] La Vía Campesina. "Food Sovereignty: A Future Without Hunger." (1996) http://www.voiceoftheturtle.org/library/1996%20Declaration%20of%20Food%20Sovereignty.pdf

[14] Paraphrased and abridged from Ibid

[15] La Vía Campesina. "A response to the Global Food Prices Crisis: Sustainable family farming can feed the world." http://www.viacampesina.org/main_en/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=483&Itemid=38

[16] By way of comparison, this year Canada will spend $1 billion on the illegal occupation of and war in Afghanistan

[17] Jubilee Debt Campaign. "The Basics About Debt." http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/?lid=98

[18] Afsar H. Jafri. "WTO: Agriculture at the Mercy of Rich Nations." Focus on the Global South, November 7, 2005. http://www.focusweb.org/india/content/view/733/30/

[19] Capital, Volume III. Karl Marx & Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Volume 37, p. 123

Ian Angus is editor of Climate and Capitalism. Part One of this article was published in Socialist Voice and in The Bullet (Socialist Project), on April 28, 2008.

The Venezuelan Effort to Build a New Food and Agriculture System

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/22912

Christina and William interviewed by Against the Grain

October 19, 2009 By Christina Schiavoni
and William Camacaro

Source: Monthly Review

Christina Schiavoni's ZSpace Page

In April 2008, as people around the world took to the streets to protest the global food crisis and the lack of political will to address it, a crowd of a different nature gathered in Venezuela. Afro-Venezuelan cacao farmers and artisanal fishermen of the coastal community of Chuao came together to witness their president pledge that the food crisis would not hinder Venezuela's advancements in food and agriculture. "There is a food crisis in the world, but Venezuela is not going to fall into that crisis," said Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez Frías. "You can be sure of that. Actually, we are going to help other nations who are facing this crisis."1 He then went on to describe Venezuela's most recent developments in food and agriculture, as well as the work that still lay ahead. This was one of several weekly addresses that Chávez had dedicated to food and agriculture as the world food crisis unfolded.

It was evident to the people of Chuao that their president's words were matched by action. Despite its reputation as the home of some of the world's finest cacao, Chuao had been largely overlooked by past governments. Today, the cacao producers of Chuao benefit from previously unimaginable government support, in the form of new storage facilities, office space, and classrooms, access to low-interest credit, technical assistance in organic production, and even loans to support what is now a thriving agritourism industry. Traditional chocolate makers are running new microenterprises through the support of educational workshops and loans. Additionally, plans are underway for a new processing plant that will enable the community to derive greater value from its cacao. Chuao Cacao Cooperative president Alcides Herrera explains that these efforts are not just about cacao production, but also about reclaiming Venezuela's agricultural heritage and supporting the communities who have preserved this heritage over the years.2

Artisanal fishing is the other main industry of Chuao, and fishermen now have new equipment, such as nets, boats, and a cooling facility. No longer competing with large-scale, environmentally destructive bottom-trawling ships, they are now catching new varieties of fish and fish of larger sizes compared to previous years. This indicates that the local fish stocks are being replenished, and the fishermen consider their role to be stewards in this process. While they once depended upon intermediaries to sell their fish for export, they now sell the majority of their fish to the government for distribution through its subsidized network of supermarkets. This direct relationship with the government not only ensures fair prices for the fishermen, but also "enables the people of Venezuela to eat good fish for good prices," Chuao fisherman Hernando Liendo proudly explains.3

Although not yet representative of the entire nation, the case of Chuao is not an isolated example. It reflects a transformation of Venezuela's food and agriculture system, as part of the country's broader national process of social change, the Bolivarian Revolution. While many other countries are just beginning to turn their attention to issues of national food security, as necessitated by the most recent global food crisis, the people of Venezuela and their government have been actively tackling these issues for the past decade. They have been working to ensure not only the human right to food, but also the ability of the country to feed itself. The efficacy of these efforts is now being put to the test, as the Venezuelan government strives to buffer its population from a series of global crises, while partnering with neighboring countries to coordinate a regional response. The discussion in this chapter examines the Venezuelan effort to build a new food and agriculture system.

Reclaiming Agrarian Roots

Ironically, the very oil wealth that today is being used to rebuild Venezuela's food and agriculture system is largely to blame for its prior dismantling. Venezuela is a country with agrarian roots, as indicated by its music, art, and culinary traditions. However, the discovery of vast petroleum reserves and the subsequent development of a major oil exporting industry led to the neglect of the country's agriculture sector over the course of the twentieth century, as an influx of foreign currency made it relatively cheap to import food and other goods.4

An abandoned agricultural sector meant abandoned rural communities, leading to a mass exodus of people from the countryside into urban areas, particularly in and around the capital of Caracas. By 1960, the percentage of the population living in rural areas had dropped by nearly half to just 35 percent, and then to a mere 12 percent by the 1990s, making Venezuela home to one of the most urbanized populations in Latin America.5 Additionally, with domestic food production greatly reduced, Venezuela became the only Latin American country to be a net importer of agricultural products.6

By the time Chávez was elected at the end of 1998, Venezuela's remaining rural communities were in crisis, and the majority of those who had migrated into cities and urban margins faced substandard housing and sanitation, lack of adequate social services, and lack of decent job opportunities.7 Over half of the population lived in poverty, and 42.5 percent lived in extreme poverty.8 Venezuela depended on food imports for more than 70 percent of its food supply, putting many staples out of reach for the poor. Such dependency on food imports also put the population as a whole in a highly vulnerable situation.

Given these challenges, a key strategic priority of the Bolivarian Revolution has been to restructure Venezuela's food and agriculture system, under the framework of "food sovereignty." Food sovereignty is a concept originating from the Vía Campesina international peasants' network, defined, in short, as the right of people to determine their own food and agricultural policies.9 It involves restoring control over food distribution and food production from corporate agribusinesses and international financial institutions back to individual nations/tribes/peoples—and ultimately, to all those who produce the food as well as the general non-farming population. Venezuela is among the first countries in the world to have officially adopted the framework of food sovereignty, and has since been joined by several others, including Mali, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nepal.

Laying the Foundation for Food Sovereignty

It is important to place Venezuela's food sovereignty efforts within the context of the Bolivarian Revolution, as the two are inextricably linked. The following are four core principles of the Bolivarian Revolution that figure heavily into efforts for food sovereignty:

Bolivarianism: The Bolivarian Revolution is named for Símon Bolívar, who led struggles for independence from colonial and imperialist forces throughout much of Latin America in the early 1800s. To this day, Bolívar represents a vision for a liberated and united Latin America. In Venezuela's struggle for food sovereignty, Bolivarianism points to a food system free of corporate control, neoliberal economic policies, and unfair trade rules. Internationally, Venezuela is forging alternative systems of trade and cooperation that promote the integration of Latin America and support each country's right to food sovereignty.

Socialism of the Twenty-First Century: This involves building new social and economic systems based on equality, social inclusion, shared wealth and resources, and true participation of all members of society. In terms of food and agriculture, this means returning the means of production to the people through agrarian reform and cooperatively run farms and food-processing factories, as well as the treatment of food as a basic human right rather than a commodity for profit.

Endogenous Development: Meaning "development from within," this implies first looking inside, not outside, to meet the country's development needs, building upon Venezuela's own unique assets. This means valuing the agricultural knowledge and experience of women, indigenous, Afro-descendents, and other typically marginalized campesino (peasant farming) populations as fundamental to Venezuela's food sovereignty. This also means preserving Venezuela's native seeds, traditional farming methods, and culinary practices.

Participatory Democracy: This form of governance empowers citizens to play a direct role in politics, having a say in decisions that impact their lives. In Venezuela, it is facilitated by community councils, of which there are over 35,000 (and growing) throughout the country.10 Community councils and other forms of citizen organizing are enabling communities to monitor their food needs, shape food policies, and take control over their local food systems, much as local "food policy councils" in the United States strive to do.

Venezuela's new constitution, adopted by popular referendum in 1999, laid the foundation for food sovereignty through several key articles. For example, article 305 states:

The State shall promote sustainable agriculture as the strategic basis for overall rural development, and consequently shall guarantee the population a secure food supply, defined as the sufficient and stable availability of food within the national sphere and timely and uninterrupted access to the same for consumers....Food production is in the national interest and is fundamental to the economic and social development of the Nation.11

Article 306 addresses rural development and support for agricultural activity, while article 307 addresses land issues, establishing the basis for passage of the Law of the Land in 2001, a critical instrument for Venezuela's agrarian reform.

Land for Food, Food for People

"Agricultural land, first and foremost, is for producing food, food for people," says National Assembly member and lifelong campesino Braulio Álvarez.12 Behind these simple words are years of intense struggle over the right to land for farming. Disparities in land access and ownership in Venezuela have historically been so extreme that, according to a 1997 agricultural census, 5 percent of landowners controlled 75 percent of the land, and 75 percent of landowners controlled only 6 percent of the land.13 Much of the land concentrated in the hands of the large landholders sits idle or underused. Such landholdings are known as latifundios. The Venezuelan constitution deems latifundios to be contrary to the interests of society and charges the state with guaranteeing the food-producing potential of both privately and collectively held land. Accordingly, the Law of the Land requires that agricultural land be used for food production and gives communities a legal framework for organizing themselves to settle and farm idle lands. According to government figures released in January 2009, nearly 2.7 million hectares (6.6 million acres) of latifundio land have been returned to productivity since the passage of the Law of the Land.14 Most of the recovered land is now directly under the stewardship of farmers, many of whom have organized themselves into cooperatives. A portion of the land is also dedicated to strategic projects in support of food sovereignty.

Recently, Chávez has called upon local and state authorities to do more to facilitate the agrarian reform process, as it has faced many obstacles. It is important to note that the law allows for the expropriation of private land only under a specific set of circumstances and through an extensive legal process that includes compensation to the landowner at current market value. Nevertheless, the law has raised the ire of many of the larger landholders—some have even resorted to paying death squads to assassinate campesinos settled on recovered land. To date, over two hundred campesinos have been killed in acts of retaliation against the land reform process.15 Despite such adversities, approximately a third of the latifundio land existing in 1998 has been recovered, benefitting 180,000 families.16 Large parcels of latifundio once held by a single owner have been transformed into entire rural communities. For these communities, and for the landless peasants still striving for the right to land, the struggle goes on.

Tools for Success

There is a wide range of support to nurture the success of small and mid-scale farms, from credit and technical assistance to social services and market access. In the past, farmers were regularly denied access to credit or charged exploitative interest rates. Now, there are laws requiring both public and private banks to provide credit to farmers at reasonable interest rates, as well as a special fund and an agricultural bank specifically aimed at supplying low-interest and no-interest credit to farmers. According to Eduardo Escobar, former president of the Agricultural Bank of Venezuela, "Formerly, agricultural planning was top-down and imposed upon communities. Now it is a much more participatory process. Community councils determine credit needs based on social needs. All the offices here are spaces for community processes, discussions, and consensus-building."17

Thanks to these efforts, agricultural credit has increased significantly, from approximately $164 million in 1999 to approximately $7.6 billion in 2008.18 Additionally, several new laws were passed in 2008 to further support and protect farmers, particularly those most vulnerable. These measures include debt eradication (through a Plan Zero Debt) and relief for farmers facing crop failures and other adverse circumstances, similar to an insurance program. In recognition of the critical service that farmers provide to society, these supports aim to serve as a safety net that enables them to stay on their land and keep farming.

Farmers also receive support in the form of necessary inputs and equipment, such as tractors and seeds, as well as training and technical assistance. Through the Campo Adentro (Into the Countryside) program, for instance, 2,000 Cuban agronomists specializing in organic agriculture are partnered with Venezuelan cooperatives to provide consultation and training, as Venezuela nurtures its own fleet of agricultural specialists.19 Local farmer-to-farmer programs also facilitate exchange of knowledge and skills. Additionally, rural populations benefit from a wide range of government-sponsored programs, or "missions," that work in partnership with local communities. The missions cover services such as housing, sanitation, food access, education, medical care, childcare, and phone and internet access. These critical services aim to reach even the remotest communities, including the communities of Venezuela's fifty-four indigenous groups.

Also essential to farmers are access to stable markets and assurance of adequate income. Mechanisms addressing this include price stabilization and subsidies for staple crops, and direct sales to a government-run agricultural corporation as well as to consumers in community markets. These mechanisms are decreasing dependence on intermediaries, which have historically exploited farmers and consumers alike. Similar support mechanisms are already in place for Venezuela's small-scale fishing industry that has faced similar challenges to those of the farmers.

Yielding Results

In its commitment to food sovereignty, the Venezuelan government has taken unprecedented steps to bolster its agricultural sector, as evidenced by an increase of 5,783 percent in agricultural financing from 1998 to 2007.20 This investment in agriculture is driving Venezuela's ability to feed itself through its own food production. With continued progress over recent years, Venezuela's food production capacity is currently at 21 million tons, which represents a 24 percent overall increase from 1998.21 When these figures are analyzed in terms of specific food products, it is clear that the foods of greatest importance to the Venezuelan diet have achieved significantly higher increases in production.

By 2008, Venezuela reached levels of self sufficiency in its two most important grains, corn and rice, with production increases of 132 percent and 71 percent respectively since 1998.22 The country also achieved self-sufficiency in pork, representing an increase in production of nearly 77 percent since 1998. Furthermore, Venezuela is on its way to reaching self-sufficiency in a number of other important staple foods, including beef, chicken, and eggs, for which domestic production currently meets 70 percent, 85 percent, and 80 percent of national demand, respectively. Milk production has increased by 900 percent to 1.96 million tons, fulfilling 55 percent of national demand. Spurred by a "scarcity" of milk created by private distributors in early 2008, the government recently pledged its commitment to attain self-sufficiency in milk production in the near future. Many other crops have seen significant increases over the past decade, including black beans (143 percent), root vegetables (115 percent), and sunflowers for cooking oil production (125 percent). This suggests a prioritization of culturally important crops and a focus on matching domestic agricultural production with national consumer demands.

In a remarkable reversal of the trends of recent decades, Venezuela is actually becoming poised to export certain crops (in addition to coffee and cacao, which are already exported in limited amounts), after surpassing levels sufficient to meet national demand. The country is already in a position to export pork—currently at 113 percent of national demand—and is projected to have a sufficient surplus of corn for export within a year. Both Chávez and Agricultural Minister Elías Jaua have emphasized that the goal is for Venezuela to produce enough food to feed its own population while supporting other countries that lack sufficient food to meet domestic needs. Venezuela hopes to play this role out of recognition that support from its neighbors in the form of food imports has been critical during its own transition from food dependence to food sovereignty.

Working with Nature

Not only are Venezuelans working to increase domestic food production, they are concerned with how food is being produced. Miguel Angel Nuñez of the Venezuela-based Institute for the Production and Research of Tropical Agriculture (IPIAT) describes how Venezuela's farmers are leading the country onto the cutting edge of the movement for agroecology.23 Agroecology essentially means farming with nature rather than against it—by building up soil as the basis for productivity, using sustainable inputs, and working with natural cycles. Nuñez explains that an agroecological approach to food production provides a viable alternative to the one-size-fits-all model of industrial agriculture, which degrades the soil, creates extra waste while requiring extra cost, and fails to reach the same levels of productivity as systems adapted to Venezuela's unique tropical conditions. It also requires expensive, often toxic, external inputs, such as synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, sold by multinational agribusinesses. Nuñez and the farmers he works with view dependence upon such inputs to be in direct conflict with the concept of food sovereignty, as well as an affront to human health and the environment.

For many Venezuelan farmers, the process of reclaiming agricultural land also involves reclaiming agricultural practices that respect both ecology and culture. Increasingly, they are returning to traditional crop varieties and growing techniques, composting to boost soil fertility, saving and exchanging traditional seeds, diversifying crops, using natural forms of pest control, and forming networks to exchange agroecological knowledge and techniques. The government has developed a variety of ways to support these farmer-led advances. Venezuela is one of the few countries in the world to make credit available specifically for farmers engaged in agroecological projects.24 The government has also launched twenty-four laboratories for the development of biological pest control and fertilizers, "in an effort to eliminate the toxic agrochemicals of Bayer, Cargill, Monsanto, and others," explains Agricultural Minister Jaua.25

In 2008, the Law for Integrated Agricultural Health officially established agroecology as the scientific basis for sustainable agriculture in Venezuela and mandated the phasing out of toxic agrochemicals. According to Nuñez, while there are still divergent and contradictory views within the government as to which path Venezuela's agricultural sector should take, the government has consistently showed a willingness to learn from social movements. The new law is a direct result of such dialogue, as was the passage of a moratorium on genetically modified crops and the founding of an agroecological institute in the state of Barinas, run in partnership with Brazil's Landless Workers Movement (MST) and Vía Campesina. Now, farmers, agroecologists, and government representatives are working together to develop a National Agroecology Plan, with the goal of further advancing agroecology at all levels of Venezuelan society.

Communities Feeding Themselves

In 2002, Venezuelans received a stark reminder of the vulnerability of their food system when groups opposing the government attempted to bring the national economy to a standstill by halting oil production and shutting down other key industries over a two-month period. As part of these efforts, major food distributors withheld food supplies and many supermarkets closed. This drove home the implications of Venezuela's heavy reliance on imported food, primarily from large corporations, as well as its reliance on private intermediaries for distribution. Since then, efforts to bolster food production in Venezuela have been met with efforts to increase the ability of communities to feed themselves.

Mercal is Venezuela's national network of subsidized food markets, selling high-quality food at discounts averaging 40 percent off standard prices. These markets are open to people of all income levels, with particular emphasis on communities with limited food access. With 16,532 Mercal outlets throughout the country distributing more than 1.5 million tons of food to over 13 million people, Mercal has become Latin America's largest food distribution network, according to the Venezuelan government.26 In 2008, the government launched PDVAL, a sister effort to Mercal, in an aggressive attempt to protect its population against the effects of the world food crisis as well as internal food hoarding and price speculation. PDVAL sells staple foods at regulated prices set by the government (i.e., prices that are neither subsidized as in the case of Mercal nor inflated as in the case of some private distributors).

There are 6,075 casas de alimentación, or feeding houses, throughout the country that provide home-cooked, nutritious meals to those in greatest need (e.g., pregnant women, children, senior citizens), currently benefitting around 900,000 people.27 These programs are run through a grassroots-government partnership in which the government provides food and kitchen equipment, and community members, primarily women, open up their homes and provide the people power. Feeding houses share some parallels with U.S. soup kitchens, but with the broader mission of serving as hubs of community gathering and empowerment. According to the Ministry of Nutrition, 90,000 feeding house patrons received job training and additional services in the first half of 2008.28 Furthermore, feeding houses support local agriculture by sourcing preferentially from nearby cooperatives.

Two additional initiatives to improve food security and nutrition are a national school meals program and a law guaranteeing nutritious meals for workers.29 The School Feeding Program provides universal free breakfast, lunch, and snacks to more than four million children. The Law for Workers' Nutrition, passed in 2004, requires workplaces of twenty or more people to provide workers with either a hot meal on-site or swipe cards with "nutrition points" that are redeemable at restaurants and food stores. Venezuela's wide range of feeding programs, combined with other forms of social support, have enabled the country to meet the first Millennium Development Goal of halving hunger and poverty ahead of the 2015 target and have also cut malnutrition-related deaths in half from 1998 to 2006.30

Social Property

While Venezuela has made major strides both in food production and food access over the past decade, a considerable challenge remains in connecting these efforts. Much of Venezuela's infrastructure for food distribution, processing, and storage had been privatized prior to 1998. Some who realized that there was more money to be made in exporting and importing food intentionally dismantled some of the country's agriculture and food infrastructure. This enabled a certain few to profit both from exporting Venezuelan raw agricultural products and importing processed goods for consumption. In some instances, the very same products were exported, processed, and then imported back into the country, making large profits for the middlemen to the detriment of producers, workers displaced from processing facilities, and consumers.31

The same intermediaries have continued to control much of Venezuela's food-related infrastructure to the present time. This enables them to use food as a political tool by creating scarcities through practices such as hoarding, price inflation, and/or illegal export of food intended for domestic consumption. Such shortages occurred during the industry lockdown of 2002 and continue to occur periodically, most often around the time of elections and other politically heightened moments. Today, this issue is being tackled through a multipronged approach of regulating private food businesses, restoring previously state-owned infrastructure back to the public domain, and empowering communities to monitor and protect local food supplies.

A 2006 law renationalized silos that had been originally owned by the state and then privatized. This paved the way for a provision of the 2008 Law of Food Security and Food Sovereignty, establishing strategic reserves of staple foods. These reserves will serve the dual purpose of stabilizing prices of staple foods (i.e., by absorbing and releasing products as needed) and ensuring a secure supply of food in the event of natural disasters or human interferences. This law, which mandates storage of three months' worth of food for the population at all times, should significantly hinder the ability of intermediaries to interfere with the steady flow of food, while also providing a critical safety net for farmers and consumers alike. Progressive farm groups in the United States have been working to pass similar legislation.32

Another important step to reclaim food-related infrastructure as "social property" has been the installation of a national network of cooperatively run processing plants for staple foods such as corn, beans, and milk. Plans are underway for ten new corn processing plants and eleven new milk processing plants in 2009 alone.33 There is also a growing network of integrated agricultural complexes, such as one in the state of Portuguesa that includes an agricultural store with low-cost products, a machinery plant, silos, and a factory for making pasta from corn and rice.

While the Law of Food Security and Food Sovereignty reaffirms each Venezuelan's right to food, the Law in Defense of People's Access to Goods and Services, also passed in 2008, gives communities and the government the ability to defend this right from abuse. Each community council is charged with monitoring food supply and pricing and reporting any irregularities to the state. Food companies and retail establishments found to be conducting illegal activities (e.g., under-producing, withholding, overpricing, or smuggling food) are subject to fines, and food is subject to confiscation. Failure to rectify illegal practices is potential grounds for expropriation.

National Assembly member Ulises Daal explains: "These new laws explicitly protect the private sector, but the private sector must fulfill a social function. If a company wants to open a sausage factory, the building, equipment, and materials are all the property of the company. But the concept of food production belongs to the people. If the company withholds food, it is failing to fulfill its social function."34 Daal also emphasizes the responsibility of community councils to ensure local access to sufficient amounts of culturally appropriate food at all times. Similarly, Chávez has spoken of "new systems of (food) distribution managed by community councils."35

A Vision of Food Sovereignty for Venezuela and Beyond

Early in 2008, in the thick of the global food crisis, Chávez promised that Venezuela's efforts in food and agriculture would continue unhindered. Over the course of that year, Venezuela saw increased levels of food production, the inauguration of new processing plants, the launching of the PDVAL food distribution network, and the passing of groundbreaking new legislation in support of food sovereignty. At the international level, Venezuela formed bilateral agreements in mutual support of food sovereignty with numerous countries, from Argentina to China. It also led a regional response to the food crisis, including an emergency summit, a $100 million food security fund, and a shipment of 365 tons of emergency food aid to Haiti.

In early 2009, as the financial crisis dominated headlines, Chávez made a similar promise: "Despite the world financial crisis, Venezuela's agrarian revolution will not be detained."36 The recent decline in oil prices has led some to wonder what will become of the Bolivarian Revolution and its social programs and to point to reliance on oil wealth for social spending as a strategic flaw. Others, however, see the government using its oil wealth to diversify the economy and to build new systems that will ultimately sustain themselves. This is what Chávez claims to be doing with respect to the country's food sovereignty efforts. A promising indication is that the UN Food and Agriculture Organization recently recognized Venezuela as having taken necessary steps to strengthen its ability and that of its neighbors to withstand the worsening global food crisis.37 As other countries throughout the world, including the United States, grapple with food issues amid global crises, perhaps they can learn from the experience of Venezuela, where political will and community empowerment are forming the basis for food sovereignty.

Notes

1. Chris Carlson, "Venezuela Will Not be Affected by Food Crisis Says Chavez," Venezuelanalysis.com, April 28, 2008. Go back
2. Alcides Herrera, personal communication, January 5, 2009. Go back
3. Hernando Liendo, personal communication, January 6, 2009. Go back
4. Gregory Wilpert, "Land for People Not for Profit in Venezuela," Venezuelanalysis.com, August 23, 2005. Wilpert provides an excellent overview of the decline of agriculture in Venezuela (through an economic phenomenon known as "Dutch Disease"), while providing insights into the early stages of the current land reform process. Go back
5. Ibid. Go back
6. Ibid. Go back
7. The living conditions in Venezuela's poor urban communities, or barrios, leading up to the Bolivarian Revolution, are described vividly by Charles Hardy in Cowboy in Caracas (Curbstone Press, 2007). Go back
8. Ministerio del Poder Popular para la Comunicación y la Información, "La pobreza extrema en Venezuela ha disminuido en 55% desde 1998 y la pobreza general 37,6%," March 13, 2009. Go back
9. For a full definition of food sovereignty, as defined by the participants of the Nyéléni 2007 Forum for Food Sovereignty, see http://www.nyeleni2007.org. Go back
10. Ulises Daal, personal communication, January 15, 2009. Go back
11. Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in the United States, Article VI of the Bolivarian Constitution, March 13 2009. Go back
12. Braulio Álvarez, personal communication, June 3, 2007. Go back
13. Wilpert, "Land for People not for Profit in Venezuela." Go back
14. República Bolivariana de Venezuela, "10 Años de Gestión del Gobierno Revolucionario," presented in Caracas, January, 2009. Go back
15. The latest campesino to be assassinated at the time of this writing is Nelson López, 38, who was killed on February 12, 2009, in the state of Yaracuy, after receiving fourteen bullet shots. Braulio Álvarez dug his grave as his friends and family, including his three young children, looked on. The authors wish to dedicate this piece to him. Go back
16. Ministerio del Poder Popular para la Agricultura y Tierras, Boletín Electrónico No 72, February 2, 2009, Braulio Álvarez, personal communication, January 3, 2009. Go back
17. Eduardo Escobar, personal communication, June 2, 2007. Go back
18. República Bolivariana de Venezuela, "10 Años de Gestión del Gobierno Revolucionario." Go back
19. Elías Jaua, personal communication, June 2, 2007. Go back
20. República Bolivariana de Venezuela, "10 Años de Gestión del Gobierno Revolucionario." Go back
21. Ministerio del Poder Popular para la Agricultura y Tierras, Boletín Electrónico No 72. Go back
22. República Bolivariana de Venezuela, "10 Años de Gestión del Gobierno Revolucionario." All the figures in this paragraph are from this source. Go back
23. For a collection of articles by Miguel Angel Nuñez on agroecology and food sovereignty in Venezuela, see In Motion Magazine. Go back
24. Miguel Ángel Nuñez, personal communication, January 22, 2009. Go back
25. Elías Jaua, personal communication, June 2, 2007. Go back
26. República Bolivariana de Venezuela, "Mensaje del Ciudadano Presidente de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela a la Asamblea Nacional 2008," presented in Caracas, January, 2009. Go back
27. Ibid. Go back
28. Ministerio del Poder Popular para la Alimentación, "Gestión del Ministerio del Poder Popular para la Alimentación--1er Semestre 2008," March 13, 2009. Go back
29. República Bolivariana de Venezuela, "Mensaje del Ciudadano Presidente de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela a la Asamblea Nacional 2008." Go back
30. Chris Carlson, Venezuela on Track to Meet UN Millennium Goals, Venezuelanalysis.com, October 18, 2007; Mark Weisbrot, Rebecca Ray, and Luis Sandoval, The Chávez Administration at 10 Years: The Economy and Social Indicators, Center for Economic and Policy Research, February, 2009. Go back
31. Gabriel Pool, personal communication, February 21, 2009. Go back
32. For policy proposals on reinstating food reserves in the U.S., see http://www.nffc.net. Go back
33. Hugo Chávez, Alo Presidente, Portuguesa, January 11, 2009. Go back
34. Ulises Daal, personal communication, January 15, 2009. Go back
35. Hugo Chávez, Alo Presidente. Go back
36. Ibid. Go back
37. James Suggett, "U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization Says Venezuela Prepared for World Food Crisis," Venezuelanalysis.com, February 27, 2009. Go back

---

Why is there rampant famine in the 21st century and how can it be eradicated?

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/21431

May 11, 2009 By Eric Toussaint
and Damien Millet

Eric Toussaint's ZSpace Page

How can we explain the fact that famine still exists in the 21st century? One person in seven on this planet is permanently hungry.

The causes are well known: a profound injustice in the distribution of wealth and the monopolizing of land by a small minority of large landowners. According to the FAO[1], 963 million people were suffering from famine in 2008. Paradoxically, these people mainly live in rural areas. They are generally farmers who do not own land or do not own enough, and are without the means to cultivate it effectively.

What caused the food crisis of 2007-2008?

It is important to emphasize that in 2007-2008, the number of people suffering from hunger increased by 140 million. This marked increase is due to the explosion of food prices[2]. In several countries retail food prices increased by as much as 50%, or even more.

Why such an increase? To answer this question, it is important to understand what has been happening over the past three years. Only then can alternative, appropriate policies be implemented.

On the one hand, the public authorities in the North increased their aid and subsidies for agro-fuels (mistakenly referred to as bio-fuels, since there is nothing organic about them). All of a sudden, it became profitable to replace subsistence crops with oleaginous crops or feed grains, or to divert part of grain cultivation (corn, wheat, etc.) towards the production of agro-fuels.

On the other hand, after the real estate bubble burst in the United States, with repercussions throughout the rest of the world, the major investors (pension funds, investment banks, hedge funds, etc.) shifted their focus and speculated on the futures market where contracts for food prices are negotiated (there are three main futures exchanges in the United States: Chicago, Kansas City and Minneapolis). It is therefore urgent for citizens to take action to legally ban speculation on food prices. Despite the fact that speculation reached its peak and declined from the middle of 2008, and that futures prices have plummeted, retail prices have not followed suit. The vast majority of the world's population has a very low income and is still affected by the dramatic consequences of the increase in food prices of 2007-2008. The tens of millions of redundancies announced for 2009-2010 around the world will further worsen the situation. In April 2009, the FAO told the G8 that the number of chronically hungry people was set to rise by 75 million to 100 million this year, bringing the total number to more than 1 billion. In order to counter this situation, public authorities must keep food prices under control.

The increase in famine throughout the world is not due, at least for the moment, to climate change. But this factor will have very negative consequences for the future in terms of production in certain regions of the world, especially in tropical or subtropical areas. Agricultural production in temperate zones should be less affected. The solution lies in radical action being taken so as to drastically reduce the emission of greenhouse gases (the IPPC[3] recommends an 80% reduction of emissions for the most industrialized countries and 20% for the others).

Is it possible to eradicate famine?

Eradicating famine is entirely possible. The basic solutions needed in order to reach this vital goal lie in policies of food sovereignty and agrarian reform. That is to say, feeding populations based on local production, whilst limiting imports and exports.

Food sovereignty needs to be the focal point of governments' political decisions. They need to concentrate on family farms, using techniques designed for the production of organic food. Furthermore, this would enable people to have good quality foodstuffs: no GMOs, no pesiticides, no herbicides and no chemical fertilizers. However, to achieve this goal, 2 billion farmers need to have access to sufficient land to work on, and to work for themselves, as opposed to producing wealth for the big landowners, agro-business multinationals and large retailers. Through public aid, these people should be given the means available to cultivate their land without depleting it.

In order to do this, an agrarian reform is needed. A reform which is desperately lacking, be it in Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru, Asia or in certain countries in Africa. Such an agrarian reform must address the redistribution of land, banning large private landowners and providing public aid for farmers.

It should also be stressed that the IMF and, above all, the World Bank are largely responsible for the food crisis since they recommended that the governments of the South stop maintaining grain silos which have been used to feed the domestic market in case of shortages or steep price increases. The World bank and the IMF encouraged the governments of the South to cut the public credit agencies for farmers and drove them into the clutches of private lenders (often large traders) or private banks exacting exorbitant rates. This left many small farmers in debt, in India, Nicaragua, Mexico, Egypt and several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. According to official studies, the high level of debt among Indian farmers has been the main cause of suicide of 150,000 farmers in India over the past decade. This is a country where the World Bank has successfully persuaded the authorities to suppress public credit agencies for farmers. And that is not all: over the past 40 years, the World Bank and the IMF also coerced tropical countries to reduce wheat, rice and corn production and replace them with export crops (cocoa, coffee, tea, bananas, peanuts, flowers, etc.). Finally, to crown their efforts in favour of big agro-businesses and major grain exporting countries (beginning with the United States, Canada and Western Europe), they also persuaded governments to open their borders to food imports which benefit from massive subsidies from governments in the North. This led to many producers in the South going bankrupt and also to a severe reduction in local subsistence crop production.

To summarize, it is necessary to ensure food security and implement agrarian reform. The production of industrial agro-fuels must be abandoned and public subsidies for those who produce such fuels should be withdrawn. It is also necessary to rebuild public food reserves in the South (especially cereals such as rice, wheat, corn...), re-establish public credit agencies for farmers and food price regulation. People who earn a low wage must be ensured access to quality food at a low price. The State must also guarantee that small agricultural producers can sell at prices high enough to allow them to noticeably improve their living conditions. The State must also develop public services in rural areas (health, education, communication, culture, public seed "banks", etc.). Public authorities are perfectly capable of guaranteeing both subsidized food prices for consumers and retail prices high enough to provide small producers with an adequate income.

Is this fight against famine not part of a much greater battle?

One cannot expect to seriously fight famine without combating the fundamental causes of the current situation. Debt is one of these causes. The publicity and fanfare around the issue, especially in recent years at the G8 or G20 summits, has failed to pull the veil over this persistent problem. The current global crisis is further worsening the situation in developing countries faced with the cost of debt, and new debt crises in the South are due to emerge. The debt has led people of the South, so often rich in terms of human and natural resources, to general impoverishment. Debt is organized pillage and must urgently be stopped.

In fact, this infernal public debt mechanism is a main obstacle to fulfilling people's basic human needs, including the right to decent food. Without a doubt, the fulfilment of basic human needs must be placed above any other considerations, be they geopolitical or financial. From a moral perspective, the rights of creditors, people of private means or speculators have little weight compared to the fundamental rights of 6 billion citizens crushed by the implacable mechanism of debt.

It is immoral to ask countries, impoverished by a global crisis for which they are not at all responsible, to earmark a large part of their resources to repaying wealthy creditors (whether from the North or the South), instead of securing their basic needs. The immoral nature of the debt also stems from the fact that this debt was very often contracted by non democratic regimes who did not use the sums of money they received in the interests of their own population and often embezzled vast amounts, with the tacit or active approval of the States of the North, the World Bank and the IMF. The creditors of the most industrialized countries granted loans while being fully aware of the fact that the regimes were often corrupt. They are therefore in no position to demand that the people of these countries pay back a debt which is both immoral and illegal.

To sum up, debt is the one of the main mechanisms through which a new form of colonization operates, to the detriment of the people. This is in addition to the historic injustices perpetrated by rich countries: slavery, extermination of indigenous populations, colonial shackles, pillaging of raw materials, biodiversity and the know-how of farmers (through the patenting of agricultural products of the South, such as Indian basmati rice, for the profit of multinational agro-businesses in the North), the pillage of cultural goods, the brain drain etc. In the name of justice, it is time to replace the logic of domination with a logic based on the redistribution of wealth.

The G8, the IMF, the World Bank and the Paris Club impose their own truth, their own justice, to which they are both judge and party. Faced with the crisis, the G20 has taken up the baton and is trying to place a discredited IMF at the centre of the political and economic playing field. We must put an end to an injustice which profits oppressors, whether from the North or South.

Éric Toussaint, a doctor in political science, is president of the Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt, Belgium www.cadtm.org, author of A Diagnosis of Emerging Global Crisis and Alternatives, Mumbai, India, Vikas Adhyayan Kendra, 2009, 139p.; The World Bank: A Critical Primer, London, UK, Pluto Press, 2008.

Damien Millet, mathematician, is spokeperson for CADTM France (Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt).

Joint authors of 60 Questions 60 Réponses sur la dette, le FMI et la Banque Mondiale, CADTM-Syllepse, Liège-Paris, 2008. English version to be published in 2009.

Translated by Francesca Denley in collaboration with Judith Harris

[1] United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, www.fao.org

[2] See Eric Toussaint and Damien Millet, "Why a world food crisis? (yet again)", 2008, www.cadtm.org/spip.php?article3714. See also Éric Toussaint, "Getting to the root causes of the food crisis", http://www.cadtm.org/spip.php?article3865

[3] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, see www.ipcc.ch/languages/french.htm

The Second Scramble for Africa Starts

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/17864

April 25, 2009 By Julio Godoy
Source: allafica.com

Julio Godoy's ZSpace Page

Join ZSpace

Berlin - Sub-Saharan African countries have of late become the target of a new form of investment that is strongly reminiscent of colonialism: investors from both industrialised and emerging economies buy or lease large tracts of farm land across the continent, either to guarantee their own food provisions or simply as yet another business.

In doing so, investors even deal with warlords who claim property rights, as in Sudan.

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and activists in Europe are denouncing this land grab in Egypt, Sudan, Cameroon, Senegal, Mozambique and elsewhere in Africa as a new form of colonialism.

Uwe Hoering, a German researcher on development policy for several European NGOs, including the news letter Weltwirtschaft und Entwicklung (World Economy and Development), called these investments "a new form of agrarian colonialism".

In an interview with IPS, Hoering said that the land grab in Africa became evident in 2008 as a consequence of the recent run to so-called bio fuels and the price inflation and scarcity of food.

Although the investments are also targeting fertile land in other areas of the world, sub-Saharan Africa appears to be these investors' main destination. The reasons are multiple.

On the one hand, "Africa possesses enormous land reserves,"

Hoering stated. "According to the United Nations' Food and Agricultural Organisation, only about 14 percent of the suited land in the continent is presently cultivated."

In addition, he said, many African governments are willing to allow this land grab to happen in their territories.

A list of the land grab investments of 2008 have been put together by the Barcelona-based NGO GRAIN, based on corporate reports.

It confirms that several industrialised countries, like Japan and Sweden, rapidly growing developing nations, like China and India, and oil-rich countries, especially from the Arab Gulf, and even Libya, are buying large estates in Africa.

GRAIN is an international NGO committed to promoting sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity based on people's control over genetic resources and local knowledge.

GRAIN also lists multinational private investors, like the Blackstone Group, Deutsche Bank, Goldman & Sachs and Dexion Capital, as participating in the creation of these new agrarian enclaves in the heartlands of Africa.

Even private industrial conglomerates, such as the South Korean Daewoo, are also investing in land in Africa.

"In July 2008, Daewoo leased 1.3 million hectare in Madagascar, about the half of the island's territory, to cultivate maize and palm oil," Hoering said. "Daewoo paid a symbolic price for the land. Allegedly, as compensation for the land lease, it is going to invest in public infrastructure."

Unsurprisingly, the investors include the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the commercial investment arm of the World Bank.

In Sept 2008, the IFC announced that it would greatly increase investments in "agribusiness development" in Africa, and South American states and in Russia because of new private sector interest in generating profits from the food crisis.

Part of its spending will be to bring "under-utilised" lands into production. In 2008, the IFC spent 1.4 billion dollars in the agribusiness supply chain, of which 900 million dollars went directly to agribusiness firms.

GRAIN also reports that the Blackstone Group, one of the world's largest private equity firms in which China has recently bought a stake, "has already invested several hundred million dollars in the agricultural sector, mainly in buying farmland in areas like south of the Sahara".

For Hoering, the land grab in Africa by countries such as Japan, South Korea, China, and Libya serve to guarantee their own national food security. "After the recent speculation on the cereal and other food markets and the spectacular price hikes, these countries have lost confidence in the world market," Hoering explained.

"They now want to be independent from speculators and be able tot control production and secure food imports."

The recent spike in global commodity food prices has also encouraged foreign investors to scramble for control of arable land in Africa.

Obviously, private investors see in the land grab a business with likely high returns. For instance, the Cru Investment Management, a British, Cardiff-based private investor, forecasts earnings of 30 percent for its agricultural fund investing in Malawi.

Duncan Parker, a Cru spokesperson, has said that Africa offers many incentives to investments, such as a strong workforce and the potential to be a top world food producer thanks to its fertile soil and abundant water and sunshine.

However, whether Africans will profit from these investments is another matter altogether. The wave of investments in foreign agricultural enclaves has led to new abuses.

"The most scandalous case yet is that of the U.S. investment banker Philippe Heilberg, who closed a deal with Paulino Matip, a warlord in South Sudan, to lease 4,000 square kilometres," Hoering argued.

Matip is a notorious warlord who fought on both sides in Sudan's lengthy civil war. He is one of the profiteers of a dubious 2005 peace agreement, after which he became deputy commander of the army in the autonomous southern region.

Heilberg, now CEO of the New York-based investment fund Jarch Capital, previously worked for the now battered insurance company American International Group (AIG).

Heilberg has been quoted as saying that, in his view, several African states are likely to break apart in the coming years, and that the political and legal risks he is taking will be amply rewarded.

"If you bet right on the shifting of sovereignty then you are on the ground floor. I am constantly looking at the map and looking if there is any value," he told U.S. media.

While denouncing the scramble for land, human rights groups have called attention to the vagueness and imprecision of laws on land ownership in south Sudan. They cast doubt on foreign investors such as Heilberg being able to claim legal rights over such estates.

The deal, which became public last January but was closed last July, has prompted human rights groups to denounce Heilberg's venture in South Sudan as a cynical, neocolonial enterprise.

"This is a case that recalls the worse colonial land grabs in Africa," Hoering added.

India on 20 cents a day

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/2670

November 26, 2006

By Aseem Shrivastava


Aseem Shrivastava's ZSpace Page

The World Bank - which has to be applauded for having made the first such attempt started making international comparisons of poverty only about two decades back. For obvious reasons of convenience it developed two simple notions of poverty. The US Treasury being the power behind the institution, and the dollar being the reserve currency by design, the lower poverty line was set at $1 a day per capita. Those below it were considered to be "the poorest of the poor". The upper poverty line was set at $2 a day. Those living on $1-2 a day were still poor, but not as badly off. The updated numbers today, corrected for inflation, are $1.08 and $2.15.

The vagaries of purchasing power (dis)parities

However, there was a problem. It was realized that $1 goes much farther in purchasing necessary items of consumption in a poor country compared to a rich one. (Moreover, exchange rates do not take into account non-traded goods.) Using prevailing exchange rates, Rs.45 can buy more in India than $1 can in America. So unless it was corrected for the lower cost of living in poor countries – enabling access to a bigger amount of real goods for the same amount of money – this measure of poverty was likely to give an overestimate of the number of poor people living in absolute poverty. To make purchasing power across countries comparable, economists developed what is known as the PPP (purchasing power parity) index. Taking into account the lower cost of living in impoverished countries, a conversion factor is now applied to market exchange rates to calculate what is minimally necessary to survive there.

Using widely quoted World Bank numbers on GDP, this conversion factor for a country like India (2005) can be computed to be approximately 5.3. This means that $1.08 a day in India should effectively imply a purchasing power of about 20 cents a day to an American – or indeed anyone – unacquainted with the nuances of PPP calculations. However, given how the numbers are quoted everywhere, the dominant impression that is conveyed is that the poor are living on less than $1 or $2 a day when, in fact, it would be enormously more accurate, as far as everyday English is concerned, to say that the poor are living on less than $0.20 or $0.40 a day. The reason why this is not done is obvious: it would give an even more alarming picture of the scale and depth of poverty across this enormously wealthy world. Most decent people are shocked enough by the understated numbers in the form they are widely quoted. More reality would numb and paralyze even the grittiest of activists. "Humanity", T.S.Eliot wrote, "cannot bear much reality." He had the privileged in mind.

The most recent World Bank estimates for India are based on household surveys carried out in 1999-2000. It was found that almost 80% of purported superpower India's population was surviving on less than $2.15 a day (in PPP terms). That is, about 800 million people were living on $0.40 a day or less. Nearly 35% (350 million) were found to be living on $0.20 a day or less. Even if the proportion of poor people has fallen somewhat during the past 5-6 years, the absolute numbers would not look too different today.

I have asked several non-experts abroad who have traveled to India, and are thus somewhat familiar with market exchange rates, how they interpret the $1 a day or $2 a day figure. The answer is: literally. In other words, they think that really poor Indians (35% of the population) live on less than Rs.45 and less poor Indians (another 45% of the population) live on between Rs.45-90 a day. In their imagination that is bad enough for Western countries to send aid to poor countries.

However, if their belief was in fact correct then (assuming Rs.20 a day to be the minimum needed to supply the 2200 calories of food intake – and minimal nutrition - that agricultural economists and the UN take to be the survival norm appropriately averaged across age groups, locations and kinds of labor) at least the additional 450-500 million who would be living in the Rs.45-90 a day range would be well out of poverty. In fact, a substantial proportion of the people living under the lower poverty line would be out of poverty too. There might perhaps remain some 50 to 100 million poor, malnourished Indians whose long-term welfare could easily be looked after by the prosperity all around.

Not only would Indian politicians, government officials, businessmen and heir consultants be jumping out of their seats in sheer disbelief that their superpower fantasies may actually be realized, but if this state of affairs was representative of the impoverished world as a whole, the World Bank would be out of business, their achieved goal of a "world free of poverty" having ironically led them there!

Sadly, the reality is closer to "a world free of the poor". Thanks to the subtleties of PPP calculations it may quite possibly be the case that the number of people across the world who are not able to meet the minimum standards for adequate nutrition is anywhere from 3 to 4 billion, rather than the officially estimated 2.7 billion who are estimated to be living under $2 a day. No one really knows. In other words, we could all be off by a whole continent!

Some experts in the field, such as Sanjay Reddy of Columbia University or Robert Wade of the London School of Economics advise deep skepticism about prevailing official estimates, especially of alleged changes thereof on account of globalization. Wade advocates that "the political economy of statistics" is crucial and argues for greater competition in the market for the generation of international poverty data, so far a de facto monopoly of the World Bank. No free market there! There is intense debate among economists and policy-makers as to just how much poverty there is in the world and whether it is going up or down with globalization. According to one expert Angus Deaton, "it seems impossible to make statements about changes in world poverty when the ground underneath one's feet is changing in this way."

Where do the World Bank experts go wrong? A few of them are even known to this writer, and are reliable people of otherwise unimpeachable integrity. Being a drop-out economist myself I appreciate the trials and tribulations of the economists and statisticians at the World Bank who compute the numbers on poverty. It is a harrowing mine-field of data they must negotiate on a daily basis in order to arrive at the sort of numbers the world and its policy-makers are interested in. The challenge of measuring poverty and the (changes thereof) accurately, in a world as diverse, complex and dynamic as ours, is immense. But after decades of effort by trained statisticians it should have become possible by now to arrive at somewhat reliable numbers.

The problem is, at bottom, be political, rather than one of expertise. The very fact that when making comparisons between enriched and impoverished countries, all monetary magnitudes have to be inflated significantly to get a sense of real values in the poor world should have been a matter of great ethical concern to economists, something to make them wonder as to how things got to this point. In a world of markets stretched across mountainously uneven playing fields, pricing is determined not so much by the real costs (to human labor and to nature) incurred but by historically determined economic forces like the willingness and ability to pay. Typically, the latter are shaped in profound ways by legacies of inequalities in wealth and power which mainstream economists are trained to avoid taking into account while preparing their advocacy of "free" markets. In the real world, as against the general equilibrium models microeconomists are schooled in, few things are as politically shaped and formed as the structure of relative prices. In particular, the price of labor – wages – is almost entirely a matter of bargaining, as also, we are realizing, the price of utilizing nature.

Moreover, in our increasingly packaged consumerist world even global poverty figures must ultimately arrive in a wrapping that is not unpalatably unattractive to the public. Trickle-down will ultimately work, we are repeatedly assured by growth economists. But like the late John Kenneth Galbraith is said to have remarked acerbically, faith in trickle-down is a bit like feeding race horses superior oats so that starving sparrows can forage in their dung. All indications, especially in parts of the world like rural India, are that a decade and a half of corporate globalization has left undernutrition and malnutrition all but intact, and might quite possibly have worsened the predicament for many millions.

Numbed (by the numbers)

In a world which has been brought up to regard numerical precision as a sign of scientific rigor, it easily gets forgotten (especially by mainstream economists) that poverty is not merely a matter of numbers. Numbers can only tell us about what the experts call "income poverty". Modern standards of living involve large amounts of intangibles and social consumption, known to economists as "public goods": drinking water, public sanitation, health and education are only some of the services which people in rich countries take for granted because they have been traditionally guaranteed by the state (though in recent years private corporations have queued up, often successfully – especially in impoverished countries – to take control and possession of these services). When these are taken into account it becomes clear that what the experts call the "poverty line" is actually more accurately labeled "starvation line", as some people will have it. Many Indian economists have been advocating a serious upward revision of the poverty line in order to get a better grasp of the economic reality.

Economists have tried to remedy the situation by evolving during the last few decades the Human Development Index (HDI), calculated and issued by the UNDP every year. It tries to take into account life expectancy (as an indicator of health) and levels of adult literacy and enrolment (as indicators of education), apart from considering per capita incomes. It is certainly an improvement over raw numbers for poverty. And yet, if India's HDI is 0.63 and Norway's is 0.96, busy eyes will be tempted to conclude that Norwegians live only one and a half times as well as Indians! The crushing quality of human poverty in a cruel world simply cannot be captured by numbers like this. Nor can the enormity of the environmental damage from deregulated industrial growth be captured, as the World Bank tries to do, in its Little Green Data Book, by just offering estimates of greenhouse gas emissions, depletion of forest cover and a few other measurable magnitudes. The ecosystemic effects of runaway industrial growth – the damage done to climatic balances for instance – are possible to observe now, but not as easily quantified. There are exponential and synergetic changes taking place – for the worse – which might take the best informed experts by surprise.

Perhaps, we would do well to remember Einstein's counsel: "Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted." The poverty measurement industry loses much sleep and sweat over details that do not matter much. The big picture, perhaps unsurprisingly, is inaccurately reported. The propaganda efforts of governments and corporations succeed in the end in keeping some of the more terrible effects of prevailing economic policies from clear public view, undermining democratic transparency and potential accountability.

Rather than get drowned in swirling oceans of data, we might look for the prominent ridges on the gyrating currents of the monetized economy. However, it is then important to locate them precisely and, crucially, label and flag them accurately. Busy readers don't have time to interpret the fine print. And public patience with economists wears thin.

We only count and measure what is useful, important or interesting. By measuring we indicate that we care about what is measured. The score on poverty, especially if it is shameful, is worth keeping, if only to remind us of the extent of the failure of globalization not merely to change the lives of the poor but perhaps in turning them for the worse. (If China has lifted tens of millions of families out of poverty, the secret of their success lies in the years and decades preceding globalization – in the early 1980s rural reforms were carried out, among other things, granting access to land to the rural poor. Besides, the strong foundations of the social infrastructure – education and health – were laid down in the era of communism. Globalization has only allowed the country to reap the harvest of pre-existing investments better.)

If global poverty statistics are not disseminated accurately, the facts on the ground will only get worse – thanks to misinformed policy-making among other things – and will one day command dreadful obedience from one and all. The rulers of the day risk the implications of Colin Powell's faux pas a few years back - of boasting that the number of dead Iraqi civilians did not interest him very much. And the potential consequences across the globe could be as catastrophic as what Iraq is experiencing today.

Aseem Shrivastava is an independent writer. He can be reached at aseem62@yahoo.com

---

As India goes global the public goes private

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/1671

By Aseem Shrivastava

Picture this. At an air-show in Los Angeles one of the biggest arms manufacturers in the world, British Aerospace, invites Mr. Bill Gates of Microsoft to have a go at flying one of the latest models of their Hawk fighter aircraft. Would the American media respond by flashing front-page images of a beaming Bill Gates waving to supporters as he was entering the cockpit of the Hawk, following them up with adulatory reports describing the elevated feelings felt by the unexpected new pilot as he conquered the sound barrier? Or would the event not generate a national scandal that a private businessman accepted the invitation to fly a military aircraft, which ordinarily can only be tested by pilots on public duty?

More than likely the latter possibility would transpire. However, what happened in Bangalore last month was another story, as the Indian national media fell to new depths of celebrity "journalism".

Corporate Americans, having grown up in a world run by car salesmen, will go to any lengths to sell what they must. Thus it came as no surprise when Lockheed Martin – one of the biggest defense contractor firms in the world – invited Mr. Tata into the cockpit of the F-16 Falcon at the Bangalore Air Show in February: the Indian Air Force was, after all, expanding its multi-role combat aircraft fleet and the American company was competing in the Indian arms bazaar with the likes of Sukhoi of Russia. To let corporate India's leading icon of the season have a go at their merchandise must have seemed like an obvious sales ploy. (Would they have tried this gimmick in their own land?)

A private fantasy was gratified. Mr. Tata's dream of flying a fighter jet came true.

Not only India's national English language dailies, even the vernacular press, flashed front page pictures of India's oldest civilian pilot, waving like a rock-star to fans as he stepped into the cockpit of the fighter aircraft. The Times of India gushed that "Tata group chairman Ratan Tata soared to new heights". Delhi's Hindustan Times said that he "had a wonderful time." The Indian Express said that Mr. Tata had "a terrific, terrific ride." Even the ordinarily sober The Hindu said that Mr.Tata had an "exhilarating experience."

All this quoted without the dimmest trace of irony. When boys get their toys, it is indeed "wonderful" and "exhilarating". It is evident from the unanimity of the reports that Mr.Tata indeed had a jolly good time up in the high skies.

The most remarkable fact of all – the corporate boss of a leading private concern playing with military gadgetry, normally accessible only to men and women in public uniform – went unobserved by our free press. In the day of "Corporate Executive Officers", when businessmen are taking seats of pride in Parliaments and political leaders are more than happy to see described what they do as a "job", not to mention holding shares in companies, how does it matter if ancient public norms are blithely flouted and one of the most precious distinctions in the annals of democracy is quietly erased?

Public morality has gone corporate long back. The public has been colonized by the private ever since the era of manic privatization was thrust upon us. The joke is on us, the on-looking public, who don't seem to realize that the time-honored separation of the private and the public spheres is an inconvenient anachronism, an obstacle to mounting prosperity which should be kicked off the growth path.

The all-important distinction between the private and the public realms – dear in the past not only to democracies but to all self-respecting polities since the days of Greece and Rome – is being openly undermined in India, in vulgar mimicry of the successful pioneering trail blazed by corporate totalitarianism in that most famous of all democracies: the United States of America. If it works there, it must be good, and thus worthy of emulation.

Why reducing the public to the private is deadly

But why anyway is it a good thing to retain the distinction between the private and the public realms? Haven't we been delivered the technocratic wisdom often enough from the highest pulpits that running a government is essentially no different from managing a company? So what's wrong with it if men and women are corporate executives one day and ministers or bureaucrats the next, as long as they are honest (sic) and capable? What's wrong, for that matter, with the government making an open offer to the Tatas that it was willing to use public money to help it financially in its recent purchase of the British steel company Corus Inc (even as it complains about lack of resources when it comes to allocating more funds for development programs for women and children)? Or with the government declaring Special Economic Zones (SEZs) as public utility services under the Industrial Disputes Act and, with a happy conflation of the private with the public interest, making strikes and collective bargaining illegal, while enabling contract labor?

Well, if nothing is wrong with all this, why don't we campaign for an amendment of the Constitution, and make it the most urgent formal task of the government to enable corporations to maximize profits, enrich themselves (in the name of development via the long dysfunctional trickle-down effect) or, more simply, just legalize graft? Indeed, our government has been doing precisely that, offering sops to corporates via tax breaks, SEZs and the like, obsessed as it is with the maximization of the rate of national economic growth – to the effective exclusion of virtually all social goals, including development – for years now.

Listening to the chorus of applause from the mainstream media both in India and in the West, it would seem that this democracy has overcome its erstwhile socialist infantilism and finally matured into corporate adulthood – allowing, as is only in the fitness of things, men and women of eminence to occupy top corporate positions today and high offices in government tomorrow. In fact, in the age of (An)globalization, well-connected members of our ruling elites have long been in the habit of changing offices globally – having manned the upper echelons of imperial projects in the offices of the World Bank and the IMF in Washington virtually being a prior qualification to be at the national political helm in New Delhi, a custom which is finely attuned to the needs of our imperial masters.

What could be wrong with such an efficient arrangement? Free and fair elections are after all not fundamentally different from free and fair markets. We choose our leaders in one place, our cars and favorite magazines in another. And we expect our leaders to entertain us, just as we find amusement in driving fast cars (thanks to Vijay Mallya New Delhi's Rajpath, which once hosted political protests, might well see a F-1 race soon) and watching thrilling films. Such is the lure and charm of a Laloo Prasad Yadav. So what's wrong if Ratan Tata, the corporate Pope, is also seen as a rock-star with all the star quality that comes with the role? Only sour grapes and petty envy would bicker about such a thing.

Is it? If the government becomes a business, then profits and growth obviously become its overriding pursuits. What then? Who is allowed to criticize this noble project and all it inevitably involves, especially today? What happens to human rights, to labor standards, to environmental regulations, to tax laws, to social commitments and political promises for distributive justice? To the Constitution itself? In fact, one is entitled to ask, what happens to law and public morality? Shall we simply open up the market for justice too? Shall we experiment with private judicial systems in addition to privatizing the executive branch and the legislature (public offices are already auctioned in so many parts of the world)? In short, shall we just dispense with public liberty altogether and write into law a formal "corpocracy" which finally prises open all political markets, legitimizes private tyranny and inducts it into the visible mainstream of the affairs of state?

But somewhere, the line between public and private will have to be drawn, if only because in the absence of a robust public realm, private parties – driven by the will to power – will fight their way to war with each other, at our expense. (They already do, even in the presence of strong governments. So how much more so in their absence, unrestrained by any law or public morality whatsoever!) Society will not survive for long under such circumstances.

Among so many other things, isn't democratic government there precisely because the unrestrained pursuit of private commercial interest leaves no time or room for worrying about matters which concern everyone, not just a minority constituency of privilege? BAE and Lockheed Martin can't help themselves from selling arms across the world. It is their stock-in-trade, their line of business. And the imperatives of competitive capitalism will not brook any complacency, the reason that public restraint is necessary. To cut costs and grow their market shares corporations will scour the earth, loot indigenous peoples, pollute air and water and slog pliant female labor for 12 or 16 hours a day. Without public restraint what is there to prevent them from committing such crimes and hasten the end of civilized society itself?

Laws are there to protect public and individual liberty against oppression by those who hold power. This is why the rule of law is rightly regarded as one of the enduring achievements of civilized humanity. If it is threatened today – by imperial gluttony and other varieties of barbarism on the one hand and a relentless, unmitigated, corporately nurtured, state-sanctioned greed on the other – the answer is not to allow classes and social groups who hold power to further consolidate their influence. Both courage and wisdom actually lie on the side of challenging and restraining such power in the larger interest. Indeed, it may turn out – given the emerging facts on climate change and other looming environmental crises – that our very survival as a species might come to hinge on the evolution of a new public ethic which finds it within its imagination and character to do so.

In this task the media can be an accomplice or an obstacle. What we have seen so far makes the media resemble nothing so much as a disheveled theatre stage occupied by a bunch of image-toting lackeys of shadowy moneyed men in pin-striped suits, their shotguns held not too far from the heads of editors. They have monopolized the mike, carrying on their petty private squabbles within range of public audibility, putting the public to sleep with their tabloid perversions, while quietly conspiring to keep off-limits any authentic discussion of issues of genuine public significance.

It is time that the newspapers and the TV channels woke up from their somnolence and put an end to the charade of glamorizing the rapid encroachments on the best traditions of democracy. The Lockheed-Martins, BAEs and Tatas cannot be expected to behave with a sense of public responsibility. They would not be where they are had they had that. They have to be exposed and restrained. It is impossible without the media.

If freedom matters to us, we must heed Rousseau: "A free people obey laws and laws only, and it is by the force of the laws that it does not obey men."

Aseem Shrivastava is an independent writer. He can be reached at aseem62@yahoo.com.

From farm to mandi, vegetable prices go up by 400%

Economic Times


New Delhi: Did you know that there is a 400% mark-up on vegetables in the last mile when it travels from the wholesale market — the mandi — to

the vegetable vendor? If cauliflower, for instance, is being sold by dealers at Rs 5 a kg at the mandi, by the time it travels a few miles to the vendor its price is Rs 20-25 a kg.

The poor farmer gets a fraction of this. He gets just Rs 3 from dealers at the mandi, despite his toil and risks. These figures, obtained by TOI after going backward from the vendor to mandi to farmers, revealed another stunning fact — there is no shortage of food items in the wholesale market. As a matter of fact, rates have been dropping in the past one month.

Since October, prices of food items in the city had started stabilizing. The effect of the delayed monsoon was over and any shortage was being made up by local produce. But local vendors have been doubling their profits, claiming that supply from farms is affected. The government’s inaction has encouraged profiteering by retailers.

Tracking the vegetable supply chain to study the causes for soaring prices, a Times City team went to Palla village on the banks of the Yamuna. Village pradhan Tek Chand said farmers in his area barely scrape through each month while people in the city were minting money without putting in any effort. ‘‘Seasonal vegetables like spinach and cauliflower are growing in abundance here and we are not getting high rates in the mandi. In a day, we barely make Rs 100-Rs 125 from which we need to pay our labourers, take care of our costs and bear the risk of crop failure,’’ he said.

Farmers like Tek Chand take their daily produce to mandis across the city each morning and sell either to dealers or directly to retailers through an auction. At the mandi, where rates are decided by the quantity and quality of each produce, the vegetable becomes dearer by a few rupees.


In the last journey, from mandi to the retail market, however, the humble vegetable becomes a precious and pricey commodity. Depending on the area of the city, a kg of spinach that earns the farmer Rs 3 and the dealer at Azadpur Mandi Rs 10, costs the consumers around Rs 40. In areas like east and north Delhi, the prices might be slightly lower while in south Delhi areas you would be paying more.

The government has so far kept out of this. Said Brahm Yadav, chairman, Delhi Agricultural Market Board: ‘‘The government has no control over retail and we have been telling them for months now that there is a need for massive checks. The mandi is functioning as usual with both arrival and quality of food items absolutely normal. The earlier shortages have been met and if anything, prices of several items have come down.’’

How Corporate Control Affects Your Food

http://www.usfoodcrisisgroup.org/node/23

There are two million farmers and 300 million eaters in the United States.

Standing between them are a handful of corporations who control how food gets from one side to the other.

Let’s change the equation.

For the first time ever, the Justice Department is on a fact-finding mission looking at how big business controls food and farming -- and they want to hear from YOU. Most of what matters to you about food -- and most of what probably makes you mad about why food isn't healthier, safer, tastier, etc. -- is affected by that narrow bottleneck of power between producers and consumers. Now's your chance: the Justice Department is specifically seeking comments and stories about how corporate control of the food system affects average citizens. Your voice matters.

Here are some themes to inspire your own thoughts. Take a look and then head here for some sample letters and an easy template to write your own! To learn more about the issue, check out our resources here.

• It's harder and harder to find healthy, locally produced foods in your community -- especially if you live in a low-income area, there might not be a supermarket for miles.

• Prices are rising at the supermarket, but you've heard that farmers are struggling -- and big food companies have made record profits this year.

• You feel like you don't have much choice about the food you eat -- maybe the produce selection is bad, or you don't like that everything seems to be made with corn products.

• It's hard for small food producers and processors to find markets for their products -- and it's hard for consumers to find products made by small producers.

• Food seems less safe. You've read that the outbreak and spread of bacteria like E. coli happens much faster when meat and vegetables are processed in big centralized locations.

• Local farms are going out of business, because small farmers can't compete with prices set by industrial farms and consolidated buyers.

• There aren't many decent jobs in food and farming anymore -- there's a real lack of opportunities for both urban and rural youth who are interested in growing and preparing food.

• What's in your food, anyway? And why aren't there decent labels telling you where it grew, what chemicals are on it, and if it's genetically modified?

• There is a "revolving door" of personnel between corporate lobbyists and government regulators. No wonder corporations aren't held to strict standards.

• Many rural communities have become ghost towns. The farmers that have survived often find themselves entirely at the mercy of corporations who own all parts of the supply chain (called "vertical integration") and can set prices in such a way to drive competitors out of business.

• Just one company controls the majority of seeds in the US, and regularly threatens farmers who don't buy its seeds.

• Cows, chickens, and pigs are being raised in squalid conditions on huge industrial feedlots and pumped full of unnecessary antibiotics, which is unhealthy for them and potentially unsafe for the people eating them.

• The food you can afford is bad for you; healthy food is expensive.

• Food is grown and raised in ways that are terrible for the environment, with methods that pollute the water, poison the soil, and threaten our long-term food security.

• A lot of food from the store just doesn't taste very good, which raises questions about where it’s come from and how it’s been treated.

Mad yet? Head here for an easy template for you to tell the Justice Department about your own experience. The Justice Department is specifically seeking comments and stories about how corporate control of the food system affects average citizens. Your comments will help to inform a series of hearings on the issue next year.

Your voice really matters.

To learn more about corporate consolidation in the food system, check out the resources here.

Pawar Rules Out rice imports

http://www.mynews.in/News/Pawar_rules_out_rice_import__N33514.html

The government on Wednesday ruled out importing rice this year, saying it had comfortable stock position even after factoring strategic reserve requirements.

"Our stock position is better, (and) over and above the buffer norms and strategic reserves," Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said, discounting the need for imports although rice production is expected to dip by 13 MT this year.

He was speaking on the sidelines of the annual general meeting of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).

According to the buffer norms, the Centre should have 118 lakh tonnes of rice as on January one every year. The norms for the minimumstock that the government has to maintain are fixed on a quarterly basis.

According to government sources, the Centre had 229 lakh tonnes of rice as on December one, 2009.

Pawar also said Food Corporation of India (FCI) has sought permission from Uttar Pradesh government to allow it to purchase paddy from the state as there was a complaint that farmers are selling their paddy below the minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 1,000 a quintal (including Rs 50 bonus).

"I am getting complaints that prices are below the MSP. We have to gear up FCI machinery, for which we have requested the state government to allow us to purchase," he said.

He also pointed out that the current low market price of paddy in UP is because "there is no purchasing machinery".

NREGS Workers In West Bengal To Lose Rs. 146 crores

http://www.unionbook.org/pg/pages/view/20404/

On 17^th December 2009 Shri Anisur Rehman, Panchayat Minister of West Bengal, announced at a press conference that NREGS wages were being revised to Rs.100 per day. What these statements however do not reveal is how the State Governments have cheated NREGS workers of their rightful arrear payments by about Rs.500-Rs.1000 per job card holder.

Wage revision for NREGS has been in the offing since February 2009 , when Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee declared in his budget speech that they would pay Rs.100 as wages for NREGA in 2009-10. Rural Development Ministry (GoI) soon after that asked states to send in request for revision of wages. It said later that it was willing to pay revised wages with retrospective effect from 1^st April 2009.

West Bengal Government, disregarding even the fact that the West Bengal legal minimum wage for agricultural workers was Rs.87.50 from 1^st April onwards, asked for a revision to Rs.81 only from the Central Government. In protest, Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samity(PBKMS) wrote on 27th July 2009 to Dr MN Roy , Principal Secretary, Panchayat and Rural Development Department, asking for at least minimum wages of Rs.87.50 to be paid and later on 20^th November 2009 asking for Rs.100.

In addition, the National Alliance of Agricultural Worker Unions (of which PBKMS and JADS are members) also brought the issue of revising wages and removing the 100 days cap in view of the drought and spiralling prices to the attention of the Central Employment Guarantee Council through its letter dated 6^th October 2009. In response, the Central Government informed the National Alliance that they were willing to revise wages to Rs.100 if the State Governments requested them to do so. The Central Government also stated that the cap on 100 days could also be lifted, again if the State Governments used the funds provided to them under the Calamity Relief Fund.

It has now been notified that the West Bengal Government will pay Rs.87.50 from 2^nd December 2009 and Rs. 100 from 1^st January 2009. On the whole this means that workers in West Bengal have lost Rs.19 per person day since 1st April 2009. (Rs.100-Rs81). This is a massive loss for the State and for NREGS workers.

Till date the number of person days generated in West Bengal from 1st April 2009 has been 770.16 lakh person days. So West Bengal has failed to claim Rs.14633.04 lakhs (Rs.19 X 770.16 ).

Also so far 29800.35 households have been provided with this work. So each household has lost Rs.491 ( Rs.14633.04 lakhs divided by 29800.35).

In December, a further loss of about Rs. 494 can be expected by each household that works this month. i.e Rs.19 per day for 26 working days.

The Government seems to feel that it is difficult administratively to give arrears. They may also fear that it will lead to corruption and misappropriation. We would like to know if any administrative problem ever stands in the way of paying arrears to Government employees. We would also like to know if the non payment of arrears to poor agricultural workers who are NREGS workers will mean a stop to corruption. We say these are only excuses and we demand instead that the State Government should arrange for payment of arrears.

While on the one hand the Left Front constituent parties are making a big noise all over the country about the exorbitant price rise and its impact on the common man, on the other hand the West Bengal Left Front Government has once again shown that it is least concerned about the plight of agricultural workers. It should be noted here that the Tripura Left Front Government, controlled by the same parties, has revised NREGS wages with effect from 1^st April 2009.

Swapan Ganguly

General Secretary

Maoists attack Bengal zoo; kill scores of birds, 2 deer

Times of India

JHARGRAM: Maoists launched a brutal assault on a zoo in Jhargram town on Saturday night, firing indiscriminately into deer and black buck enclosures, setting fire to animal cages, burning hundreds of birds and beating the beat officer and forest guards. The actual toll is still being assessed, but two black bucks are confirmed dead and hundreds of birds burnt to ashes.

Forest department officials are now scrambling to save an elephant herd that is headed in the direction. The attack on the zoo, just 2km from Jhargram, could be a strategic move because it connects the town with Jharkhand via Banstala and Manikpara. Once Maoists have access to it, they can easily reach Jharkhand. Jhargram is now surrounded by rebel strongholds. The attack, which took everyone by shock, is indicative of lawlessness in Maoist-hit Jangalmahal. It was followed by murder of two CPM leaders at Laudhiadham, just 6km away. Both were shot execution style with a bullet to the back of the head.

The mindless massacre of animals indicates that the Maoists and PCPA may not have control over elements within the outfit. The tribal upsurge is rapidly turning into an uncontrolled reign of terror in Jangalmahal. PCPA president Santosh Patra could not explain the attack on the Jhargram Mini Zoo. He admitted that the mob which stormed into the sanctuary ‘‘was not under their control’’.

The zoo in West Midnapore, about 220km from Kolkata, houses many endangered species, among them the gharial, sloth bear, and crocodiles. The only two black bucks were riddled with bullets and the carcasses taken away. A huge aquarium was smashed to bits.

When TOI reached the zoo at 10pm, just half an hour after the attack, a huge bonfire was raging in front of the gate. Several trees could be seen blazing inside. Charred foliage, burnt branches and heaps of concrete — remains of the boundary wall that was pulled down by rebels — were strewn over a 300-metre area. Even 12 hours after the attack, wisps of smoke curled up from the ravaged cages.

The real issues behind land acquisition

The real issues behind land acquisition

The real issues behind land acquisition

By Pranab Bardhan. The Hindu, August 1 2009

The opportunistic and partisan stalling of the Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bills in the Cabinet recently by Mamata Banerjee has provided an opportunity to rethink some of the important provisions of the Bills (which she is not concerned about, but should have been).

Under the prospective legislation, a company must first buy directly from landowners 70 per cent of the land required. The state steps in to buy the rest in case some recalcitrant landowners are holding out; even here, the sellers are guaranteed a 60 per cent premium on the average land price over the previous three years. While this is an improvement on the existing colonial land acquisition law, this is quite unsatisfactory, particularly from the point of view of stake-holders in agricultural land. Let us spell out the reasons:

First, while leaving the major part of the transaction to the market may stop the matter from becoming a political game of football in populist competitive politics (as has happened in West Bengal), it is an inadequate solution to a complicated problem. Even assuming that the purpose for which the land is to be transferred is a legitimate one from an economic and environmental point of view, Indian history is replete with instances of uninformed, cash-strapped peasants being induced to sell their land at nominal prices by the lure of ready cash from developers, speculators, and touts of large corporate interests. This is how many Adivasis have lost their land even in recent years. Even in the case of informed, market-savvy sellers, thousands of small, uncoordinated farmers are no match for a large corporate buyer in the bargaining process.

Of course, in many cases the State government did very little to get the landowners a good price; but there is potential here for community organisers (and panchayats) to get involved in ensuring a fair price. In particular, the provision of a 60 per cent premium on the past average price is not good enough. The average past price is for the land as agricultural land, whereas use for industrial or infrastructure purpose will probably multiply the value many times, the gain from which the farmer is deprived. So, over and above the value of the agricultural land being considered as a minimum floor of basic compensation, the farmers should be compensated with a share in the enterprise or company, so that they can benefit from future profits.

Of course, the poor farmer may not have the capacity to bear the risks of fluctuating share prices. Here the role of the state is to put the farmers’ shares of the new company in an independently managed trust fund which will bear the risks at the cost of some management fees. Out of this trust fund, the farmer should be paid a steady “pension” (or annuity) every six months or so. Given the large gap between productivity in agriculture and the new activity for which the land is acquired, the farmer can be assured of a reasonable stream of pension. This will go a long way in assuaging the anxieties of an uncertain future that the farmer may contemplate in selling the land.

Also, a regular pension may be more advisable than a one-off cash payment, which often tends to get frittered away. In case the land is acquired for public infrastructure building (where there may not be any direct company profits to be shared), the land should be given out by the farmer on long-term lease with the rent periodically readjusted in accordance with the current value of surrounding pieces of land and the rental increases deposited in a trust fund.

Secondly, a land sale displaces not just landowners, but other stakeholders as well (sharecroppers and agricultural labourers working on the land, for example). In West Bengal, the government had announced compensation to be paid to registered sharecroppers (which Ms Banerjee never paid much attention to). But the state also needs to be involved in some form of welfare payments (and job training and so on) to unregistered sharecroppers and landless workers.

Thirdly, the state often needs to get involved in building roads, providing electricity, water supply and so on for the new company, and this may require coordination in the land transaction itself between the transactors and the state right from the beginning.

Of course, politicians often lack credibility in any process of obtaining fair compensation to land sellers. Cases of politicians, middlemen, and contractors defrauding poor sellers of their compensation and resettlement rights are far too many. So it may be desirable in some cases to hand over the responsibility of determining fair prices and managing the process of transfer and resettlement to an independent commission, provided political interference with the working of such a commission can be minimised and enough opportunity is given to community leaders and organisations to serve in such commissions or present their cases at hearings before the commission, and to generally act as watchdogs in the whole process.

Thus, what is at stake with the new Bills is much larger and deeper than Ms Banerjee’s political gripe.

The author is a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill: A slow but sure step forward

Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill: A slow but sure step forward

Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill: A slow but sure step forward

By Ramaswamy R. Iyer. The Hindu. August 7 2009

The debate about the displacement of people caused by various developmental projects has been going on for over two decades. Without going into that history in detail, we may note that the Government of India finally notified the National Rehabilitation and Resettlement Policy 2007 in October 2007, and followed that up with the Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill 2007 and the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill 2007. Those Bills have lapsed and have now to be introduced afresh in the new Lok Sabha. There have been reports that Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee is unhappy with the Bills. There have also been protests against the Bills by many NGOs.

Superficially, the Bills seem to include a number of good elements. There was a demand for a Rehabilitation Act and here is a Bill; the much-criticised Land Acquisition Act is being amended; ‘public purpose’ is being re-defined; governmental acquisition of land for private parties is being reduced; ‘minimum displacement,’ ‘non-displacing alternatives,’ consultations with the people likely to be affected, and so on, find a place in the Rehabilitation Bill; a Social Impact Assessment is provided for; an Ombudsman is being provided for the redress of grievances; and a National Rehabilitation Commission is envisaged. Why then are the Bills not being welcomed?

Let us consider the Land Acquisition Amendment Bill first. At first sight, the deletion of all references to companies gives us the impression that acquisition by the state for private parties is being eliminated, but that is not the case. The original Act had the wording “for a public purpose or for a company”; the words “or for a company” are now being omitted; but the definition of “public purpose” itself is being changed to include a (supplementary) acquisition for “a person” (including a company). If the private party purchases 70 per cent of the required land through negotiation, the balance 30 per cent can still be acquired by the government for that party. This means that sovereign compulsion will be brought to bear on those who are not inclined to sell their land, and also that state patronage for industrial houses can continue. Incidentally, it will be seen that the definition of ‘public purpose,’ instead of being made stringent and narrow as many had recommended, is being widened.

Moreover, it was necessary not merely to rule out (or limit) the acquisition of land for private parties under the Land Acquisition Act, but also to ensure that rural communities are not taken advantage of by corporate bodies in unequal negotiations. There is no such provision in the Bill.

Judging by its name, The Land Acquisition Compensation Disputes Settlement Authority will apparently deal only with compensation issues. A longstanding criticism of the Land Acquisition Act has been that the ‘public purpose’ for which land is being acquired is not open to contestation. There seems to be no change in that position.

One wonders whether the bar on the jurisdiction of the civil courts and the establishment of a Dispute Settlement Authority instead is in fact a good thing to do. There is room for misgivings here.

Turning now to the Rehabilitation Bill, the provision for a Social Impact Assessment seems very good, but the impacts are rather narrowly confined to physical assets (buildings, temples), institutions, facilities, etc. Social impacts must be more broadly understood to include the loss of identity; the disappearance of a whole way of life; the dispersal of close-knit communities; the loss of a centuries-old relationship with nature; the loss of roots; and so on. It is good that the SIA will be reviewed by an independent multi-disciplinary expert body, but it should first be prepared by a similar body. The provision for a Social Impact Assessment clearance is good, but not enough: it should be part of an overall clearance for displacement. If the felling of trees and interference with wildlife and nature in general require statutory clearances, should not the displacement of people be subject to a similar requirement? Such a clearance must come from an independent statutory authority and not from the bureaucracy. The clearance must of course be subject to certain conditions and must be revocable in the event of non-compliance or lapses; and the revocation clause should be actually used.

The terms ‘minimum displacement’ and ‘non-displacing alternative’ are music to the ears, but the application of this criterion is left to a late stage when the consideration of options may no longer be possible, and the decision is left to the Administrator for R&R. In other words, this crucial decision is entrusted to the bureaucracy.

An impressive structure of institutions has been specified, but their responsibilities and powers have not been spelt out. Administrator, Commissioner, project-level and district-level R&R Committees, Ombudsman, Monitoring and Oversight Committees, National R&R Commission: what each will do, how they will be inter-related, what decision-making powers each will have and in relation to what aspects, and so on, are far from clear. Everything is covered by the phrase “as may be prescribed.”

Words such as “wherever possible,” or other similar phrases are scattered throughout the Bill. For instance, group settlement is laid down, but qualified by the phrase “wherever possible;” training is to be provided “wherever necessary;” there are also qualifications such as “if government land is available,” “preferably,” and so on. They seem innocuous, but all of them involve decisions. Such hedged-in requirements can hardly be mandatory: they are likely to become discretionary, with the discretion vesting in the bureaucracy.

The Ombudsman provision is a good one, but ‘grievance’ has been narrowly defined to cover only the case of “not being offered the benefits admissible.” Grievances could relate to many other things: non-participatory project decision, failures of consultation, non-compliance with the minimum displacement condition, non-inclusion of a person in the ‘affected’ category, and so on. How the Ombudsman will be appointed, how the Ombudsman will function, etc., are left to be ‘prescribed.’

Taking the preceding points together, it appears that the precise manner in which this seemingly benign and enlightened legislation will actually work in practice will be entirely determined by the delegated/subordinate legislation, that is, the rules that are made under it.

The National Monitoring Committee seems totally bureaucratic, except for the non-mandatory association of some experts (the operative word is “may”). No civil society or NGO participation seems envisaged.

In the case of the Sardar Sarovar Project the basic principle in force (though it may not always be complied with) is: rehabilitation must precede submergence. The present Bill retreats from that position and requires only “adequate progress in rehabilitation” prior to displacement. This is a retrograde step. Besides, who will decide the adequacy of the progress?

The elements of the rehabilitation ‘package’ seem inferior to the policies already adopted in projects such as Sardar Sarovar and Tehri. Moreover, cash in lieu of land is envisaged in several places. This is fraught with danger. Eventually, cash may well become the main form of compensation.

In the event of deliberate or inadvertent lapses or non-compliance or deviations, what consequences will follow? The Bill is silent on this. Without such sanctions, how can the provisions be enforced? Far from sanctions for non-compliance, there is a sweeping indemnity provision!

In addition to those primary points, there are many others, some of them quite important, that need consideration. They cannot be set forth in detail here for want of space.

The conclusion that emerges from this quick examination of the two Bills is that there are many weaknesses and questionable features in these Bills which need to be rectified. Opposition to the Bills is therefore warranted. However, the very fact that the government is thinking of a rehabilitation law and of amending the Land Acquisition Act is an achievement for public opinion. It has taken more than two decades for the debate to reach this stage. Opposition to the Bills should be carefully modulated so that we can proceed further from here and not lose what has been gained.

Bhopal: Generations of Poison

http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15485

by Nityanand Jayaraman, Special to CorpWatch
December 2nd, 2009

Note: with translation assistance from D. Narsimha Reddy.

Babu Lal Gaur is a much-reviled man in the slums that surround the derelict Union Carbide factory in Bhopal. As the Minister of Gas Relief and Rehabilitation in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, he is responsible for the welfare of the more than half a million survivors of the 1984 Bhopal Gas tragedy.

“If betrayal had a human face, it would be Gaur's,” says Hazra Bee, a gas victim, and veteran of two 500-mile marches for justice from Bhopal to the Indian capital New Delhi. “As Minister, Gaur has done nothing to help me, my son or others in our situation. But, he is actively working to let Union Carbide and Dow get away without fulfilling their responsibilities.”

Now 54, Hazra Bee still finds it difficult to keep from crying when she talks about her son. Twenty-five years ago, Bee had carried her four-year-old son as she fled the poison cloud hissing out from Carbide's death factory. Now 29, Mansoor has severely compromised lungs and cannot do strenuous work. As a child, he was susceptible to frequent coughs and ruptured an eardrum during a coughing fit. The ear was operated on, but pus still flows out from time to time, his mother says. “I pray to Allah that no mother goes through the torture that Bhopali women have experienced,” she says.

At midnight of December 2-3, 1984, Union Carbide's pesticide factory leaked poisonous methyl iso cyanate into its densely populated neighborhood. More than 8,000 people were killed in the immediate aftermath, and at least 500,000 exposed to the poisons. In 2001, Union Carbide became a 100 percent subsidiary of Dow Chemical. It was the world's worst industrial accident.

A quarter century since the disaster, a new generation of children is being maimed by the second wave of Bhopal's chemical disaster. Thousands of tons of toxic materials still lie abandoned inside the factory, and in soccer-field sized evaporation ponds outside. The poor design of Union Carbide's waste disposal systems, including containments, is allowing toxins to escape into the surrounding environment. Two explosive reports released on December 1 by the London-based Bhopal Medical Appeal, and the New Delhi-based Center for Science and Environment (CSE) confirm local parents' worst fears: Groundwater and soil inside and outside the factory hold dangerous levels of chlorinated solvents, pesticides and heavy metals. [See box.] Every rain spreads the poison to groundwater that more than 30,000 people rely on as their main source of drinking water.The leaching toxins are linked to congenital disorders including deformities and brain damage. “A preliminary house-to-house study we did found that birth defects in communities affected by water contamination is ten times the national average,” says Satinath Sarangi, a long-time Bhopal activist and founder of the free Sambhavna Clinic for gas victims.

Carbide Site Continues to Leak Poisons Two studies released on December 1, 2009 confirm the presence of toxic chemicals in the soil and groundwater in and around the Union Carbide facility. They add to the more than a dozen reports warning that although the plant is abandoned, it remains a danger to human health. A Bhopal Medical Appeal study of four hand-pump samples revealed that three of four samples have above-safe levels of chlorinated solvents, particularly chloroform and carbon tetrachloride. Chloroform levels were two to three times higher than U.S. EPA drinking water guidelines, while carbon tetrachloride exceeded World Health Organization's drinking water guidelines by 900 to 2,400 times. Complementing this study is the New Delhi-based Center for Science and Environment's report, a comprehensive analysis of pesticide, chlorobenzene and heavy metal contaminants. The researchers tested soil samples from inside the factory and the solar evaporation pond outside. They also sampled drinking water sources outside the plant, and surface water inside the factory. The latter had the highest pesticide contamination, at 0.28 ppm, or 561 times the Bureau of Indian Standards' (BIS) permissible limits for drinking water. This water is not used directly for drinking. All drinking water samples contained total pesticides at between 1.1 to 59.3 times permissible levels stipulated by BIS. One sample of hand pump water from New Arif Nagar contained 122 times the permissible level of lead and 30 times the permissible level of cadmium. The factory site and the solar evaporation pond are still heavily contaminated, the CSE study found. All soil samples contained chlorinated benzenes, in addition to lead, mercury, arsenic and Chromium. Mercury levels are as high as 8188 parts per million, or 164 times higher than Canadian standards for acceptable levels in industrial areas. The CSE study concludes that the profile of chemicals found in the groundwater match that of the toxins detected Union Carbide's wastes. “There is no other source of these chlorinated benzene compounds and pesticides than UCIL,” it declares. The UCIL plant is “a continuous source of groundwater contamination,” the study warns. Carbamates – (a class of pesticides) that are moderately persistent and should not be seen in groundwater so long after the factory closed – were found at significant levels. The government of Madhya Pradesh denies the existence of any contamination of soil or groundwater. But these and previous reports present overwhelming evidence that contamination is extensive and exposes residents to serious long-term health effects. See: www.bhopal.org for the BMA study, and www.cseindia.org for the CSE report.

“Gaur knew about Union Carbide's toxic contamination even before the disaster,” says Sarangi. A lawyer, Gaur had negotiated a 1982 settlement between Carbide and farmers whose buffaloes died after drinking Carbide's effluents. In 2004, months after Gaur's right-wing Hindu party took over the state government, Gaur told the Christian Science Monitor: “Our state pollution control board in December filed a report that confirms that there is contamination of the groundwater." He blamed the Congress Party government, which his BJP had just defeated, for keeping the studies under wraps. The new state government wants Dow to clean up,” he said.

Today, as minister of all issues relating to Union Carbide and its victims, Gaur denies the presence of contaminants in soil or groundwater.

But at least 13 governmental and non-governmental studies, including CSE's recent release, confirm the presence of Carbide's poisons in the drinking water used by thousands of people. The only reports that found no groundwater contamination were prepared—for Union Carbide—in 1994 and 1997, by India's National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI).

Guar maintains that any groundwater contamination in the area was caused by “the oil depots of petrol, diesel and kerosene near the area,” not Union Carbide.

Survivors charge that NEERI's reports and protestations by Gaur and other politicians are part of a sinister campaign to divert attention from the contamination issue, and to deflect corporate liability. "The center and the state government hope to use the 25th anniversary as an occasion to bury the disaster along with all the pending liabilities. This is what Dow wants," said Syed M. Irfan of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangarsh Morcha. "Rather than clean-up the site, they are now engaged in cleaning up their image through deceit and denial."

Now It's Toxic; Now It's Not

Last September, India's flashy Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh, exhibited his flair for publicity stunts. He had himself photographed wearing trendy sunglasses and handling a rock python to dispel fears that snakes are dangerous. That same day, he entered the Union Carbide factory and handled the toxic material onsite. “I am alive," he proclaimed to journalists. "I am not coughing.”

The next day, irate Bhopalis burnt effigies of the environment minister, prompting him to issue an unconditional apology.

Following Ramesh's example, Gaur declared that he would throw open the factory for 15 days leading up to the 25th anniversary to let people see for themselves how safe the factory site was. Public protests kept the site closed while Gaur vowed to open it anyway and keep it open forever. His chief minister declared the site “100 percent safe.”

“The toxic waste is lying for years, and the toxicity, if there was any, have been washed away during the last so many years,” he told Business Standard a few days before the 25th anniversary. In what must have been music to Dow's ears, he added, “We will not allow Dow to even enter the factory premises [for clean-up].”

Science: For Sale

Exactly a week before today’s 25th anniversary, Bhopal survivor groups served up a banquet with a difference. On the menu was an assortment of “toxic delicacies” – Semi-processed Pesticide on Watercress; Naphthol Tar Fondue; Sevin Tar Souffle; Reactor Residue Quiche; and Lime Sludge Mousse. All served with a complimentary bottle of B'eau Pal water. “Your appetite will contribute to a cleaner Bhopal,” invitees were told. Two prominent scientists – Dr. R. Vijayaraghavan from the Defence Research Development Establishment (DRDE), and Dr. T. Chakrabarti from the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), were named as the chef and sous-chef.

Place settings for the chief minister of the state, senior bureaucrats and Babu Lal Gaur remained predictably vacant.

“The faux banquet is Bhopal's comical, cynical response to scientific skullduggery,” says Rachna Dhingra, one of the buffet organizers. “This was our way of taking a dig at the scoundrels that are masquerading as scientists,” she adds, referring to the opinions given by the heads of high-profile scientific institutions in support of the State Government's decision to throw the dangerous site open.

“For a 70kg man, there will not be any death even if he takes 200gm [of toxic wastes stored inside Carbide's premises] by oral route,” wrote Vijayaraghavan of DRDE. Therefore, he writes in an official opinion given to Madhya Pradesh, the government's plans to open the factory site for public visits would not cause “any untoward, adverse or toxic effect to the public.”

Health Effects of Key Chemicals Found Lead: Exposure increases blood pressure, and risk of kidney damage, miscarriage, nervous system disorders, brain damage, and decreased fertility in men through sperm damage. Children exposed to lead are especially vulnerable to learning disabilities and behavioral disruptions including aggression, impulsive behavior and hyperactivity. Mercury: Chronic exposure of mercury affects the nervous system, causing tremors, spasms, memory loss, severe depression, increased excitability, delirium, hallucination and personality changes. Renal damages have been observed in chronically exposed workers. Arsenic: Exposure to inorganic arsenic can cause irritation of the stomach and intestines, decreased production of red and white blood cells, skin changes and lung irritation. Exposure to high doses can cause skin, lung, liver and lymphatic cancers. Chromium: Adverse effects of the hexavalent form on the skin may include ulcerations, dermatitis and allergic skin reactions, and cancers. Inhalation of hexavalent chromium compounds can result in ulceration and perforation of the mucous membranes of the nasal septum, irritation of the pharynx and larynx, asthmatic bronchitis, bronchospasms and edema. Respiratory symptoms may include coughing and wheezing, shortness of breath and nasal itch. Cadmium: When cadmium accumulates in kidneys it damages filtering mechanisms, causing the excretion of essential proteins and sugars and further kidney damage. Diarrhea, stomach pains and severe vomiting, bone fracture, reproductive failure and possibly infertility, damage to the central nervous and immune systems, psychological disorders, possibly DNA damage and cancer can also occur. Chloroform: Exposure to chloroform may cause irritation of eyes and skin, dizziness, mental dullness, nausea, confusion, headache, weakness, exhaustion and enlarged liver. Chloroform can also cause liver and kidney cancer. Carbon Tetrachloride: Chronic exposure increases risk of liver and kidney cancer. Chlorobenzenes: Dichlorobenzenes cause depression of central nervous system, respiratory tract and eye irritation, anemia, skin lesions, vomiting, headaches, anorexia, weight loss, atrophy of the liver, blood dyscrasias, porphyria and chromosomal disorders in blood samples. Animal carcinogenicity data for hexachlorobenzene show increased incidences of liver, kidney and thyroid cancers. Chronic oral exposure in humans is linked to liver disease (porphyria cutanea tarda), skin lesions with discoloration, ulceration, photosensitivity, thyroid effects, bone effects and loss of hair. It may kill embryos and cause birth defects. Carbamate pesticides: Prolonged low-level exposure causes headaches, memory loss, muscle weakness and cramps, and anorexia. Source: CSE Study "Contamination of Soil and Water Inside and Outside the Union Carbide India Ltd, Bhopal". www.cseindia.org

In a November 2009 letter to the Government of Madhya Pradesh, Chakrabarti, acting director of NEERI, concurred. “I along with several government officials, have visited the site umpteen number of times without experiencing any health problem.”

The government presented both letters as scientific opinions to the Madhya Pradesh High Court to seek permission to open the site. And the court acquiesced.

“The two letters are totally useless,” says Dr. P.M. Bhargava, an internationally respected chemist and molecular biologist. The former vice-chairman of India's prestigious National Knowledge Commission is rueful about the quality of Indian scientists and institutions. “We know how corrupt our institutions can be. Anyone can make any statement. Where are the data? How did they test? What did they test for? All other studies indicate that the site is completely unsafe; I wouldn't put my foot on the ground,” he says. Bhargava is also a member of a Technical sub-committee of the High Court's Task Force set up to offer advice on the technicalities of site remediation. He was never consulted on the decision to throw the factory open.

Watered Down

In August 2005, Hazra Bee accompanied several women exposed to the contaminated water to Gaur's office. In a ritual that binds brothers to look out for their sisters, the women tied a Rakhi around the minister's wrist. Each Rakhi bore the message “Brother: Won't You Give Us Water?” A few months later, when the “sisters” visited Guar's home to remind him of his obligation, he had police on the scene who beat the activists. Bee and ten others were charged with armed robbery.

The government pledge to provide clean water is long standing. Nonetheless, a May 2004 Supreme Court order directing the state government to provide clean drinking water to the affected communities lies unimplemented. Eight Prime Ministers, 13 hunger strikes, 1,130 demonstrations, and a 1,500 mile-long march to Delhi later, this essential item has remained as elusive as Union Carbide itself.

“For all of the struggle and the indignities we have suffered at the hands of the government and police, we have succeeded in getting the [Union government] to allocate Rs. 14 crores ($2.8 million) for water,” says Bee. “A third of us now get clean piped water from time to time,” she adds.

“Caste and religion play a big role in explaining why [most] Bhopalis have not yet got clean water,” says Dhingra. More than 80 percent of the residents of the 14 contamination-affected areas are either indigent Muslims or Dalits belonging to the lowest rungs of India's oppressive caste hierarchy. “The state's right-wing pro-Hindu BJP is hell-bent on diverting the [Union government's] allocation to provide water [to our communities] to 22 additional areas which are predominantly upper caste Hindus,” explains Dhingra.

Dow's Double-speak

Bhopal's activists see deep irony and a not-so-hidden business agenda in Dow's recent choice of water as an area to demonstrate its corporate social responsibility (CSR). “The attention on the water crisis is gradually shifting from a local level to a global level, which means more opportunity for a global business like Dow Water & Process Solutions,” Ian Barbour, general manager of Dow's water division, told a trade publication.

In November, Dow announced that it would sponsor the Live Earth Run for Water on April 18, 2010. The worldwide event will consist of four-mile walks and runs, concerts and water education activities “aimed at igniting a tipping point to help solve the water crisis.” Proceeds from the events will go to NGOs to fund sustainable, scalable water programs.

If Dow India's water sector interventions are anything to go by, Dow's charity begins and ends at home. Take the case of two water treatment plants launched with much fanfare as part of Dow India's corporate social responsibility in the south Indian state of Andhrapradesh.

In November 2006 Dow India inaugurated a 1,000-litre per hour reverse osmosis plant in Dasaigudem village in collaboration with Byrraju Foundation to provide some 600 villagers with clean drinking water. The desalination plant uses four Dow brand FilmTec membranes, each costing $300 (Rs. 15,000). A narrow plastic pipe carries the highly saline and toxic rejects from the plant to a ditch across the road that eventually empties into Dasa Cheruvu Lake nearby.

Dow's website still mentions “India's first water purification plant in Andhrapradesh” set up by its Indian subsidiary in 2006. But the Dasaigudem effort is seriously flawed. “The membrane has to be changed every year. Now it is three years, and we don't have the money to change it,” says plant operator D. Venkannan. “People are opting out because the water is increasingly brackish.”

Less than an hour's drive from Dasaigudem is the sleepy village of Solipet. At 2 p.m., most residents are either farming or enjoying a siesta. Those who remain – shopkeepers and housewives – have never heard of Dow or the water plant it claims to have set up in October 2007. The plant, using Dow's “yet-to-be released resin technology,” was installed at a cost of $5,000 by Dow India. It hardly worked for five months. Now there is no sign of the plant. “It was only an experimental plant. People gave it up; acceptance level was low,” says K.S. Raju, proprietor of Poorvi Enterprises, which supplied plant and machinery.

For Dow, these corporate social responsibility ventures make business sense. “Dow is spending money in the relevant field. When it sets up a reverse osmosis plant, it generates a replacement market for its membranes,” Raju clarifies. “Dow's other CSR program is a collaboration with an NGO that donates artificial limbs to handicapped children. Here Dow is promoting its polyurethane as a replacement for the rubber used to make the limbs,” he adds, noting that the material is ill suited to local needs.

Hazra Bee is unimpressed with Dow's CSR. “What responsibility? Their only responsibility is to us. We need the water. Our children are being maimed because of Dow's inaction.”

Convinced of the government's insincerity, Bhopalis are geared up to fight the long fight. December is also the first anniversary of Children Against Dow-Carbide, an association of about 60 youngsters. Those who are hoping the decades-long struggle for justice will fade away after the 25th anniversary may be disappointed. According to 17-year old Safreen Khan, one of the co-founders of the youth group, “The Bhopal struggle is not 25 years old. With our entry, the struggle has just entered its youthful phase, and we'll keep the fight alive for as long as it takes.”

* Nityanand Jayaraman is an independent journalist and researcher investigating and reporting on corporate abuses of environment and human rights. He is a long-time volunteer with the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal.

How Chhattisgarh shames "us" – dreams , nightmares and our dark underbellies

http://www.himalmag.com/Two-faces-of-extremism_dnw228.html
Garga Chatterjee

"As a person born and brought up in Bastar I have been studying the recent happenings in this district with deep concern and I have come to the conclusion that in the long drawn out battle of nerves between the Government and you-know-who, the obvious casualty is the poor Adivasi, who has been constantly ignored and misunderstood. The Government has completely failed in understanding the sentiments of the people of this region. Economically depressed, and perpetually exploited by the urban settlers, these tribals are easy prey to the corrupt and high-handed administrative and police machinery. As a result, a permanent wedge has been driven between them and the Government. Community development schemes and tribal welfare departments of doubtful utility will not save the situation" - reads a letter by a certain S R Naidu to the editor of a weekly magazine.

Of late, most of us have heard similar views which seek to paint the state as a corrupt force, ruling by police intervention in Chhattisgarh. Such writers do not want to understand that development schemes take time to show effect and harbour sympathy for the Maoists at their root - right? Wrong. S R Naidu was really talking about Prabir Chandra Bhanj Deo, local Member of the Legislative Assembly and ex-ruler of the area. The letter was published on 6th May in NOW - a political and cultural weekly. In 1966.

Looking into the thoughts that rushed through our heads and the conclusions we made before we were told it was 1966 can give us a few insights into the automated consumers of packaged "information" we have become. None of this is new - not the packaging nor the consumption. Naxalbari in 1966 was still an unknown village in Darjeeling district. There were no armed Maoists in India then. In the 1967 general elections, in Bastar, Congress came fifth after two independents (including the winner), Jan Sangh and the Samyukta Socialist Party candidates. Times change. Or do they?

In 1967, 40 percent of the 20 million babies born in India each year were projected to eventually suffer from some degree of brain damage. The International Food Policy Research Institute in its 2008 India State Hunger Index classified the state of hunger in Chhattisgarh as "alarming". The best performance came from Punjab, classified as "serious", a notch better. An Indira Congress minister admitted to Time magazine in an interview in 1967 "we are producing millions of subhumans annually". That minister's name was Chidambaram – Chidambaram Subramanium. He died in 2000. We have a different Chidambaram – P Chidambaram ruling over this hungry multitude.Times change.

Some of the subhuman babies of 1967 are 38 years old now. What creatures have they developed into? Some of them inhabit Chhattisgarh. According to the much-denounced Arjun Sengupta commission report, in 2004-05, a total of 836 million (77 percent of the population) lived on below INR 20 a day. To people caught between 20-20, Sensex and MacAloo Tikki, these numbers come as anti-national conspiracies to denigrate the emerging giant that is India. What image are we projecting to the world - we ask detractors. Shouldn't we be united in this hour of initiation at the big table? We are preoccupied with what the world thinks of us. I wonder what do those millions of subhumans think of us - what do they think of our cafés, our news anchors, our "sufi" music, our engineering colleges, our BPO "revolution", our Dial-a-pizza.

When the sun goes down in Chhattisgarh tonight, when one of the subhuman women tries to close her eyes in sleep - what does she see. Does she dream that a four-lane highway come to her village? Are there cars on those roads? Is that me at the steering wheel of one of those cars? or is that you? How do we appear to these creatures in their dreams and nightmares - do we look human?

Abujhmad for the Gonds of Chhattisgarh is the unknown forest. For the Madia Gonds, this is their universe and reality of existence - the forest holding within itself chronicles, snake-bites, culture and much more. And this reality permeates much of Madia Desh [what is true?]. In 1978-1998, 91 percent of the Madia Gonds lived below the poverty. These are the people of whom Verrier Elwin wrote "These are the real swadeshi products of India, in whose presence all others are foreign. These are ancient people with moral rights and claims thousands of years old." Our cities are expanding - our gated communities need iron gates and wrought iron furniture is all the rage. Our eyeing at their land and the iron-ore beneath them is not new - their eyeing us back is not new either. They have been there since the Iron Age. They are not "innocent" tribals - they have never been. No human is. Those of us, living in sun-lit megalopolis, who learn the past from history books with worlds as broad as TV channels, feel distinctly uneasy about all this talk of moral rights and thousand-year-old claims. We know of our high cholesterol and lack of exercise epidemics, while overworked anaemic Gonds live in our republic. The possibility of a connection is bound to be distinctly unpalatable. I might even change the channel.

Godless ideologues of the Maoist variety, who possibly imagine the ghotuls, or youth dormitories, as future Red-Guard communes, are now arming the Gonds for their own violent ideological ends - pawns in their macabre "revolutionary" game. But what paths have we left for the Gonds - we, who think that an armed Gond is unnatural but a hungry Gond is natural. What happens when all that constitutes a people's dignity - Gods, histories, grandmother's tales, stubbornness, honour, ghotuls, groves, hills – have been off? Should they apply for a stay-order through the proper channel, in triplicate? Himanshu Kumar, a Gandhian if there ever was one, and an untiring satyagrahi in Chhattisgarh, says with a sad rage "For how long will middle class ‘bhadralok’ remain silent spectators to the State’s colonization of tribal territory to subsidize urban growth in the name of ‘tribal development'?" It does not portend well for our democratic society.

During a showing of his documentary on the NGO Narmada Bachao Andolan, film-maker Sanjay Kak told me in almost a resigned voice that he was possibly filming an obituary of non-violent struggles in India. Is Himanshu Kumar a voice in the wilderness? Have we finally accomplished what Nathuram Godse tried to do? In these troubled times, Himanshu Kumar and his satyagrahi ways might actually appear insane to those deeply entrenched in urban society. Like some Aztec shaaman in a trance, Himanshu Kumar is talking a language which appears eeriely unfamiliar to us – non-violence, dignity, humanity.

In 1966, Prabir Chandra Bhanj Deo led the Bastar Gonds into a non-violent struggle for famine relief and cheaper rice against the Madhya Pradesh government. The government declared he was insane and finally shot him dead at his home along with many of his supporters when the Gonds had come to greet him during dusshera. The Gonds still revere his memory and were recently dispersed by force on his memorial day. That is how that story ended. I shudder at what new story ideas our collective greed is coming up with. We have no shame.

“The struggle against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” - Milan Kundera

Garga Chatterjee is a researcher at Harvard University and an observer of contemporary power, self-identities and plurality in the Indic context. He used to be a physician but now investigation into the psyche dominates his mind.

Fact Finding Report of Narayanpatna Firing on Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangha

http://sanhati.com/articles/1941/

As this report gets written Singanna and Andru’s bodies are being cremated at Podapadar village amidst a throng of police platoons waiting to arrest any member of Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangha (CMAS) who exposes herself or himself to the police. Already 20 have been arrested and there is evident fear of many more hundreds being detained or arrested. The total clamp down on participation of the media, activists, leaders and any sympathizer of CMAS is not only condemnable but totally unjustified. The district has been turned into a hunting ground of tribals and there is fear written all over the faces of tribals in this remote block of Koraput district. A small team of three members made a two-day visit to Narayanpatna to ascertain the situation and understand the truth behind the firing incident which killed two tribals.

Blocked roads, long walks up and down winding hill paths and petrified tribals afraid to open their mouths to any unknown persons were the memories etched in the team members’ minds. But what left the members shocked during their visit on 21st and 22nd November 2009 was that democracy had fallen to its worst during those three days after the firing and murder of two tribals.

There is much to be asked about the firing but the question foremost on our mind is – who ordered the firing? did the police take the permission of a magistrate before setting off their guns and why was tear gas and other non-fatal measures not used to disperse a crowd which police thought might create a law and order situation? the time gap between the protest gathering and the firing is just about 30 minutes? but police say they requested and warned and then opened fire? all these things happened in 30 minutes? sounds a little preposterous and forces one to wonder whether it was cold blooded murder or a freak incident or a well-planned strategic elimination of a leader who held sway over a large number of fearless and empowered tribal cadres of CMAS.

As the days pass rising police brutalities destroy brick by brick the euphoric notions of ‘democracy’ so carefully packaged and sold to people of India by a political class sold out to corporate greed. Every night and every dawn brings shivers to the tribals as they await an assault on their hamlet, whether on the hill top or on the plains or deep in the jungles, by the marauding security forces. No one knows from which end and at what time under cover of darkness these cobras and scorpions will attack their village, break open their doors, kick them out of their homes and beat the blues out of them. The CMAS has been persistently branded a frontal organization of the CPI (Maoist) despite their vehement rebuttal and lack of any evidence to show their Maoist connections.

Facts and observations stated in this report are based on information and statements collected during interviews with Narayanpatna residents who were witness to the firing, local mediapersons and villagers of Kumbhari and Narayanpatna Panchayats.

Fact Finding Team Members -

1. K Sudhakar Patnaik – Senior Journalist
2. Manoranjan Routray – Journalist
3. Sharanya – HumAnE, Koraput

The Facts of 20th November 2009

• About 200 CMAS members including 100 women came to Narayanpatna Police Station to protest against harassment of tribals in particular women during the previous days’ combing operations by security forces. They reached the police station at around 2 pm and since the two gates of the police station were closed they called on the OIC to come out for a discussion. The police refused to let them in and began verbally abusing tribals who had assembled at the gate.

• When the police did not respond to their repeated requests to let a team of tribals into the police station for discussion on their complaints with the OIC, CMAS leader Kumudini Behera and CMAS President Kendruka Singanna broke open the lock of the small side gate of the police compound with an axe. As the gate opened 5-6 main leaders of CMAS including Singanna and Kumudini went to meet OIC Gouranga Charan Sahu. During a heated exchange between the OIC and Singanna, the OIC began to shout that he was being attacked by CMAS leaders and he ordered the IRB guards on the roof of the police station to open fire on the crowd gathered outside. The police fired three shots in air and then began to indiscriminately fire at the crowd standing outside the police compound. The firing was done by the IRB as well as CRPF and Cobra at 2.45 pm. The firing continued for half an hour and 300 bullets were fired at people.

• Hearing the sound of firing Singanna and others came out of the police station. Singanna was hit in the chest while he was walking out of the police compound. He received ten bullets in his chest and fell in front of the small police gate. Another CMAS member Andru Nachika of Bhaliaput village received bullet injuries and fell face down outside the police compound. Their bodies were left there by CMAS members who ran helter-skelter as the police began firing at them. Around 300 bullets were fired at the people. In this firing, while two have died it is being estimated that around 60 more persons have been injured and some are in a serious condition.

• Singanna is survived by his wife who is also pregnant, three sons and a daughter. Andru is survived by his wife who is also pregnant and two children.

The Reason for CMAS Protest

• During a fact finding visit on 22nd November 2009, all CMAS members and villagers interviewed stated that they had gone to the Police Station to lodge their protest against police harassment of tribals and in particular women who were being harassed by the security forces.

• One of the main reasons for CMAS members’ protest was that they wanted an answer from the OIC regarding violation of an assurance made to the tribals earlier. The CMAS members stated that about two months back they had held a protest rally regarding harassment of tribals in the name of combing and deployment of security forces in their villages. Following the rally, the OIC had given a written assurance to CMAS leaders that forces would not enter their villages and harass the tribals. They would conduct combing operations without harassing the locals. But the CMAS members stated that the police had violated this assurance and hence they came to ask the police the reason for this gross violation which was a serious breach of trust.

• Of particular importance is people’s statement that the security forces categorically told them during combing operations on 18th and 19th November that they should leave their villages immediately or else they would have to face dire consequences. They even told them that the non-tribals whose lands CMAS had ‘grabbed’ (sic!) would come back soon to claim their lands !

• Combing operations and related harassment of 18th and 29th November was reported from Odiapentha, Dandabeda, Palaput, Dubaguda and Badhraguda villages.

• Apart from warning them, they did not allow the women and men to continue their harvesting work. Some said that they even took away their harvested paddy and mandia crops. The tribals explained to us that this season is the most important time for them because they are engaged in harvesting, husking and storing of their foodgrains. Hence such combing operations and threats to people would destroy their harvesting operations and affect their food security.

• When the tribals related this to their CMAS leaders, the latter decided to go to the police station to demand an explanation for this warning and also protest the harassment. The CMAS leaders sent cadres to different villages and assembled the members and took a decision to hold a peaceful march to the police station to make their protest and put their demands before police.

• About 50 tribals whom we interviewed and most of who had attended the march to the police station, categorically stated that they did not carry any firearms and that they carried a few axes and thick bamboo sticks. None carried any bow and arrow because they explained to us that on previous occasions their bows and arrows had led the media to brand them as Maoists. So they said that they had consciously not carried any bows and arrows or local swords.

Situation of 22nd November 2009

• As of today, it is difficult to ascertain the exact number of persons injured as CMAS members have returned to their villages and have not been able to meet or communicate with each other about the actual injuries to their members. Medical aid to these persons is not available as the injured are afraid to come to Narayanpatna Primary Health Centre (PHC) for medical treatment for fear of being arrested. They are taking treatment from their traditional tribal healers (disaris). Doctors are also reluctant to go to the villages for treating any patients for fear of abuse by the police and security forces. Local Anganwadis and ASHA workers are unable to teat the injured as they do not have the necessary medicines, spirit and cotton to clean and dress the wounds.

• Far flung villages and constant combing by the security forces is also making it difficult for the leaders to move to different villages to ascertain how many have been injured and what is their condition. Most leaders are in hiding as there is a reported shoot-at-sight order against them.

• On 22nd November early morning there was a combing operation by security forces and seven persons were arrested from their homes between 5 to 6 am. Apart from this, forces forcefully broke into homes and searched for ‘red flags’ (whatever that might signify as evidence!?). They abused people, in particular the women, kicked and beat young boys with thick bamboo sticks who did not answer questions. They seized axes, sickles, knives, bows and arrows and bamboo sticks from every house they entered and told the tribals that these are ‘dangerous weapons of murder’ and that they would be arrested if they were found in their homes next time. The tribals asked us, “these are our agricultural implements and daily household needs so how can we not keep them at home? How will we get fuelwood, cut vegetables, harvest paddy and cut branches to feed our animals? Where should we hide them and why should we do that when we never use these as weapons of murder as accused by the police?” We had no answers ….

• Four CMAS members from Narayanpatna and three persons from Palaput, 1 km away from Narayanpatna. The details of persons arrested are : 1. Raju Huika – Narayanpatna Kandha Sahi, 2. Dora Nachika – Narayanpatna Kandha Sahi, 3. Masi Sirka – Narayanpatna Kandha Sahi, 4. Ramesh Khosla – Narayanpatna Ghasi Sahi, 5. Kumudini Dora - Palaput Tala Sahi, 6. Debendra Behera - Palaput Tala Sahi 7. Satyanarayan Bangu - Palaput Tala Sahi (his commander was seized)

• These seven persons have been taken into police custody on 22nd November and will have to be produced before Judicial Magistrate at Laxmipur within 24 hours. If this is not done then the police would be violating its own laws.

• Apart from this, the fact finding team also met three persons who have received bullet injuries. A boy of 18 years received two bullet injuries in his leg and in the same village another person has a bullet injury wherein the bullet is still lodged in his hip. Yet another person of that village has a bullet wound which whisked past his left calf and has left a slit which needs immediate stitches. Another older man of another village has received a bullet injury in his left hand. This person was marketing dry fish near the police station when he was hit. He had no idea about the rally and the reasons for it. He is also partially hearing impaired. Apart from this, the people the fact finding team spoke to said that about 60 others have also received bullet injuries and are hiding in the villages. None of these persons are able to get medical help.

• As the fact finding team wanted to give some medicines to the injured patients and went into Narayanpatna town for purchasing these at around 3 pm on 22nd November they were stopped by DSP Jagannath Rao and Semiliguda IIC Sarat Sahu along with some armed constabulary. After initial questions on where the team had gone and why and checking of vehicle, they asked the team to leave the town immediately or else they would have to detain the members. This warning came despite knowing the fact that two of the fact finding members were journalists.

Impact of Firing on People

• All people whom the fact finding team met in the last two days are under tremendous fear that the police would kill every tribal they set their sight on including all members of CMAS. There is fear in their eyes as they spoke to the fact finding team members. They asked, “what should we do when the police comes to our village?” When they were told not to run upon seeing the forces, they asked, “if we do not run then how can we save ourselves? they will definitely kill us”. The women stated that they heard forces warning them in low breath that if the CMAS male members did not hand themselves over to the police then they would rape the all the women to ‘teach them a lesson’. One old woman asked us, “what wrong have we done? We only asked for lands to cultivate and live a life of dignity and freedom from hunger?”

• People are afraid to move out of villages due to fear of arrest and are constantly discussing about what will happen to them after this. Every village we went to we found women and men assembled in their village meeting place discussing the impending dangers. They are afraid to stay in the jungles as the forces are patrolling the jungles as well. They say that if they stay in the jungles they will be hunted and killed and if they live in their villages then they will be hunted out into the jungles and then also killed. “So either ways we die”, tell the women.

• The leaders of CMAs have several questions : why did the police not use tear gars to disperse the tribals if they thought there was going to be a law and order situation? Why were rubber bullets not used? The firing took place within half and hour of the protest rally so how did the police state that they gave the people adequate opportunities to break the rally and disperse?

• The CMAS leaders also asked us, “when the police comes attacking us in our villages we do not retaliate and kill them? In fact we allow them to search us, our homes and even beat us up mercilessly? So why did police kill us when we came to their home to seek answers to simple questions?” They told us, “even if we had snatched the weapons we could not have fired because we do not know how to use them? So how did we become threats to the life of the OIC or the IRB guards standing on the rooftop?”

• They asked us to reflect on why would they, the tribals, want to attack the police in their own compound? And why would 200 tribals come to the police station to loot arms when the OIC did not even have a gun on him when they confronted him? They explained to us that the IRB guards stationed on the roof, who fired at the crowd, were beyond the reach of tribals and hence it is impossible that they were trying to snatch their weapons at the roof.

• A very pertinent question was asked to us by a few tribal youths at a meeting in a village of Kumbhari Panchayat. They told us that the Government wants tribals to keep peace and help the Government and use democratic means to state their complaints. But the CMAS members asked us, “why should we help Government when it has not even given us our basic survival needs like PDS, NREGS, schools and health? Government forced us to fight for our survival but killed us because we went to ask them a question? Is that so undemocratic? And what the police did to us, is that what you call democracy?”

• The fact finding team also observed that the local mediapersons have not been reporting the truth behind several facts of the firing incident and are tracking movement of other reporters and fact finding teams visiting the area. They are conveying this information to the local police. The team felt very strongly that local mediapersons were doing this with malafide intentions.

JNU: Students and Police Clash

Blogpost by a student:
http://ink-ink.blogspot.com/2009/11/22nd-november-2009-jnu.html


Indian Express:
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/jnu-violence-cops-pleaded-for-hrs-in-vain-with-students-says-dcp/545354/