[E-rundbrief] Info 352 - GMO - Protests in France legal

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 352: Francine Bavay, Yves Contassot, Renaud De Wreden, 
François Dufour, Fabienne Glasson, Philippe Matet, Annette Rimbert, and 
Xavier Timoner: GMOs Are Unconstitutional. (French courts recognized the 
"necessity" of nonviolent actions against GMO-corn crops - because of the 
"present danger of the uncontrolled spread of GMO genes, the dissemination 
of which had been authorized, contrary to the constitutional right to a 
healthy environment.")

Bad Ischl, 4.2.2006

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

===========================================================

GMOs Are Unconstitutional

By Francine Bavay, Yves Contassot, Renaud De Wreden, François Dufour,
     Fabienne Glasson, Philippe Matet, Annette Rimbert, and Xavier Timoner

     Le Monde

     Wednesday, 18 January 2006

     December 9, 2005, is a historic date: it's the political birthday for 
the Charter of the Environment which was entered into the Constitution in 
February of the same year. GMOs became literally unconstitutional. On 
December 9th, in an unprecedented decision, the Orléans criminal court - 
followed by the Versailles court on January 13 for other deliberate reapers 
- discharged us for having deliberately reaped Monsanto's transgenic corn 
crops in 2004. The court recognized the "necessity" of our action. This 
necessity, according to the court, results from the "present danger of the 
uncontrolled spread of GMO genes, the dissemination of which had been 
authorized, contrary to the constitutional right to a healthy environment."

     In consequence, this is the beginning of the end for the impunity of 
France's transgenic industry; it's a subpoena addressed to the French 
State; it's an indictment of its cowardice. The illegitimacy of GMOs was 
established before; their illegality is finally recognized because their 
destruction is legally qualified as a necessity. By virtue of the Charter 
of the Environment inscribed in the Constitution, a right to neutralize 
GMOs planted in the field has just been affirmed by the French legal 
system. This decision finally forces all actors, beginning with the state, 
to take an irreversible position.

     The French authorities have shown themselves over time to be 
extraordinarily weak, hypocritical, and inconstant. Successive governments 
have abandoned the GMO question to contradictory winds from Europe, 
scientists, public opinion, and, as punishment for this cowardice, the 
justice system! First of all, the European Union, which imposed a 
moratorium in 1999, then its lifting in 2004, but also a protective 
directive France did not respect; then, scientists whose opinions followed 
one another with no similarities, proving daily the extent of uncertainty; 
finally, the labor and union movements, since France - one of the leaders 
in experimental GMO agriculture as of the end of the 1980s - experienced no 
public debate on the subject until 1996 and that, only thanks to citizen 
vigilance.

     The Orléans decision allows us to make up for lost time and to go 
still further. Let's look around us: numerous governments, scalded by great 
public health scandals and paying attention to their citizens' opinion, 
have taken the lead and demonstrated extreme caution. Germany is a case in 
point, with a very protective and deterrent November 2004 law that invests 
total responsibility in the case of contamination with the producers and 
cultivators of GMO. Also in November 2004, Italy published a decree on the 
coexistence of crops and imposed a moratorium until the end of 2005. Quite 
recently, Denmark provided for the constitution of an obligatory national 
indemnification fund GMO cultivators must subscribe to, at the rate of 13.4 
Euros per hectare [2.47 acres] per year, in order to compensate for the 
absence of private insurance for contaminations. Finally, the Swiss - 
already endowed with the very strict 2004 Genlex - have just voted by 
referendum in favor of a five year moratorium on GMO cultivation, 
repudiating their present government's position. Austria, which took over 
the Union presidency and which will organize the first European conference 
on GMO, finally deigned to consult its citizens in 1997 and prohibits 
transgenic crops.

     In all the great democratic countries, governments have taken the 
measure of the GMO stakes: nothing less than an attempt to privatize the 
global food base (soy, rice, corn, wheat) and genetic patrimony via brand 
names. Unique in its kind, France promoted GMO in retreat, through a series 
of faits accomplis. Now that's all finished. Nature is a whole that imposes 
choices. We invoke a state of necessity everywhere GMO plants are 
cultivated or tested in the field. From now on, every citizen has the right 
to destroy them, and the government has a duty to prohibit them. We demand 
the creation of an indemnification fund for proven contaminations, a 
citizen reorientation for research grants, prohibition of any new GMO 
planting and the neutralization of any existing crops, and finally, 
organization in the coming months of a national referendum on the question 
of GMO.

     For Gandhi, the function of non-violent action was to make the hidden 
violence of institutions, of the "established disorder" visible; in the 
same way, we have wanted to make visible the violence done to peasants, 
citizens, science, democracy, and to the simple duty to govern. The French 
legal system has finally understood that so that we may all grasp the 
consequences.

     Francine Bavay, Yves Contassot, Renaud De Wreden, François Dufour, 
Fabienne Glasson, Philippe Matet, Annette Rimbert, and Xavier Timoner are 
deliberate GMO crop reapers.

     Translation:  t r u t h o u t  French language correspondent Leslie 
Thatcher.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/011906HA.shtml

===========================================================

Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
     Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
     Center for Encounter and active Non-Violence
     Wolfgangerstr. 26, A-4820 Bad Ischl, Austria,
     fon: +43 6132 24590, Informationen/ informations,
     Impressum in: http://www.begegnungszentrum.at
Spenden-Konto Nr. 0600-970305 (Blz. 20314) Sparkasse Bad Ischl, 
Geschäftsstelle Pfandl
IBAN: AT922031400600970305    BIC: SKBIAT21XXX