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Leaders In Energy & Environment
Vandana Shiva Says Corporations, WTO, and World Bank killing Indian Peasants and stealing Water by Sophia Barkat On March 26th, 2004 Vandana Shiva spoke at the Campus of Northern Arizona University. Shiva is a physicist, ecologist, activist, editor, and author of many books. In India she has established Navdanya, a movement for biodiversity conservation and farmers' rights. She directs the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy, and represents farmers and environmental activists from Europe to Japan to India. Her organization tracks what multinational corporations do to destroy the ecology of Earth, focusing on "biological patenting" and natural resource abuse in food, and medicine sectors by multinational companies based in the West. Whenever a company like RICETEK claims it has "invented" genetically superior basmati rice her organization lodges a complaint and starts an awareness movement to drive the company to withdraw the ridiculous patent. For, Shiva says, the companies are just going to use the patent to stop farmers all over the world from growing naturally growing basmati. Nothing can be more serious than the way corporations are playing with the livelihoods of the poor. Calling it "re-arranging furniture" Shiva makes light of the system of genetic engineering, and asks the audience, "Who would take you seriously if you wanted to patent a room after re-arranging some furniture?" Bio-piracy is what she calls this usurping of rights by corporations. BIO-PIRACY Corporations killing Agriculture in India According to Shiva, 25,000 Indian farmers commit suicide each year by drinking fertilizers, the very same that the WTO is forcing them to buy under it's new agenda to enforce Biological Patents on Food, Water, Seeds, Medicine etc. so that no other country save the US can make these. The farmers go into debt trying to buy US patented seeds for rice, wheat, etc. -- even though there are indigenous Indian grains. The WTO is forcing these kinds of US biological patents on basmati rice, flour, and seeds. Even Neem, an Indian medicinal plant, was patented by a US company and this was being enforced by the US Dept. of Agriculture upon India, even though Neem grows in India and not the US. On top of the pressure from the WTO and GATT, the World Bank also has plans that will destroy agriculture in India. The World Bank is currently trying to create dams to change the direction of the Ganges river towards cities, further drying up rural and agricultural lands. This will help the very people who want Indian farmers to die away. Shiva's organized protestors gather at these sites and give informational tours to those who care. They also lobby for the Government of India to not accept such monies from the World Bank. AIDS Medicine The US under the Patent Laws of the US, which it forces other countries to recognize, is also forcing India not to create AIDS medicines, even though India was charging $200 for the same medicine and American companies $20,000. African countries trying to buy AIDS drugs from India were being punished by economic sanctions by the US, and this was much of the complaint by the US in the Uruguay Round talks. This, despite the fact that India makes the drugs using a completely different process than the US. HYDRO-PIRACY Coca Cola steals Public Water Shiva led the fight against Coca Cola recently. In Kerala India, Coca Cola was using up public water to make it's products, leading to water shortage in Kerala's villages and forcing women to walk 15 miles, on average, to get water. The same women could get this water from their backyard wells, before. The women of the village protested over a year, sitting day-in and day-out outside Coca Coca gates, but nothing was done by any local authorities or law enforcement to help them. When Shiva joined them she helped them to lodge a complaint against Local and National authorities and filed a case in the Indian High Court. To understand the level of bureaucracy and corruption they had to fight, Shiva mentioned that during the time of their case, they had learned that the Indian President, Vajpayee, had been offered Rupees 300 million in bribes from Coca Cola to oppose this lawsuit. By that time however the story of the women had spread all over the world, and the media publicity had helped to loosen the grip that Coca Cola had on the politicians. Shiva and the people of Kerala won the lawsuit, opening up much more debate in the Indian parliament about multinational corporations in India. Shiva says the fight is not over. Coca Cola has a new agenda (see their latest Annual Report). They want to sell water to the whole world. They are going to create the same problem of usurping public water away from locals, leading to rising cost of public water. It's her goal to see that this company closes down. International Finance One US dollar is equal to some 50 Indian rupees. Shiva agreed that it was this that has led to multinational corporations seeking out third world nations, especially those with corrupt governments, to get natural resources like water and also to patent natural resources. It is also why out-sourcing jobs to the poor nations has become popular. Shiva stressed that unless we get rid of the actual incentive we won't be able to stop multinational corporations from robbing from the people, or from sending jobs to the nations with the cheapest labor. References Here is Vandana Shiva on Bill Moyer's NOW: http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_shiva.html Interview with Shiva: http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/shiva.html Several Articles by Vandana Shiva on Z-Net: http://www.zmag.org/bios/homepage.cfm?authorID=90 Article on BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/reith_2000/lecture5.stm Here is a Rutgers University webpage in her honor: http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~favretto/vshiva.html About the Author(s): See under Our Contributors to find out about the Author(s) of this article. |
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