A federal court in Mexico City ordered the Mexican government “to suspend the issue of permits for experimental, pilot or commercial cultivation of genetically modified corn” on Oct. 10. This is the first victory in a class-action suit filed against the invasion of Monsanto corn in Mexico.
El 10 de octubre el Juzgado Federal XII ordenó al gobierno mexicano “suspender el otorgamiento de permisos de liberación experimental, piloto y comercial de maíz genéticamente modificado”, al dar arranque a un juicio de acción colectiva contra la invasión del maíz de Monsanto en México.
Representatives from affected communities and environmental organizations denounced that the Mexican government has caused pollution, deterioration of watershed and clean water scarcity.
Representantes de comunidades afectadas y organizaciones ambientales denunciaron que la contaminación, el deterioro de cuencas y la falta de agua sana es responsabilidad directa del gobierno mexicano “por omisión y comisión.”
México vive el periodo más violento para la prensa en su historia moderna; los datos, análisis y testimonios de organizaciones aquí presentados así lo confirman.
Mexican activists responded to the global call for a day against Monsanto with a “Carnival of Corn” in Mexico City. Hundreds of mostly young people from political, social and environmental organizations and artists’ collectives held cultural events and paraded from the Palace of Fine Arts to the Monument to the Revolution with drummers, street theater, music, performance and dance. The most popular hash tag in the social networks was #FueraMonsanto (#MonsantoOut).
Monsanto es un ente de excepción. En la vida no es raro que incluso a las peores cosas podamos encontrarles algún rasgo positivo, pero las estrategias de esta multinacional productora de transgénicos y pesticidas son una representación tan acendrada del mal que ha sido fácilmente escogida como el blanco de la ira global contra las corporaciones capitalistas que están deteriorando la economía, la biodiversidad y la salud de la gente.
Monsanto’s bitter seeds have given another blow to the Mexican honeycreepers that had previously succeeded in stopping short the transnational corporation’s plan to plant 253,000 acres of transgenic soybeans in the Yucatan Peninsula that would have jeopardized beekeeping in the region, the main livelihood more than 25,000 families.
In an era of food crisis, the fight for corn has intensified, and the importance of this grain – a staple of the diet of Mexico and a large part of the world – has been revealed to the fullest extent. The scenario we are faced with is a battle between a culture that revolves around the material and symbolic production of corn, as well as the cultural, social, and historical value placed upon this crop by humankind, and the network of commercial and political interests that sees this prodigious crop simply as another way to increase power and profit by means of plundering its native lands.
En época de crisis alimentaria, la disputa por el maíz se recrudece. El escenario es el combate entre una cultura que gira en torno a la producción material y simbólica del maíz, valioso patrimonio agrogenético, social e histórico de la humanidad, y el entramado de intereses mercantiles y políticos que ven en este grano prodigioso sólo otro elemento para aumentar sus ganancias y poder mediante el saqueo.
