PRESS RELEASE
BY
THE SUAMAN STUDENTS AND ASSOCIATE
SUASA
SUASA Calls on Western Regional Mps to Declare Their
Position on the Plant Breeders Bill and the Bio-safety Act
The Suaman Students and Associate, a student group
in the Northern part of the Western region, in the Suaman Dadieso district, is
calling on all the MPs in the western region of Ghana to declare their position
on the Plant Breeders Bill and the Bio-safety Act, which is at the
consideration stage before parliament.
The association which is based in the western
region, is not only concerned about promoting higher education in the Suaman
district and beyond but, also care about one thing without which man cannot
survive, which is food and it’s security and how food will continue to be the
best and first medicine to mankind.
The association believes that, what is about to gain
grounds in our country is about life and death and the last and final stage
of neo-colonialism, a deliberate and the
legal way of a country selling out her
citizens not even to a country but a group of people headed by MONSANTO.
In view of the above, SUASA describes any form of
silence as criminal and indifferent especially on the part of our Honourable
members of Parliament and we say this for the following reasons:
Our members of Parliament are in the legislature to
represent our interest and representation includes protection, which includes
protection from food poisoning and the general health of the people they
represents.
Secondly, the negative effect the nation will
experience when this bill becomes law, will be irreversible so we are begging
them not to experiment with human lives in any case, the best experiment is
already done by those who want to bring GMO to Ghana and our MPs know the
American scientists who love humanity didn’t use human beings to test GMOs
instead, they used rats and pigs
Thirdly, as we said earlier, the pending bill and
the already passed, Bio-safety Act are about life and death, SUASA is reminding
our Hon. MPs to know that when Ghanaians start dying; no one will point
accusing fingers at MONSATO but our MPs.
In other words, our MPs will be supervising the mass
killing of the same people they were elected to defend and protect if they
refuse to reject these bills.
Finally, SUASA is re-emphasizing on why our MPs must
not keep quiet and how criminal it will be to be quiet on the issue of GMOs. We
also believe that, since our MPs have more followers than any organization,
their public education or debate will let the people, for the first time, begin
to find out more about the issue at hand.
We therefore combine our right and their
responsibility to call on all the MPs in the Western region to come out and
tell the world their position on the Plant Breeders Bill and the Bio-safety Act
which was passed in 2011and also to educate their constituents and the nation
on what is about to come upon mother Ghana.
Members of parliament per the nature of their work
and their title as representatives and law makers, suppose to educate their
constituents on bill before it becomes law, but the opposite is what we see in
Ghana. Though, SUASA can speak for our MP and all the western regional MPs, the
association can risk and bet that, the Ghanaian MPs’ deliberate refusal to
inform and educate their constituents on issues that becomes laws in the
country is 99% poor.
SUASA have read the Plant Breeders Bill and sees it
as a threat to human survival. The bill when becomes a law, will increase the
already hardship the Ghanaian farmers are going through.
The deceptive nature of the bill eludes majority of its readers, but taking time to
read over and over again, SUASA concludes that, the decorated name Plant
Breeding is about nothing but Genetically Modified Organisms (G.M.Os) and GMO
is nothing but the creation of jobs and money for a multinational companies who
are losing their markets in the developed world due to the poisonous nature of
their food product and the negative effect GMOs have on the environment and the
water bodies.
Some of the reasons the pushers of GMOs give to
governments all over the world is food security in the world, but if you’ve
been to any of the farming communities in Ghana, which includes the western
region, one will come to the conclusion that, Ghana can never face food problem
if our leaders will protect our air-space from been sprayed by the same
multinational companies who creates artificial climate conditions in order to
introduce seeds that can withstand all weather conditions.
The above mentioned bill is aimed at protecting
breeders of new varieties of plants according to the first paragraph of the
MEMORANDUM on the Plant Breeders Bill. “The
purpose of this bill is to establish a
legal framework to protect the rights of breeders of new varieties of plants or
plant groupings and to promote the breeding of new varieties of plants aimed at
improving the quantity and quality and cost of food, fuel, fiber and raw
materials for industry”.
Ladies and gentlemen, such a reason is something no
one in his or her rightful sense should protest against. Because there is
nothing wrong with one eating from what he has worked for. But this is a
different case altogether; this is a typical Hegelian principle at work here.
And the good people of Ghana should see this bill as
nothing but a Trojan Horse, SUASA have done enough research on biotechnology
which’s end product is Genetically Modified Organisms and non of the findings
should be kept secret to the good people of Ghana.
Before we share with the public some of the harmful
effects the bill have in-store on human life and the environment, let it be
clear to all Ghanaians that, GMOs is about your health and the profit some few
individual, mostly foreigners will get when you are used as a guinea-pig and
laboratory rats.
The association will want Ghanaians to also know
that, contrary to the claims made in the bill in paragraph one of the
memorandum, examples from countries that have passed this law shows that the
bill will exist to protect MONSANTO and not any Ghanaian scientists as claimed
in the bill.
It is also important to note that, a bill which’s
implementation borders on our health have nothing in the bill to regulate the
activities of breeders when their actions start killing Ghanaians.
And no one should think this could be an oversight
by the drafters of the bill because MONSANTO and their GM partners have never
considered the people’s health in all the countries they have been to. The
association further believes, this bill under discussion was not written by a
Ghanaian because; a Ghanaian will be a bit merciful towards his fellow
Ghanaians not to feed them with poison.
Section 23 of the bill depict the in-human nature of
the bill as it seeks to make the government, Parliament ministry, of Health,
ministry of Agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and any
regulatory instittuion in Ghana
in-effective to regulate their activities. Below is the section 23 of
the Plant Breeders Bill,
“23. A plant breeder right
shall be independent of any measure taken
by the Republic to regulate
within Ghana the production, certification
and marketing of material of a
variety or the importation or exportation
of the material”.
After going through the bill and looking at how
MONSANTO and his Plant Breeders deal with countries who have passed this bill
into law, SUASA conclude that section 23 of the PBB is the alpha and omega of
the bill and that much attention should be given to this section than any part
of it.
In other words, MONSANTO who stand to benefit from
this human-degradable bill will withdraw it from Parliament if section 23 is
removed from it. Because bio-tech companies do not want any form of regulations
in all the countries they operate, especially in the USA where they originated.
What is MONSANTO? To those who have no idea,
MONSANTO is one of the largest agro-chemical companies based in the united
state of America, they are the producers of chemicals like DDT, Roundup,
Glyphosate which are used in the production of most GMO foods.
MONSANTO’s aim is to control the
world’s food through seed patenting, they also want to become the soul
distributors of food in the world but they hate governmental control.
These characteristics of MOSANTO
can clearly be seen in the section 23 of the Plant Breeders Bill “ 23. A
plant breeder right shall be independent of any measure taken
by the Republic to regulate
within Ghana the production, certification
and marketing of material of a
variety or the importation or exportation
of the material”.
MONSANTO also deceive governments, Parliamentarians,
regulatory agencies like the EPA, FDB, or the FDA in the SUA, in the USA, the
Food and Drug Administration is deceived and controlled by MONSANTO to pass
laws which allows GMO companies like MONSANTO to sell their un-tested food on
the US market without any governmental regulations.
Dan Glickman, US secretary of Agric from 1995 to
2000 said the following about MONSANTO governmental controls and manipulations
in the US “During my time as the
secretary, if you are a person who wants Biotech products, GMOs to be tested
before they are sent to the market, then you will be tagged as anti-science or
anti progress.(the world according to Monsanto)
Glickman further gave reasons why you will not be
happy in government if you try to protect the people’s safety and health. “well I think there were a lot of folks in
Agric-business and in government who did
not want as much analysis as probably we should have had because, they had made
a huge investments”. “when I was in charge of the department, I had a lot of
pressure on me not to push the issues
too far, but I will say when I open my mouth, I got slapped little bit
not only by those in the (GMO) industry but also people in the administration”.
The above confessions was made by a man from a country
where institutions ( work), and this is not all Ghana can learn from in order
to throw this Trojan Horse and the Bio-safety Act out of Parliament
James Maryanski PhD. Biotechnology coordinator at
the FDA in the US, from 1985-2006 is warning Ghanaians not to pass this bill
because, he was in charge of Biotech to make sure the US citizens are protected
but this is what he said of MONSANTO’s
manipulations, “The reason why GM crops are here is based on deception”.
SUASA can go on to give evidence from former
pro-GMO engineers; warning countries that have not passed these bills into law
to stop.
From MONSANTO’s website, there is a nice deception
which one can see throughout the Plant Breeders Bill. For example, “our
products provide consistent and significant economic benefits to both large-
and smaller holder growers. In many cases, farmers are able to grow
higher-quality and better yielding crops with fewer inputs and less labour”.
The above is almost the theme for the Plant Breeders
Bill, the Plant Breeders Bill creates the impression that, land for farming is
now scares and the magic to this land problem is Biotech seeds and crop. But
SUASA is saying, Ghana have more than necessary lands for farming the organic
way, Ghanaians will never go hungry.
SUASA further argue that, should Ghana experience
land scarcity, we should not go for GM crops and that government through
Parliament must pass laws to barn the existing GM seeds and MONSANTO chemicals
in the country to save our environment.
In February this year, myjoyonline.com published a
story on the EU threatening to ban foods from Ghana because it contains
poisonous chemicals. The question SUASA is asking is, where do you think those
chemicals come from? And are the MPs saying or thinking with the plant breeders
bill, the chemicals in the land are going to be reduced?
If our MPs and the government don’t know, the EU who
support our budget and the biggest market for Ghanaian goods have ban GMO base
product and all MONSANTO herbicides and agrochemicals which changes food from
its natural state.
In Germany: There is a ban on the cultivation or sale of GMO
maize.In Ireland: All GM crops were banned for cultivation in 2009, and there is a voluntary labeling system for foods containing GM foods to be identified as such.
In Austria, Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria and Luxembourg: There are bans on the cultivation and sale of GMOs.
In Madeira: This small autonomous Portugese island requested a country-wide ban on genetically modified crops last year and was permitted to do so by the EU.
In Switzerland: The country banned all GM crops, animals, and plants on its fields and farms in a public referendum in 2005, but the initial ban was for only five years. The ban has since been extended through 2013.
The French Parliament has given final approval on a GMO cultivation ban in France. The ban applies to currently approved GMO varieties in the EU as well as any that may be approved in the future.
But the government of Ghana and the parliament says we want MONSANTO to use Ghanaians as lab rate.
From the action taken by the European countries, SUASA is therefore asking our MPs and the government the following questions:
Are the MPs and the government telling Ghanaians, Ghana have a better hospitals than those in Europe? Better hospitals which can counter the numerous diseases GMOs production in Ghana will bring?
Have Ghana better or more scientist than the EU countries? We are asking all these questions because, the plant breeders bill, bio-tech, GMOs, and MONSANTO’s agro-chemicals is principally the following:
MONSANTO’ bio-tech and GMOs is all about life and death because it pollutes the environment, the air, the water bodies and any living organism.
Because, MONSANTO’s agro-chemicals have killed uncountable people in the united state of America and other part of the world. In Ghana today, we are eating GMOs through the importation of goods, we are already eating GMO foods like the frozen meats and most of the foods we import from outside.
The Public Health Association of Ghana has warn
Ghanaians about the negative effect of
GMOs, which was captured in the Thursday May, 8th edition of the
Daily Graphic (Page 45) they stated that, “there is some correlation between
organ disease, increasing in GMO in food supply and glyphosate herbal
application with the possibility of endocrine disruptions; the GPHA noted”.
Organ diseases mentioned include thyroid cancer,
liver and intera hepatic bile duct cancer, hypertension, acute kidney disease,
and many more. They further stated, “GMOs, it said, had the tendency to provoke
allergic reactions, as new pesticides residue effects in the alimentary system
might affect gut bacterial, provoking peripheral immune and allergic
reactions”.
Dr. Amofa indicated that “there is the need to
enhance local capacity to research the introduction and the use of GMOs to put
in place appropriate regulatory mechanisms, including particularly the labeling
of GMO products and post-marketing surveillance for possible negative health
consequences in the long term”.
The GPHA is suggesting of gradual introduction of
GMOs into the country that is if government will put in place regulatory
measures to protects the people’s health which sound good but, SUASA is saying, Ghanaians should do all we
can to stop this bill from becoming a law.
Among the things, the public health association
mentioned was a chemical called glyphosate and this chemical is one of the
chemicals you cannot grow GMO crop without and from the home of GM product,
which is the United State of America, a recent research conducted by
sustainable plus, has shown the presence of glyphosate in the breast milk of
the American women and their urine.
“In the first ever testing on glyphosate
herbicide in the breast milk of American women, Moms across America and
Sustainable Plus have found ‘high’ levels in 3 out of the 10 samples tested.
The shocking results point to glyphosate levels building up in women’s bodies
over a period of time, which has until now been refuted by both global
regulatory authorities and the biotech industry.We further ask Ghanaians to demonstrate to prevent this from happening because, reading through the plant breeders bill, one cannot see any sign of protection for the Ghanaian. Because, in the US, where majority of the people know more about their rights, any laws passed on agriculture, only benefit MONSANTO and the bio-tech industry.
In fact, the latest law passed in the US on GMOs prevent the federal courts from punishing MONSANTO and GMO industry should new research says the Americans are dying from eating GMOs. The news headline is about the latest MONSANTO protection bill in the USA.
Monsanto
Protection Act Signed By Obama, GMO Bill “Written By Monsanto” Signed Into Law
The Monsanto Protection Act, essentially both
written by and benefiting Monsanto Corporation, has been signed into law by
United States President Barack Obama. The infamous Monsanto Corporation will
benefit greatly and directly from the bill, as it essentially gives companies
that deal with genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and genetically engineered
(GE) seeds immunity to the federal courts, among other things.The bill states that, even if a future research shows that GMOs or GE seeds cause significant health problems, cancer, etc, anything, that the federal courts no longer have any power to stop their spread, use, or sales. Source: www.naturalnews.com. Strangely enough, the report goes on to state that, many members of Congress were apparently unaware that the “Monsanto Protection Act” was a part of the pending bill that they were voting on.
Statistics in India indicates that, MONSANTO controls almost all the cotton seeds in the country thereby forcing poor farmers to buy it’s seeds at four times the price higher than organic seeds. This lead farmers to money lenders who charge higher interest rates which eventually leads to farmers committing suicide when they cannot pay the money they borrowed.
According to Indian Agronomists, Kiran Sakhari and
Abdul Gayum, “since BT cotton was introduced in 2005 by MONSANTO, the number of
suicides in the cotton farming communities in 2006 alone was 600 suicides, thus
from June 2005 to June 2006 600 suicides.
SUASA, coming from a typical farming community have
enough evidence to say that, what is happing to the Indian farmers is exactly
what the Plant Breeders Bill seeks to do to the Ghanaian farmers.
Already, the cocoa farmers in the western region are
borrowing from money lenders with higher interest during off seasons.
The
Plant Breeders Bill and legal suit against farmers
SUASA will also want the people of Ghana to know
another dimension of the frustrations MONSANTO will bring onto the Ghanaian
farmers with the Plant Breeders bill.
The breeders, when given the right to change the
DNAs of our natural foods, will begin to frustrate both organic farmers and
even GMO farmers in order to make farming un-attractive which will eventually
make MONSANTO the soul farmer in the country within some few years when this
bill becomes law.
In the USA, the origin of Bio-tech and GMOs, large
scale farmers have had to abandon their farming investments due to un-desirable
legal-suit. Farmers in the state have lost their life time investment to MONSANTO
for a so called non- payment of royalty.
Troy Roush an Indiana farmer; tells how sad it has
become to be a farmer in the USA, “Monsanto have private investigators who
comes to my farm and interview me; later, Monsanto sued me, my dad and my two
brothers and after years of stress, the family broke down”.
Ladies and gentlemen, US farmers are losing their
farms and investments through court suits, how much can the Ghanaian farmers
stand them? In Ghana, even the few rich fear to go to court because of bureaucracy.
Let’s ask ourselves how many times can a farmer from
his village in the hinter lands can go to Accra, Tarkoradi, Kumasi or tamale to
answer question from MONSANTO by the court?.
At this point we want to make this clear to our
president His Excellency president John Dramani Mahama and the parliamentarians
that, they are at the verge of winning independence for Ghana, an achievement
just like what Dr. Kwame Nkrumah won for us.
On the other hand the president and the MPs can
choose to be calledsell-outs, thus the administration which passed a bill that
sold the people of Ghana to MONSANTO.
The plant Breeders Bill is all about GMOs and no one
should be deceived; it is coming for the Ghanaian scientist. The truth is, we
are already growing and eating GMOs here; if you ask why, ask yourself when did
we as Ghanaians and Africans started experiencing the cancers and all the
dangerous diseases?.
It is written in all the books in the US and Europe
that, Africa started getting these cancers only when we were introduced to GMO
based foods. GMOs and bio-tech foods are human and bio degradable, and all well
meaning Ghanaians should rise and fight it just like our forefathers did to
slavery. In fact, bio-tech and GMO is the last stage of slavery.
The venn-diagram below shows how various governments
from both the democrats and the republicans appoint former MONSANTO
sympathizers in key areas of regulations like the EPA, FDA, USDA and the like.
This act of conflict of interest always makes the US
government weak in protecting the citizen’s interest and SUASA wants Ghanaians
to know that, once again the plant breeders bill was and can never be written
by a Ghanaian should the bill be written by a Ghanaian, that person must be a
MONSANTO representative to Ghana.
In conclusion, SUASA not only represent education,
and should education be our restricted goal, we, saying, if education does not
support human survival and safety, it is useless. Therefore we also represent a
farming community and we are blessed with MPs from one of the farming
communities in Ghana and we are asking of their position on the plant breeders
bill and that their voice on the matter will do help their constituents a lot
of good thereby helping them to take a good decision for themselves and the
nation as a whole.
All
Credit for this Venn diagram goes to Geke.us
While
there are numerous points of overlap between Monsanto and the United States
Government under the Obama administration, the three most important connections
are that of Michael Taylor, Roger, Beachy, and Islam Siddiqui—all three of
these Monsanto affiliates were appointed to high level positions within the
government by the Obama administration.
The Obama administration appointed
Michael Taylor, the previous vice president of Monsanto and a current Monsanto
lobbyist, to a high level advisory role at the Food and Drug Administration
[FDA]. It is virtually inarguable that this appointment constitutes a massive
boon for Monsanto and an undeniable conflict of interest for Taylor.
Given the fact that Taylor is a
lobbyist for Monsanto and is being paid by the agro-giant, it is reasonable to
assume that his advice to the FDA is focused upon helping his employer reduce
its regulatory burden and improve its profitability. It isn’t a secret who
Taylor worked for and we can assume that the Obama administration knew who they
were appointing when they did it.
Source:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/monsanto-controls-both-the-white-house-and-the-us-congress/5336422.
EMMANUEL
ASIAKO
(PRESIDENT)
(PRESIDENT)
(Evans Tawiah)
Acting press secretary
0247785985
E-mail: radiojamgh@yahoo.com
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