Boot out Monsanto
That the Bangkok Post publishes from time to time articles uncritically written by heads of UN agencies on their own work can be understood. But that it opens its columns to big companies like Bayer, re: “Vision to innovate a better life with Thailand 4.0”, Nov 21), is questionable. The more so as the article comes just one week after petitions signed by more than a million people were delivered to the US Department of Justice calling on the department to block the proposed merger of Bayer and Monsanto.
The article of Jim Kennelly echoes, in the Thai context, all the arguments used to justify the merger last year by CEO’s Hugh Grant of Monsanto and Werner Baumann of Bayer. Except that Kennelly inserts loosely the perspective of Thailand on its way to becoming a “low inequality nation” without substantiating how Bayer-Monsanto’s grip on Thailand’s farmers population contributes to that. In Southeast Asia apparently this corporate propaganda can be freely spread. The European parliament however, according to the Guardian, booted all Monsanto’s lobbyists from parliamentary proceedings, and closed off access to its 751 individual members, after Monsanto said it would not participate in a hearing to consider allegations that it wrongfully influenced regulatory research regarding the safety of glyphosate. In India, where Monsanto pioneered the use of genetically modified (GM) technology, Monsanto hastily sold its seeds business in order to dive under the radar of regulators with no other reason than to save its deal with Bayer; an escape which only demonstrates what both see in the words of Kennelly as “the right culture”.
High standard professional judges of the civil society Monsanto Tribunal held in The Hague, October 2016, concluded that Monsanto has engaged in practices which have negatively impacted the right to a healthy environment, the right to food and the right to health. On top of that Monsanto’s conduct is negatively affecting the right to freedom indispensable for scientific research.
The judges also concluded that despite the development of many instruments to protect the environment, a gap remains between commitments and the reality of environmental protection.
HANS VAN WILLENSWAARD