_http://consumidoresorganicos.org/2017/12/19/dia-monsanto-infiltro-a-morena/?platform=hootsuite said:
The day that Monsanto infiltrated Morena
By Víctor M. Toledo, La Jornada , December 19, 2017
The case of Odebrecht, the Brazilian corporation that bribed innumerable Latin American governments, including that of Mexico, is just one more of the many that exist in the world through which capital infiltrates, subdues and controls the State.
We live in the era not only of the political spies but of the agents that the gigantic corporations hire to serve their interests, placing them in key government positions. It is what has been called the stateless global governance (J. Ziegler, The New Masters of the World , 2013).
Two illustrative examples are those of the pharmaceutical companies and the agri-food companies. The former have infiltrated ministries of health, scientific journals of medicine and, of course, the World Health Organization (WHO). The latter place agents in key positions in the ministries of agriculture and in the global network of agricultural research centers and, of course, in FAO. This is the case of the five sisters who dominate the planet's agrifood monopoly: Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta, Pioneer and Dow Agroscience.
The past 14 December will go down in history as one of the days of greatest glory for the corporations, because they achieved a spectacular triumph: they managed to place their main Latin American agent as future Secretary of Agriculture of a left government in Mexico. This is the agronomist Víctor Manuel Villalobos, who has made a spectacular career for 20 years in favor of corporate interests, the model of agriculture promoted by the United States, the transfer of huge amounts of funds from the Sagarpa to international organizations and permanent sabotage to any initiative that attempts against agribusiness. His meteoric trajectory as an agent of agrifood and biotechnology corporations and a persistent opponent of peasant, indigenous and environmental demands is internationally known.[/b] --- Morena, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador its candidate for president presented his
Started as a biotechnologist at the Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the IPN (1995-97), where he gave rise to one of the two main centers of studies on genetically modified foods, he jumped unexpectedly to the undersecretary of Semarnap (1997-99) imposed by the then president E. Zedillo to the one that was titular of that dependancy. From there he managed with V. Fox to locate himself as undersecretary and then coordinator of international affairs for Sagarpa (2002-2009). It was in this last position where he became explicitly an agent of corporate interests on a national and international scale.
In Mexico, he was the promoter of the first version of the Biosafety Law (known as the Monsanto law ) that sought to facilitate the biotechnology companies obtaining the permission to sow transgenic corn, promoted the initiative of the Law of Plant Genetic Resources, aimed at facilitating the biopiracy of seeds, and defended at all costs the Law of Agrofuels. However, its greatest successes were on an international scale because it managed to deactivate international agreements at the meetings of the Cartagena Protocol in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2004) and Curitiba, Brazil (2006). For example, it boycotted the mandatory labeling of genetically modified organisms or voting jointly with the protransgenic countries on behalf of Mexico. His role as scab led him to be appointed since 2010 director general of the Research Institute of Agricultural Sciences (IICA) based in Costa Rica, which is the agricultural arm of the Organization of American States (OAS) and spearhead of agribusiness in Latin America From that position, he has been promoting the 2003-2015 Plan of the Americas for the development of the biotechnology industry in the region, as well as supporting and implementing the North American Biotechnology Initiative (Nabi).
Why was Andrés Manuel López Obrador appointed this sepoy of the transnationals? How can such a sinister character head a secretariat that seeks the recovery of peasant agriculture, the defense of corn, the rescue of the Mesoamerican agricultural tradition, the multiplication of successful agroecological projects more and more numerous, and a policy for the countryside aimed at achieving food sovereignty? The questions have no answers, but more questions. Everything indicates that this appointment actually comes from a major intervention, from a superior Trojan horse: Alfonso Romo, the controversial and powerful businessman of the Monterrey Group and head of the Pulsar Group also appointed by AMLO as its chief of strategy and coordinator of the Alternative Project de Nación 2018. This turns Morena into a party that possesses a sheepskin with a wolf brain, in which the central decisions are dictated by a connoted member of the Mafia in power, which, logically, possesses a neoliberal vision, technocratic and classist reality of the country ( see interview in Forbes )
A few hours after the inexplicable appointment, indignation and discouragement multiplied among broad sectors of militants and supporters of Morena, from peasant organizations, indigenous cooperatives and students of the Mexican countryside to resistance movements and defense of the territory and environmental organizations and civil society. . In the next few days we will see texts, manifestos and public demands for Morena to rectify this crazy decision, at the risk of losing millions of the so-called green vote (peasant, indigenous and environmental). The situation is worrisome, because the incongruity is not limited to the Ministry of Agriculture. The same has happened with the Semarat and the SEP, whose appointments do not resist the slightest criticism. Curious that just this happens with the three sectors that today make up the largest bastions of resistance to the neoliberal project that has led to the ruin of Mexico: peasants and indigenous peoples, environmentalists and democratic teachers.
