La Via Campesina : International Peasant Movement

Stop! The UNFCCC is going off the rails!

Friday, 03 July 2009

Via Campesina Call to mobilise for a Cool Planet – Copenhagen December 2009

Don't trade off Peasant's agriculture for rights to pollute

While scientific predictions of climate catastrophe continue to grow, world leaders will gather in Copenhagen on 7-18 December 2009 for the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The solutions being discussed by the UNFCCC continue to allow big energy consumers to pollute with impunity while paying others to implement projects supposed to capture carbon. The Kyoto protocol and the market mechanisms it implemented have failed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to slow down climate changes⁽¹⁾.

Honduras: urgent call for action

Thursday, 02 July 2009
FOR A SOVEREIGN HONDURAS To the organizations of La Via Campesina and other organisations of the world. Because of the situation in Honduras, which you will already be aware of: the coup d'etat in the early hours of the morning of 28^th June, we are once again calling on all Social Organizations in all countries, and especially on the members of Via Campesina, to coordinate in their countries to denounce, reject and condemn this coup. The information we are receiving from Honduras, is that people are continuing to mobilize, and that many people, including leaders of CLOC/Via Campesina in that country are suffering persecution and orders have been issued for their capture. That is why we are calling for this mobilization.
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Denouncing Repression in Honduras

Wednesday, 01 July 2009

Audio files and radio at http://albatv.org/

Today, Monday 29 June at 2.45pm in Honduras, the Armed Forces and National Police suppressed more than 50,000 protestors who were in front of the Casa de Gobierno (Government House) defending their democracy based on the rule of law. Faced with the coup d’état against President Manuel Zelaya Rosales, the protesters were demonstrating peacefully demanding the return of our President Zelaya because we are not willing to accept any post-coup government such as that of Micheleti.

The soldiers suppressed us with weapons and tear gas and due to this various people from the popular movement were injured. This action dispersed the protestors. The brutal repression by the Armed Forces of Honduras towards approximately 50.000 protestors with men and women being pushed back left 75 people injured, 3 dead and 30 arrest warrants issued. The situation for popular leaders is quite difficult as the coup government is repressive and shows no mercy with those of us who don’t accept the said government.

Honduras: Urgent Call

Monday, 29 June 2009

Solidarity with the Honduran Members of La Vía Campesina and with the People of Honduras

Media Contacts below

For the past few months the grassroots organizations of Honduras, together with president Manuel Zelaya Rosales, have been promoting and preparing for a national consultation of public opinion on possible constitutional reforms, to be carried out on June 28, 2009.

At 5 am this morning the armed forces of Honduras executed a surprise Coup d'Etat against President Zelaya, thus abruptly interrupting the democratic aspirations of the Honduran people, who were preparing to carry out the popular consultation/opinion poll.

Upon hearing the news, the grassroots organizations of Honduras, including those belonging to La Vía Campesina, have taken to the streets to repudiate the Coup and to demand the return of the democratically-elected President to his office and to all the powers that the law invests him with.
The government of President Zelaya has defended the rights of working people and peasant farmers, has joined the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), and in general has implemented policies that have been positive for Honduran peasant and family farmers.

The events of the past hours are the desperate acts of the wealthy oligarchy and the retrograde Right-wing to preserve their interests and those of international and national capital, and in particular they serve the interests of giant transnational corporations. To these ends they are making use of the armed forces and other public institutions, including the parliament, state ministries, the Neoliberal news media, and others.

Monday, 08 June 2009
Press release from the civil society After four days of difficult negotiations among 121 governments at a UN Food and Agricultural Organization Treaty meeting on the use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture held in Tunisia, a Canadian effort to block progress was overturned. At midnight on Thursday, Brazil read an amended resolution on Farmers’ Rights to a tired plenary, shifting the prevailing tension amongst delegates into relief and enthusiasm.
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CAIRNS Groups' Goal to Revive WTO negotiations: Groundless

Saturday, 06 June 2009
Press release - CAIRNS Group Meeting in Bali 2-9 June 2009 The country members of the CAIRNS Group that gathers the 17 main agricultural exporters in the world are gathering in Bali on 7-9 June 2009. The event is hosted by the Indonesian Trade Minister even though Indonesia is in a very ambiguous situation: the country is still a member of the exporters club even though its trade balance has been negative in the last decade. Moreover, the Indonesian Trade Minister is the Chair of the “G33” in the WTO negotiations, an other group asking for Special Product and Special Safeguard Mechanism (SP/SSM) against free imports. The Bali meeting has been given a high profile because the CAIRNS Group has invited the key players in the WTO negotiations such as the Director General Pascal Lamy, the Trade Ministers of India and China as well as the United States Trade Representative (USTR). Their participation shows their willingness to revive the WTO talks that have been agonising for years due to some disagreements, mainly on agriculture. For the international peasant's movement La Via Campesina, reviving the WTO negotiations is a nonsense. The food crisis that escalated in 2008 did not happen because of lack of food production but mainly because of speculative moves by big players on the world food market. Investors have entered the food and agricultural markets, making profit while while ordinary people and small farmers where suffering from the sky-rocketing food prices. This crisis is a consequence of the liberalization of the world food and agricultural markets. Trying to revive the WTO talks in a country where millions of people have been affected by the food crisis is a shocking initiative.
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Small Coins at Carghage: FAO Pland Treaty off to an Embarassing Start

Tuesday, 02 June 2009

Civil Society Press Release - International Treaty on Genetic Plant Resources for Food and Agriculture
(Tunis, 2 June 2009) The FAO Plant Treaty’s mechanism for sharing the benefits derived from the access to plant genetic resources is a shameful failure.

The treaty foresees that when a commercial product is derived from the use of the genetic resources that are part of the treaty, 1.1 percent of sales ought to be paid to the Treaty’s Benefit Sharing Fund.

However, in the opening ceremony of the third Governing Body session yesterday in Carthage, Tunisia, a pitiful 250.000 dollars was given to projects supposed to benefit farmers, recognized by the global community as the main producers and conservers of the diversity of all the worlds’ food. Moreover, the bulk of these funds went to governmental and non-governmental institutes.