EXCERPT: Bishop Geoff Davies of the South African Council of Churches said the patenting of life by corporations was "immoral". It was clear the consequences of genetic tampering were unknown.
"If we are going to play God, let us know what is going to happen."
It verged on the criminal that GMO food didn't have to be labelled. "Without being told, South Africans became the first people in the world to eat genetically engineered white maize. The public has a right to know what we are buying and eating."
COMMENT
A key part of the US-industry campaign involves locking African countries into weak biosafety regimes like that introduced under the old apartheid regime in South Africa, a country where the uptake of GM crops has been amongst the most rapid anywhere in the world and where the line between corporate lobbyists and regulators often seems hard to draw.
Just how weak and even "bizarre" the South African system is, is highlighted in the article below in which a specialist in environmental law points out that South Africa has liability provisions that mean users - not producers - will be liable for any untoward consequences of consuming genetically modified organisms. (see below)
How could such a ludicrously unjust situation have come about?
As the lawyer Cormac Cullinan told South African parliamentarians, "A provision like that looks like the fingerprint" of industry.
And, indeed, there are "experts" in South Africa who are up to their ears in industry interests and yet who have been allowed to play a leading role in developing regulatory protocols and legislation governing GM crops.
It's because of this that South Africa's become the industry's open door to Africa with one South African lobbyist even quoted as saying, "If the activists don't get their way, we're going to see biotech crops spread right up through Africa".
see FOCUS ON AFRICA
http://www.gmwatch.org/africa.asp
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'Bizarre' GMO law helps firms, not consumers
Wendell Roelf
Cape Times, June 01 2005
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=14&art_id=vn20050601070016502C238220
South Africa is in the "bizarre" position of having liability provisions in law that mean users - not producers - will be liable for any consequences of consuming genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
"A provision like that looks like the fingerprint" of industry and multinational companies, an attorney specialising in environmental law, Cormac Cullinan, said on Wednesday.
He was a member of a delegation who spoke to members of the portfolio committee on science and technology on the safety and regulation of GMOs.
Cullinan said he had not encountered a provision like South Africa's in any other law and he believed it was not in the country's interests.
'Information is skewed in favour of large companies'
He appealed for more transparency and a fundamental "re-look" at the regulatory framework of GMOs in the country, which companies were using as "a giant laboratory".
The regulations made it difficult, "if not impossible", for civil society to participate in decision-making.
"I don't believe the regulatory system complies and conforms with the constitution."
Decisions were taken behind closed doors, with available risk assessments of GMOs based on information gathered outside the country and on species not even found in South Africa.
"Information is skewed in favour of large companies," Cullinan said, adding that scientists here remained silent for fear of losing research grants.
'The public has a right to know what we are buying'
Earlier, Glenn Ashton of environmental lobbyist group SAFeAGE, said South Africa stood almost alone in its failure to adhere to the African Model Law on Biological Resources. The GMO Act and its amendments "completely failed" to maintain the most minimal standards of the African Model Law or the United Nations-sponsored Cartagena biosafety protocol.
"We, with the rest of Africa, are calling for the regulation of these technologies to be enacted in a transparent, meaningful, inclusive manner that upholds mutually agreed scientific, ethical, legal and moral standards."
The regulation of science had to be in the public interest and could not be slanted towards vested interests, Ashton said. He implored MPs to ensure there was a meaningful biosafety regime.
Bishop Geoff Davies of the South African Council of Churches said the patenting of life by corporations was "immoral". It was clear the consequences of genetic tampering were unknown.
"If we are going to play God, let us know what is going to happen."
It verged on the criminal that GMO food didn't have to be labelled. "Without being told, South Africans became the first people in the world to eat genetically engineered white maize. The public has a right to know what we are buying and eating."
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