1.Just how 'charitable' is Deichmann? - GM Watch
2.Just how 'charitable' is Greenpeace? - Thomas Deichmann
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1.Just how 'charitable' is Deichmann?

The following piece by Thomas Deichmann, attacking Greenpeace's charitable status in Germany, has been doing the rounds on the pro-GM listservs. Unsurprisingly perhaps, given that Greenpeace's campaigning on GM is the main focus of Deichmann's lengthy complaint.

Deichmann takes Greenpeace particularly to task for its "various illegal activities", claiming that its campaigning on GM has repeatedly broken the law:

"After protests on dairy premises and in supermarkets, Greenpeace was inundated with charges of trespassing, coercion, damage to property and defamation."

This kind of "lawbreaking has been a hallmark of some Greenpeace campaigns", he claims and he spells out a series of examples involving GM:

*"In April 2006, Greenpeace members entered the barns of a dairy farmer near Neutrebbin in Brandenburg who supplies the Campina dairy corporation. The activists, including the agronomist Martin Hofstetter, noted that the cows were being given GM feed. The campaign leaders claimed that this normal feeding practice was a scandal; they were subsequently charged with trespassing and theft."

*"In July 2006, Greenpeace activists went to over 100 supermarkets and flagged products from Campina's 'Landliebe' range as containing 'gene feed', even though Greenpeace was already under a court order to refrain from such actions as a result of its Muller campaign."

*"In August 2006, Greenpeace visited another Campina milk supplier, this time a farmer in Wölsickendorf in Brandenburg. There, 15 activists invaded his fields to collect GM maize which they planned to unload in front of the Campina headquarters in Heilbronn. The protest was halted by the police, who briefly took the activists into custody and recovered the stolen maize."

Deichmann suggests such misbehaviour is quite at odds with Greenpeace's "charitable status". To judge by Deichmann's other writings, however, his concern about trespassing in barns and sticking labels on supermarket products, does not necessarily extend to more serious lawbreaking - crimes like torture, rape, mutilation and murder.

In recent years Deichmann has written repeatedly about GM, and has even co-authored a book on genetic engineering. But prior to his reinvention as a GM expert, Deichmann was perhaps best known for his writing on the Bosnian war. In one of his pieces on Bosnia, Deichmann accused British journalists of fabricating evidence of imprisonment and atrocities at the Serb-controlled camp at Trnopolje. The magazine that published his claims was sued out of existence. The court found, as did war crimes tribunals at the Hague, that - contrary to Deichmann's claims - Trnopolje was a camp where Muslims were undoubtedly imprisoned and where many were beaten, tortured, raped and killed by their Serb guards.

Deichmann's article was just one instance of war-crimes denial amongst many. He even put in an appearance as the final defence witness at the trial in the Hague of Dusko Tadic. Tadic went on to be convicted of crimes against humanity, including "killings, beatings and forced transfers" of civilians, as well as a particularly horrific sexual mutilation. Some of those crimes were found to have been committed in Trnopolje.

Now Deichmann has been transformed from an expert exposer of "myths" about Serb nationalist atrocities into an expert apologist for biotech. The platforms that have made this repackaging possible are all part of the same network that previously published his war crime denials.

Deichmann's anti-Greenpeace article comes courtesy of Spiked. Deichmann has spoken on GM crops and the Third World for Spiked's sister organisation, the Institute of Ideas (IoI). Both IoI and Spiked are the successors to LM - the magazine which published the Trnopolje claims that led to its demise. Deichmann is editor in chief of Novo, LM's sister magazine in Germany. Deichmann's book on GM was published by Novo's publishing house.

This is an incestous and self-perpetuating world of undisclosed affiliations within which "experts" are reinvented and the truth subjugated according to the ideological need of the time. In recent years the LM network, to which Deichmann belongs, has promoted an extreme libertarian ideology that leads them to be ultra-relaxed about crimes like paedophilia, race hate etc., but to fiercely oppose any kind of restrictions on technologies like nuclear power, genetic engineering and human cloning, or on the corporations that promote them.

In order to punch above their tiny weight, the LM network often hide their affiliations and engage in infiltration of media organisations; or operate via front groups or by colonising existing lobby groups. Ironically, these front groups often enjoy charitable status. Just how 'charitable' they are, we leave it to you to decide.

The irony doesn't stop there. Deichmann argues Greenpeace should have its charitable status removed because it disseminates "unscientific opinion on scientific issues". Interesting, given that the LM network and its various fronts have been in the thick of climate change denial.

For more on Deichmann
http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=161

For more on the LM network and its various guises
http://www.lobbywatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=39&page=1

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2.Thomas Deichmann

Just how 'charitable' is Greenpeace?

Thomas Deichmann reports from Germany, where Greenpeace looks set to lose its charity status over its explicitly political campaigning.

Spiked, 12 February 2007 [shortened]
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/earticle/2843/

The environmental group Greenpeace is recognised as a charitable non-profit organisation in Germany. But now the German government is planning to reduce the tax benefits associated with this status – and Greenpeace activists are furious. But is Greenpeace really a 'charitable' organisation? Does society benefit from its campaigning?

German Greenpeace activists are a persistent lot. The organisation spends millions of Euros every year on sometimes spectacular initiatives. It also publishes numerous leaflets and pamphlets, many of which focus on arguing against the introduction of genetic engineering (GM) technology into agriculture and food production in Germany. Its efforts have made an impact: public scepticism about GM remains high, and German politicians are wary of openly promoting the planting of GM crops.

One reason why the Hamburg-based organisation has been able to carry out such high-profile activities is because it is accorded charitable status, which means it is exempt from big tax burdens. Recently, however, the German government announced its plans to reform German laws on charitable organisations and donations, and Greenpeace, and other groups, have been up in arms ever since.

'Environmental protection'

The charitable non-profit status of Greenpeace derives from its declared goal of acting as 'an international ecological organisation to increase awareness of global environmental problems and prevent the destruction of the natural resources that form the basis of human, animal and plant life'. The German tax code explicitly lists protection of the environment as a cause that qualifies for tax benefits. However, the experts at the Ministry of Finance are calling for a more precise way of measuring the 'collective goods' offered by green groups. They propose that, in order to qualify as a charitable activity, environmental protection should not be aimed 'primarily at political influence on public opinion'; instead the specific results of environmental activities should be closely evaluated and proven.

Some Greenpeace activities meet these requirements... However, there is a reason why the expert committee seems to be focusing on Greenpeace. It has noticed that Greenpeace campaigns aim strongly – perhaps even primarily – at exerting political influence on public opinion. Greenpeace even seeks to influence parliamentary decision-making and public voting behaviour. This is clear in the group's advocacy of phasing out nuclear energy and banning genetic engineering in Germany.

The cost of these efforts to influence public opinion along certain lines is considerable. In the financial year of 2004, communications expenses accounted for 7.7million Euros in German Greenpeace's budget. Another 2.5million Euros were spent on advertising. The expenditure for various other campaigns amounted to a further 26.6million Euros.

The advisory committee's report is not the first to express doubt as to whether the prime goal of Greenpeace activities really is to protect natural resources. Patrick Moore, who co-founded Greenpeace in Canada in 1971, has his doubts, too. He believes that the thrust of the group's campaigns has, for some time, been geared primarily towards self-promotion. And he argues that such misguided priorities can actually end up being harmful to the environment... Moore also believes that Greenpeace's outright rejection of genetic engineering does not benefit the 'public good', since it tends to scaremonger about pretty safe and good advances in crop production and agriculture more broadly.

Since 2004, Greenpeace has stepped up its campaigns against 'green' genetic engineering; almost a third of the press statements it has released over the past two years have been devoted to GM. Here, the relationship between the organisation's statutory environmental objectives and the real world is tenuous indeed. As an advance in classical plant breeding, green genetic engineering offers a range of options for making agriculture more efficient and more environment-friendly. This fact is attested by scientific organisations around the world; the global trade in GM seeds is growing steadily, because they tend to be good-quality products. Estimates suggest that the total cultivation area of GM plants around the world will increase from 102million hectares (the current level) to 200million by 2015. Yet Greenpeace campaigns against this public good, aiming to put a halt to GM advancements.

Given the questionable content of some of Greenpeace's campaigns, it isn't really surprising that it is having its charitable status challenged. Since the late 1990s, the financial authorities in Hamburg have received numerous requests to review Greenpeace's tax benefits. In late 1999, Hermine Hecker, then a Hamburg district representative of the Christian Democratic Union, called for the withdrawal of charitable status from Greenpeace on the grounds that the group was violating German law with some of its more edgy protests and campaigns...

In spring 2001, the ministers of the interior of the northern German state made another attempt to force a review. After Greenpeace protested against the transport of Castor nuclear waste containers, Heiner Bartling of the SPD, who was then interior minister of Lower Saxony, argued that such activity should not be subsidised by the state. The Hamburg tax authorities investigated, but notified Greenpeace in 2003 that its tax status would remain unchanged. In late 2004, Greenpeace was obliged to notify its sponsors yet again that it might lose its charitable non-profit status. The tax authorities this time criticised the organisation for failing to disassociate itself from illegal protests.

Later, companies and politicians in Saxony-Anhalt and Bavaria called for withdrawal of the Greenpeace tax privileges for the financial years of 2004 and 2005. That is because Saxony-Anhalt had become a focus of Greenpeace campaigning after the state government there decided to subsidise trial crops of GM plants starting in spring 2004. Greenpeace opened a branch in the state capital, Magdeburg. It first made headlines in March 2004 when about 120 Greenpeace activists successfully prevented the sowing of transgenic wheat for research purposes by scattering several tons of 'eco' wheat on the two test fields near Bernburg and ploughing some of it into the ground. Several charges were brought against Greenpeace; the public prosecutor's office in Dessau instituted investigations against 92 suspects. And yet, in early 2004 persons unknown uprooted the last of the GM wheat from the section of the field that had remained usable for the experiment. Greenpeace 'genetic engineering expert', Henning Strodthoff, subsequently said that the seed company had provoked the conflict and should 'not be surprised by the response'. The company abandoned its research project in Germany shortly afterwards.

Since 2004, Greenpeace has campaigned with the same vigour against the Muller Corporation in Bavaria and its so-called 'gene milk'. Greenpeace described the use of GM feed by farmers as cow fodder as a scandal, giving the impression that the milk these cows subsequently produced would somehow be infected, unsafe. In fact, there was much scientific evidence to the contrary. Yet such evidence – or the fact that all agricultural products in Germany are subject to comprehensive safety tests before being approved, and that GM feeds are widely used in the global agricultural market – received very little publicity. More than 90 per cent of mixed cattle feed is now classified as 'genetically modified'. Many scientists have pointed out that the Greenpeace campaign against 'gene milk' was utterly out of touch with reality, and lacking in any scientific foundation.

This has given rise to another question regarding Greenpeace's charitable status. The German tax code requires that 'the general public' must benefit 'in material, spiritual and moral ways' from the work of non-profit groups. But where is the spiritual or moral benefit of a campaign that ignores scientific findings? Science can provide factual evidence of the safety of permitted GM feed; Greenpeace claims that the opposite is true. The organisation is perfectly entitled to express its opinion – but is the dissemination of unscientific opinion on scientific issues in any way beneficial to 'the general public'? Clearly not, I would argue.

Charities and the law

Greenpeace's various illegal activities have been cited as a reason for withdrawing its charitable status. In the first round of actions it took against the Müller Corporation in 2004, Greenpeace repeatedly broke the law. After protests on dairy premises and in supermarkets, Greenpeace was inundated with charges of trespassing, coercion, damage to property and defamation. Even the Berlin newspaper Tageszeitung, which is generally sympathetic to Greenpeace, recently wrote that the 'eco-activists' from Hamburg were known for their 'aggressive campaigning'. It certainly seems that lawbreaking has been a hallmark of some Greenpeace campaigns in recent years. Consider its activities in 2006.

In April 2006, Greenpeace members entered the barns of a dairy farmer near Neutrebbin in Brandenburg who supplies the Campina dairy corporation. The activists, including the agronomist Martin Hofstetter, noted that the cows were being given GM feed. The campaign leaders claimed that this normal feeding practice was a scandal; they were subsequently charged with trespassing and theft. In July 2006, Greenpeace activists went to over 100 supermarkets and flagged products from Campina's 'Landliebe' range as containing 'gene feed', even though Greenpeace was already under a court order to refrain from such actions as a result of its Müller campaign. In August 2006, Greenpeace visited another Campina milk supplier, this time a farmer in Wölsickendorf in Brandenburg. There, 15 activists invaded his fields to collect GM maize which they planned to unload in front of the Campina headquarters in Heilbronn. The protest was halted by the police, who briefly took the activists into custody and recovered the stolen maize.

Other campaign groups and individuals have also publicly called for 'field liberation' – that is, the theft or destruction of GM crops from farms around Germany. Greenpeace generally does not comment on such appeals. However, incidences of crop destruction have increased since Greenpeace stepped up its campaign against genetic engineering. From 1993 to 2003, there were around 60 protests on agricultural land. From January 2004 to the end of 2006, 30 such events were recorded. The Association of German Plant Breeders (BDP) estimates that the cost of the damage caused by such actions is around 1.5 to 2.5million Euros a year.

Some critics claim that Greenpeace’s ‘location map’ of GM crop fields in Germany shows that the group supports field destruction. The map is published on the Greenpeace website, providing detailed information on the location of GM crops. Of course, there is a big difference between words and actions in law, and Greenpeace is indisputably entitled to freedom of expression and freedom of protest. Also, it cannot be held responsible for the unlawful acts of other groups. Nonetheless, is it right that a group which sometimes uses or supports illegal methods to stop scientific breakthroughs and crop production should be subsidised by the government? The tax exemption laws clearly state that charities must work within a constitutional framework.

Public debate

Of course, Greenpeace is entitled to argue against GM crops and other scientific advancements as much as it wants to. But when it is effectively given state support to make these arguments, then that adds extra weight to its claims, even though they are often unscientific and anti-technology. Greenpeace is an advocacy group which, in my view, stands as a barrier to scientific progress. If it can raise enough money independently to carry on making its case, then good luck to it; those of us who disagree can make our arguments in response. But it is another matter entirely when such a group is privileged over others and given a tax-exempt platform from which to do its political campaigning.

Some of us have a very different view to Greenpeace about what is in the public interest and the public good. Debate about these things should be put on a level playing field, instead of this situation where one side of the argument is favoured and elevated above the other.

Thomas Deichmann is editor in chief of Novo magazine and a freelance journalist and author. His most recent books are Natur & Technik and Mensch & Gesundheit (Munich 2006), which he co-authored with Thilo Spahl for einfach wissen, a new series published by dtv. An edited version of this article appeared in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on 24 January 2007.

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