According to a spokesperson in this article for the US dominated WFP, "WFP has never pressed any recipient government to accept GM food". In Zambia the WFP made no move to replace the GM grain the Zambian Government first formally rejected in October 2002, leading to *a 6-month delay in the provision of non-GM grain*. The reason for the dangerous delay? According to a report in Afrol News:

"Only now, further supplies of food aid had been ordered, "expected to arrive in Zambia in December." UN agencies had been expecting a change in government mind until the last moment. The decision not to order non-GM food aid until now has been observed as direct pressure against the Zambian government." ("Continued pressure against Zambia on GM food", 30th October 2002) 
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Sudan: Government reviewing policy on GM food imports
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34787&SelectRegion=East_Africa&SelectCountry=SUDAN

NAIROBI, 17 Jun 2003 (IRIN) - The Sudanese government has guaranteed the World Food Programme (WFP) that all food deliveries will be permitted to enter the country for the next six months, while it conducts a review of its policy on genetically modified (GM) foods.

"The government informed us verbally that it will review its policy on GM foods over the next three months," a spokesman for WFP, Robin Lodge, told IRIN on Tuesday.

A number of food shipments held up in Port Sudan for over a week due to concerns about GM food were released by Sudanese authorities on Saturday.

WFP, which sources and delivers most of Sudan's food aid, received a letter from the Sudanese Standards and Metrology Organization (a government body) in May outlining a ban on imports of GM food. The new regulations stated that a GM-free certificate would be required for food commodities, including grains, pulses and blended foods, entering the country.

WFP did not test the food it distributed for its GM content, Lodge said, as there were neither international guidelines calling for such action, nor international agreements on tolerance levels of such foods. "We can't say whether we're giving out GM food or not."

However, he said, in a case where a country objected to receiving deliveries of GM food, WFP would guarantee not to supply it. "If we get a directive to stop all deliveries, including airdrops, we can't go ahead with them without their [the authorities] say so."

"WFP has never pressed any recipient government to accept GM food," he added.

While the food shipments arriving in Port Sudan - which were donated mainly from the US - were being held up, WFP had continued to deliver to other areas in Sudan, he said.

Muhammad Dirdeiry, the charge d'affaires at the Sudanese embassy in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, told IRIN that requests to bring in GM foods to Sudan were being studied. "One idea that we are mooting is to see whether it's possible for the African Union to take a decision [on this issue], which would be an African decision, adopted by all of the African countries."

"We will not take a unitary decision," he said. "We are going along with the African consensus on this matter."
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Sudan: Ban on GM Food Imports Will Hit Supplies for Refugees - US Official
BBC, From: Al-Khartoum, Khartoum, June 4, 2003

EXCERPT: United States Agency for International Development has warned the government of the results of its decision to deny the entry of genetically modified products as aid for the needy in relief camps.

The US charge d'affaires, Mr Jeff Millington, said the decision will bring harm to around 97 per cent of children living in relief camps because of their need for these products. He pointed out that US ships were in Port Sudan carrying these products, waiting for the government to allow them to unload their cargoes.

In a press conference yesterday in which the representative of USAID, Roger Winter, participated, Millington said that should the government decide not to withdraw its decision, the USAID would take the shipments to Ethiopia.
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*Force-feeding the hungry: a primer on the food aid crisis
http://ngin.tripod.com/forcefeed.htm

*The US is the World's Stingiest Donor
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g8/story/0,13365,967654,00.html

*Washington's Aid Promises Misleading
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/oneworld/20030522/wl_oneworld/118151053610546

*US sinks plan to stop the West undercutting African farmers
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=411560

*Africa's scar gets angrier, The Guardian, Tuesday June 3, 2003
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/columnist/story/0,9321,969259,00.html

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