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SEQUENCE:18518202
CREATED:20080406T033400Z
DESCRIPTION:Call of La Via Campesina for April 17th of The International Day of Peasant 
 Struggle	\nThursday, 27 March 2008\nAGRIBUSINESS TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS 
 (TNCS) CREATE WORLD FOOD CRISIS,\nPEASANT SEIZE BACK THEIR RIGHTS  \nCALL 
 OF LA VIA CAMPESINA FOR APRIL 17TH OF THE INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEASANT 
 STRUGGLE\n \nThe 17th of April is the International Peasant’s Struggle 
 Day, established after the massacre of 19 landless peasants belonging to 
 the Landless Movement (MST) in Brazil on the 17th of April 1996 during the 
 second conference of  La Via Campesina in Tlaxcala Mexico.  \nThe world 
 food crisis is starting to appear in its real picture this year. During the 
 last decades hunger was “hiding” in rural or slump areas. Now the 
 number is increasing and many more people cannot stand it anymore. Food 
 riots appear and  queues of hungry people are back in many part of the 
 world.   \n\nAfrica and Asia are worst affected by hunger, misery and 
 poverty in the rural areas and the increasing effects of climate change. 
 Economic development and growth only benefits minority of the population 
 and create environmental damage and does not resolve the extremely 
 precarious situation of  the large majority.  In India an economic boom 
 benefits only a minor part of the population. At the same time peasant 
 based agriculture is being destroyed and  thousands of peasant end their 
 life through suicide because of despair and poverty. Young peasants from 
 Indonesia, Philippine, Thailand, Bangladesh have to leave their family and 
 village for other countries because there is no possibility to gain a 
 living.\n\nIn Latin America region similar developments take  place. Farm 
 land do not anymore belong to rural people. They have to work as cheap 
 labor on the land they owned before. Some flee to the city trying to 
 improve their lives but unfortunately every night they have to go to bed 
 with an empty belly. \n\nBig transnational agribusiness corporations (TNCs) 
 want to increase control over world food and agricultural economy. 
 Liberalization of  trade and investment in agriculture has made this 
 happen. International arrangements have been made for this through the 
 World Trade Organization (WTO), Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and Economic 
 Partnership Agreements (EPAs). It is assisted through the programs of the  
 World Bank and the  IMF that promote agribusiness as the priority in food 
 and agricultural policies in many countries.      \n\nGovernment subsidies 
 that go to agribusiness TNCs in the north are aimed to industrialize 
 farming, eliminating farms in the North and in the South through low price 
 dumping. Through green revolution, agribusiness TNCs  exclude local wisdom 
 and knowledge on agriculture and impose new technologies and agricultural 
 inputs that farmers have to buy and depend on. Today the greediness of 
 agribusiness TNCs is even more dangerous because they want much more land 
 to convert into agro fuel mono-cultures, harvesting food for cars.  
 \n\nClearly, agribusiness TNCs want to stop family farmers and peasants to 
 feed people in the world because their objective is to control the world 
 food market and to convert peasant based production into industrialized 
 production. After expropriating many small farmers and peasants they 
 exploit consumers increasing world food prices. \n\nThe  operation of 
 agribusiness TNCs are really against human beings and the sustainability of 
 the earth, we should not allow them to continue their operations. We should 
 stop them and  seize back the rights of  people for farming, the right to 
 produce good food for all people.  \n\nFor the commemoration this year of 
 the 17th of  April, the International Day of  Peasant Struggle, La Via 
 Campesina calls upon their members and other social movements to do 
 activities and actions against TNCs:\n\nTo send before the 17th of April  
 reports and information on the impacts of agribusiness TNCs that create 
 hunger, poverty for family farmers and peasants. We will collect your 
 information and publish the list on www.viacampesina.org during the April 
 17th. You could send any information like incidents of hunger, violation of 
 human rights, negative impacts on the culture and values of people, 
 indebtedness,  health problems, expropriation of farm land, natural 
 disasters and other incidents impacted by the operations of agribusiness 
 TNCs in your village, local and country.\nTo organize on or around the 17th 
 of April  activities (seminars, public discussions, actions, mobilizations, 
 press conferences,…..)  to expose the impacts of agribusiness TNCs and to 
 delegitimize their role in the food sector. These activities could also 
 show what has been proposed  by the peasant organizations and other social 
 movements as the alternatives to the neo-liberal model. \n\nYou could send 
 the report or information to International Operative of La Via Campesina 
 through Tejo Pramono on email tpramono@viacampesina.org\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/04/05/18490834.php
SUMMARY:The People vs. The TNC's
LOCATION:Anywhere
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/04/05/18490834.php
DTSTART:20080417T190000Z
DTEND:20080418T070000Z
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