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Celebrate 20 years of the EZLN
Demonstration Nov.17, 20th anniversary of the EZLN. San Francisco: Monday, Nov.17, 12pm, Mexican Consulate, 532 Folsom, SF.
No Plan Puebla Panama! No evictions of Indigenous Peoples from Montes Azules! Implement the San Andreas Accords
No Plan Puebla Panama! No evictions of Indigenous Peoples from Montes Azules! Implement the San Andreas Accords
Demonstration planned on November 17, the 20th anniversary of the founding of the EZLN.
In San Francisco: Monday, November 17, 12: 00 pm-1: 30 pm, Mexican Consulate, 532 Folsom Street, San Francisco.
Group demands: No Plan Puebla Panama. No evictions of Indigenous Peoples from Montes Azules. Implement the San Andreas Accords
Sponsored by the Chiapas Support Committee
Endorsed by Mexico Solidarity Network, MarinInterfaith Task Force (MITF), Center for the Study of the Americas(Censa), Pena del Sur, and Global Exchange.
On November 17, the EZLN, Ejercito Zapatisto de Liberacion Nacional (Zapatista National Liberation Army) will celebrate its 20th anniversary of existence fighting for the rights and dignity of indigenous peoples in the southeastern state of Chiapas, Mexico.
This demonstration is part of Rebel Magazine’s EZLN, Fire and Word 20 & 10 celebration. 20 years of Zapatistmo and 10 years of Resistance and Rebellion. Solidarity groups around the world are celebrating the 20th Birthday and the 10th Anniversary of the Uprising in Chiapas.
The Mexican government for last 3 years has been trying to implement Plan Puebla Panama in order to pave the way for CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement. This agreement will further erode the livelihood and way of life of the indigenous peoples of Chiapas as well as the rest of Central America from the Mexican state of Puebla to the Nation of Panama. The Plan Puebla Panama has been resisted by indigenous people as a threat to their way of life, from projected Dams flooding indigenous valleys to Railways cutting through centuries old villages, this Plan will not be tolerated by the native peoples of the region.
In accordance with the Plan Puebla Panama indigenous people living in the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve are facing the threat of eviction -- by force if necessary. Many of these people are living in harmony with the environment with no threat to their surroundings. Organizations like Conservation International are trying to use the environment’s safety as an issue against the indigenous people of the Montes Azules Villages. On the other hand Conservation International sees no problem in allowing large transnational firms to harvest the bio-diversity of the Montes Azules for their own private means.
Through all these struggles, current and past, the indigenous peoples of Chiapas have fought hard for their basic dignity and human rights. The most clear and concrete step toward achieving justice for these indigenous peoples is to implement fully the San Andres Accords. These Accords were brought before the Mexican congress and cut down into a shadow of itself, but their full acceptance as originally written would be a great step in assuring dignity and respect for the many indigenous peoples of not only Chiapas, but the whole of Mexico.
November 17 is considered by many as the birth of the EZLN. It is when the first commandantes of what would become the EZLN entered the jungle surrounding the indigenous peoples of Chiapas to join them in their struggle and in the process become changed by that struggle for land, justice and dignity. 10 years later this movement of indigenous people shook the world when they took Chiapas’ state capitol on New Years Day to protest the implementation of NAFTA, which endangered the livelihood and centuries old cultures of the indigenous people of Chiapas.
In San Francisco: Monday, November 17, 12: 00 pm-1: 30 pm, Mexican Consulate, 532 Folsom Street, San Francisco.
Group demands: No Plan Puebla Panama. No evictions of Indigenous Peoples from Montes Azules. Implement the San Andreas Accords
Sponsored by the Chiapas Support Committee
Endorsed by Mexico Solidarity Network, MarinInterfaith Task Force (MITF), Center for the Study of the Americas(Censa), Pena del Sur, and Global Exchange.
On November 17, the EZLN, Ejercito Zapatisto de Liberacion Nacional (Zapatista National Liberation Army) will celebrate its 20th anniversary of existence fighting for the rights and dignity of indigenous peoples in the southeastern state of Chiapas, Mexico.
This demonstration is part of Rebel Magazine’s EZLN, Fire and Word 20 & 10 celebration. 20 years of Zapatistmo and 10 years of Resistance and Rebellion. Solidarity groups around the world are celebrating the 20th Birthday and the 10th Anniversary of the Uprising in Chiapas.
The Mexican government for last 3 years has been trying to implement Plan Puebla Panama in order to pave the way for CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement. This agreement will further erode the livelihood and way of life of the indigenous peoples of Chiapas as well as the rest of Central America from the Mexican state of Puebla to the Nation of Panama. The Plan Puebla Panama has been resisted by indigenous people as a threat to their way of life, from projected Dams flooding indigenous valleys to Railways cutting through centuries old villages, this Plan will not be tolerated by the native peoples of the region.
In accordance with the Plan Puebla Panama indigenous people living in the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve are facing the threat of eviction -- by force if necessary. Many of these people are living in harmony with the environment with no threat to their surroundings. Organizations like Conservation International are trying to use the environment’s safety as an issue against the indigenous people of the Montes Azules Villages. On the other hand Conservation International sees no problem in allowing large transnational firms to harvest the bio-diversity of the Montes Azules for their own private means.
Through all these struggles, current and past, the indigenous peoples of Chiapas have fought hard for their basic dignity and human rights. The most clear and concrete step toward achieving justice for these indigenous peoples is to implement fully the San Andres Accords. These Accords were brought before the Mexican congress and cut down into a shadow of itself, but their full acceptance as originally written would be a great step in assuring dignity and respect for the many indigenous peoples of not only Chiapas, but the whole of Mexico.
November 17 is considered by many as the birth of the EZLN. It is when the first commandantes of what would become the EZLN entered the jungle surrounding the indigenous peoples of Chiapas to join them in their struggle and in the process become changed by that struggle for land, justice and dignity. 10 years later this movement of indigenous people shook the world when they took Chiapas’ state capitol on New Years Day to protest the implementation of NAFTA, which endangered the livelihood and centuries old cultures of the indigenous people of Chiapas.
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Under Plan Puebla Panama the Mexican government will push their own biotech corporation named "Grupo Pulsar" on the Mexican people. Grupo Pulsar is similar to Monsanto..
Hopefully the EZLN and farmers everywhere will stand up to this new and disturbing trend of biotech takeover..
From Native Forest Network;
"One of the leading PPP promoters is Mexican billionaire and biotechnology giant, Alfonso Romo, head of Grupo Pulsar. Grupo Pulsar and its subsidiaries control 19% of the worldwide fruit and vegetable seed market (including 40% of all vegetables in U.S. supermarkets). Romo has created NAFTA's first humid-tropics agriculture biotechnology laboratory in Southern Mexico and has stated that much of that region's land is best suited for forestry plantations, not agriculture. The PPP master plan has goals of establishing hundreds of thousands of forestry plantations by 2006.
"The fact that biotechnology giant Grupo Pulsar is heavily promoting forestry plantations as a part of the PPP leads to the obvious conclusion that those tree plantations will be genetically engineered," said Orin Langelle, co-Coordinator of ACERCA (Action for Community and Ecology in the Regions of Central America). ACERCA has been investigating trade agreements, forestry plantations and GE trees in the Meso-American region for the last three years. Langelle continued, "Corporations like Grupo Pulsar may be taking the lead with the development of these plantations, but I'm sure that other timber giants in the region like International Paper and Boise-Cascade aren't far behind."
To obtain the 24 page report, From Native Forests to Franken-Trees, The Global Threat of Genetically Engineered Trees please contact the NFN (802) 863-0571 or email <nfnena [at] sover.net."
http://www.sweatshopwatch.org/swatch/headlines/1999/pulpwood_jul99.html
Hopefully the EZLN and farmers everywhere will stand up to this new and disturbing trend of biotech takeover..
From Native Forest Network;
"One of the leading PPP promoters is Mexican billionaire and biotechnology giant, Alfonso Romo, head of Grupo Pulsar. Grupo Pulsar and its subsidiaries control 19% of the worldwide fruit and vegetable seed market (including 40% of all vegetables in U.S. supermarkets). Romo has created NAFTA's first humid-tropics agriculture biotechnology laboratory in Southern Mexico and has stated that much of that region's land is best suited for forestry plantations, not agriculture. The PPP master plan has goals of establishing hundreds of thousands of forestry plantations by 2006.
"The fact that biotechnology giant Grupo Pulsar is heavily promoting forestry plantations as a part of the PPP leads to the obvious conclusion that those tree plantations will be genetically engineered," said Orin Langelle, co-Coordinator of ACERCA (Action for Community and Ecology in the Regions of Central America). ACERCA has been investigating trade agreements, forestry plantations and GE trees in the Meso-American region for the last three years. Langelle continued, "Corporations like Grupo Pulsar may be taking the lead with the development of these plantations, but I'm sure that other timber giants in the region like International Paper and Boise-Cascade aren't far behind."
To obtain the 24 page report, From Native Forests to Franken-Trees, The Global Threat of Genetically Engineered Trees please contact the NFN (802) 863-0571 or email <nfnena [at] sover.net."
http://www.sweatshopwatch.org/swatch/headlines/1999/pulpwood_jul99.html
For more information:
http://www.context.co.nz:8080/stories/stor...
http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z33D23A86
Modified Food Dates To Ancients
WASHINGTON, Nov. 13, 2003
Ancient Americans were changing corn genes through selective breeding more than 4,000 years ago, according to researchers who say the modifications produced the large cobs and fat kernels that make corn one of humanity's most important foods.
In a study that compared the genes of corncobs recovered in Mexico and the southwestern United States, researchers found that three key genetic variants were systematically enhanced, probably through selective cultivation, over thousands of years.
The technique was not as sophisticated as the methods used for modern genetically modified crops, but experts said in a study released Thursday that the general effect was the same: genetic traits were amplified or introduced to create plants with improved traits and greater yield.
"Civilization has been built on genetically modified plants," said Nina V. Fedoroff of Pennsylvania State University.
The ancestral plant of corn, teosinte, was first domesticated some 6,000 to 9,000 years ago in the Balsas River Valley of southern Mexico, the researchers said in this week's issue of Science magazine. At first, teosinte was a grassy-like plant with many stems bearing small cobs with kernels sheathed in hard shells.
By cultivating plants with desirable characteristics, farmers caused teosinte to morph into an increasingly useful crop. The researchers said by 5,500 years ago the size of the kernels was larger. By 4,400 years ago, all of the gene variants found in modern corn were present in crops grown in Mexico.
The plant and its grain were so changed by the directed cultivation that it evolved into a form that could not grow in the wild and was dependent on farmers to survive from generation to generation, the study found.
The study was conducted by researchers at the Max Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany; the U.S. Department of Agriculture at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, N.C.; the Smithsonian Institution in Washington; the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom; and the University of Wisconsin. It was financed by the Wellcome Trust, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the German Ministry for Education and Research, and by the Max Planck Society.
Fedoroff, a plant geneticist who was not part of the research team, said the study shows that it is unlikely the changes in corn were by chance.
The early farmers, she said, "might have been more sophisticated than we think."
"The differences between maize (corn) and teosinte come down to just a few genes, but with big effect," said Fedoroff. She said ancient farmers probably spotted these differences and then planted seeds from those cobs to encourage the improvements to continue.
"They might have collected the seeds and may have known that if they grew them close together then they could catch (the beneficial changes) in the next generation," she said. "It was like someone found the right combination and it was so much better that people shared it with their friends and relatives and then it got widely propagated."
Three genes that dramatically improved corn came together within a short time and the farmers were sophisticated enough to propagate seeds from those plants in following seasons, it's believed.
One gene changed the architecture of corn from a plant with many branches to one with a single stalk with a male tassel at the top and female cobs growing along the side.
Another genetic change softened the outer hull on the kernel. Before the change, the plant depended on animals to spread its seeds. After animals ate the corn, the tough outer shells would allow the kernels to pass unharmed through the gut.
With a softer hull, the kernels would not survive passage through the gut of an animal. As a result, the plant became dependent on farmers to spread its seeds.
Another genetic change caused the kernels to stick more tightly to the cob. And still another change modified the starch of the grain.
This final change, the authors wrote, made the corn more suitable for making tortillas, and, thus, may have been an early variant encouraged by the farmers.
Scientists now change plants by transferring specific, identified genes from species to species in sophisticated labs. Some advocacy groups have claimed this technique is dangerous. As a result, some European and African countries forbid the import of "GM crops."
But Fedoroff said that, actually, the whole world eats genetically modified foods. She said that over thousands of years, rice in China, wheat in the Middle East and corn in Mexico were all genetically altered through selective cultivation. The effect, she said, was like "a prehistoric Green Revolution."
The same process is under way now, she said, but with modern scientific techniques.
"People are fearful of the food they eat," said Fedoroff, "but civilization has been built on genetically modified plants. We wouldn't have civilization without it."
By Paul Recer
©MMIII, The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Modified Food Dates To Ancients
WASHINGTON, Nov. 13, 2003
Ancient Americans were changing corn genes through selective breeding more than 4,000 years ago, according to researchers who say the modifications produced the large cobs and fat kernels that make corn one of humanity's most important foods.
In a study that compared the genes of corncobs recovered in Mexico and the southwestern United States, researchers found that three key genetic variants were systematically enhanced, probably through selective cultivation, over thousands of years.
The technique was not as sophisticated as the methods used for modern genetically modified crops, but experts said in a study released Thursday that the general effect was the same: genetic traits were amplified or introduced to create plants with improved traits and greater yield.
"Civilization has been built on genetically modified plants," said Nina V. Fedoroff of Pennsylvania State University.
The ancestral plant of corn, teosinte, was first domesticated some 6,000 to 9,000 years ago in the Balsas River Valley of southern Mexico, the researchers said in this week's issue of Science magazine. At first, teosinte was a grassy-like plant with many stems bearing small cobs with kernels sheathed in hard shells.
By cultivating plants with desirable characteristics, farmers caused teosinte to morph into an increasingly useful crop. The researchers said by 5,500 years ago the size of the kernels was larger. By 4,400 years ago, all of the gene variants found in modern corn were present in crops grown in Mexico.
The plant and its grain were so changed by the directed cultivation that it evolved into a form that could not grow in the wild and was dependent on farmers to survive from generation to generation, the study found.
The study was conducted by researchers at the Max Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany; the U.S. Department of Agriculture at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, N.C.; the Smithsonian Institution in Washington; the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom; and the University of Wisconsin. It was financed by the Wellcome Trust, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the German Ministry for Education and Research, and by the Max Planck Society.
Fedoroff, a plant geneticist who was not part of the research team, said the study shows that it is unlikely the changes in corn were by chance.
The early farmers, she said, "might have been more sophisticated than we think."
"The differences between maize (corn) and teosinte come down to just a few genes, but with big effect," said Fedoroff. She said ancient farmers probably spotted these differences and then planted seeds from those cobs to encourage the improvements to continue.
"They might have collected the seeds and may have known that if they grew them close together then they could catch (the beneficial changes) in the next generation," she said. "It was like someone found the right combination and it was so much better that people shared it with their friends and relatives and then it got widely propagated."
Three genes that dramatically improved corn came together within a short time and the farmers were sophisticated enough to propagate seeds from those plants in following seasons, it's believed.
One gene changed the architecture of corn from a plant with many branches to one with a single stalk with a male tassel at the top and female cobs growing along the side.
Another genetic change softened the outer hull on the kernel. Before the change, the plant depended on animals to spread its seeds. After animals ate the corn, the tough outer shells would allow the kernels to pass unharmed through the gut.
With a softer hull, the kernels would not survive passage through the gut of an animal. As a result, the plant became dependent on farmers to spread its seeds.
Another genetic change caused the kernels to stick more tightly to the cob. And still another change modified the starch of the grain.
This final change, the authors wrote, made the corn more suitable for making tortillas, and, thus, may have been an early variant encouraged by the farmers.
Scientists now change plants by transferring specific, identified genes from species to species in sophisticated labs. Some advocacy groups have claimed this technique is dangerous. As a result, some European and African countries forbid the import of "GM crops."
But Fedoroff said that, actually, the whole world eats genetically modified foods. She said that over thousands of years, rice in China, wheat in the Middle East and corn in Mexico were all genetically altered through selective cultivation. The effect, she said, was like "a prehistoric Green Revolution."
The same process is under way now, she said, but with modern scientific techniques.
"People are fearful of the food they eat," said Fedoroff, "but civilization has been built on genetically modified plants. We wouldn't have civilization without it."
By Paul Recer
©MMIII, The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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