Ghanians in the mix of the GMO debate

 
Oct. 22 (GIN) – Members of Food Sovereignty Ghana (FSG) and other environmental groups took the issue of food security to the streets in a march through Accra that linked up virtually with seven African countries from South Africa to Kenya.
 
It was the second annual march against genetically modified seeds, bioengineered food and its corporate backers, coupled with the perceived risks to small farmers incomes and to health.
 
This month, activists in Kenya, Ghana, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, Egypt and South Africa came out in force. Activists in Accra carried signs saying, “GMO will make Ghanaian farmers poor” and “Our Food Under Our Control!!!”
 
Public opposition to GM crops has grown in recent years. Critics assert that DNA-altered crops require massive chemical inputs which destroy local biodiversity and poison the water tables; create superweeds; and cause organ damage, sterility, and diabetes and obesity in mammals. Nevertheless, the Ghana government continues to lean toward GMOs and a field trial of GMO cow peas is currently underway.
 
Perhaps most important to African farmers, imported GM seeds are the intellectual property of the multinationals and cannot be saved for future use as is the practice of small farmers worldwide. Seed purchases every year versus the saving of seeds year to year are a heavy if not unsustainable burden on small farmers, warns Food Sovereignty Ghana.
 
The “control of our resources by multinational corporations and other foreign entities,” must be avoided, FSG said on their Facebook page.
 
They cited a recent UN report which noted that hunger is not caused by a food shortage but by “a lack of purchasing power and/or the inability of the rural poor to be self-sufficient.”
 
“The engagement in the market was very surprising and drew a lot of curiosity,” said Ras Aswad Nkrabea, the group’s director of mobilization. “It resulted in us being invited to meet with the market queens in the near future to make sure they are well informed about these issues.”
 
RESISTANCE LEADER SAMORA MACHEL - A “STATESMAN AND SOLDIER”
 
Oct. 22 (GIN) – Twenty-seven years after his death, the celebrated leader of Mozambique and its first president, Samora Machel, remains a symbol of resistance and hope
 
Machel -- who died on Oct. 19, 1986 – was called a thoughtful and decisive leader who died too soon.
 
He died in a plane crash while on his way back from the Lusaka summit in Zambia to be in time for the birthday of his wife, Graca Machel. The Tupolev 134 plane went down at Mbuzini, a village in what is now eastern Mpumalanga. More than 30 others perished in the crash.
 
Many believe that the South African apartheid regime orchestrated the incident although a commission that investigated the incident blamed pilot error.
 
According to Graca Machel in testimony before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, at a Malawi government crisis meeting at the time, the possibility of assassinating Machel had been raised. The report does not make clear the source of the rumor.
 
Graca Machel also told the hearing that her husband had been subject to assassination attempts prior to the crash.
 
Less than fifteen years later - but in another South Africa - Nelson Mandela stood in Mbuzini and gave a moving speech in honor of "a statesman, soldier and intellectual who we claimed as our leader too".
 
Unveiling a monument to Machel in 1999, Mandela reflected on the unresolved mystery of the crash and the hope for transparency and justice.
 
“It is painful that our quest to understand the causes of the crash remains unfinished. The work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, imperfect as it may be, has laid a foundation ... It has taken us further towards our goal of bringing a legitimate and credible conclusion to the uncertainties about the event on this hillside some twelve years ago.”
 
At the end of 2012, the Hawks announced that they were finally launching an investigation into the accident. That was in December. If there has been any substantial progress since then, it has not been made public.