The Internationalization of Genocide: Transforming Food into Fuel
The colossal squandering of cereals destined to fuel production
by President Fidel Castro Ruz
Global Research, April 5, 2007
Granma
Email this article to a friend
Print this article
The Camp David meeting has just come to an end. All of us followed the
press conference offered by the presidents of the United States and
Brazil attentively, as we did the news surrounding the meeting and the
opinions voiced in this connection.
Faced with demands related to customs duties and subsidies
which protect and support US ethanol production, Bush did not make the
slightest concession to his Brazilian guest at Camp David.
President Lula attributed to this the rise in corn prices,
which, according to his own statements, had gone up more than 85
percent.
Before these statements were made, the Washington Post had
published an article by the Brazilian leader which expounded on the
idea of transforming food into fuel.
It is not my intention to hurt Brazil or to meddle in the
internal affairs of this great country. It was in effect in Rio de
Janeiro, host of the United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development, exactly 15 years ago, where I delivered a 7-minute speech
vehemently denouncing the environmental dangers that menaced our
species? survival. Bush Sr., then President of the United States, was
present at that meeting and applauded my words out of courtesy; all
other presidents there applauded, too.
No one at Camp David answered the fundamental question. Where
are the more than 500 million tons of corn and other cereals which the
United States, Europe and wealthy nations require to produce the
gallons of ethanol that big companies in the United States and other
countries demand in exchange for their voluminous investments going to
be produced and who is going to supply them? Where are the soy,
sunflower and rape seeds, whose essential oils these same, wealthy
nations are to turn into fuel, going to be produced and who will
produce them?
Some countries are food producers which export their
surpluses. The balance of exporters and consumers had already become
precarious before this and food prices had skyrocketed. In the
interests of brevity, I shall limit myself to pointing out the
following:
According to recent data, the five chief producers of corn,
barley, sorghum, rye, millet and oats which Bush wants to transform
into the raw material of ethanol production, supply the world market
with 679 million tons of these products. Similarly, the five chief
consumers, some of which also produce these grains, currently require
604 million annual tons of these products. The available surplus is
less than 80 million tons of grain.
This colossal squandering of cereals destined to fuel
production ?and these estimates do not include data on oily seeds?shall
serve to save rich countries less than 15 percent of the total annual
consumption of their voracious automobiles.
At Camp David, Bush declared his intention of applying this
formula around the world. This spells nothing other than the
internationalization of genocide.
In his statements, published by the Washington Post on the eve
of the Camp David meeting, the Brazilian president affirmed that less
than one percent of Brazil?s arable land was used to grow cane destined
to ethanol production. This is nearly three times the land surface Cuba
used when it produced nearly 10 million tons of sugar a year, before
the crisis that befell the Soviet Union and the advent of climate
changes.
Our country has been producing and exporting sugar for a
longer time. First, on the basis of the work of slaves, whose numbers
swelled to over 300 thousand in the first years of the 19th century and
who turned the Spanish colony into the world?s number one exporter.
Nearly one hundred years later, at the beginning of the 20th century,
when Cuba was a pseudo-republic which had been denied full independence
by US interventionism; it was immigrants from the West Indies and
illiterate Cubans alone who bore the burden of growing and harvesting
sugarcane on the island. The scourge of our people was the off-season,
inherent to the cyclical nature of the harvest. Sugarcane plantations
were the property of US companies or powerful Cuban-born landowners.
Cuba, thus, has more experience than anyone as regards the social
impact of this crop.
This past Sunday, April 1, the CNN televised the opinions of
Brazilian experts who affirm that many lands destined to sugarcane have
been purchased by wealthy Americans and Europeans.
As part of my reflections on the subject, published on March
29, I expounded on the impact climate change has had on Cuba and on
other basic characteristics of our country?s climate which contribute
to this.
On our poor and anything but consumerist island, one would be
unable to find enough workers to endure the rigors of the harvest and
to care for the sugarcane plantations in the ever more intense heat,
rains or droughts. When hurricanes lash the island, not even the best
machines can harvest the bent-over and twisted canes. For centuries,
the practice of burning sugarcane was unknown and no soil was compacted
under the weight of complex machines and enormous trucks. Nitrogen,
potassium and phosphate fertilizers, today extremely expensive, did not
yet even exist, and the dry and wet months succeeded each other
regularly. In modern agriculture, no high yields are possible without
crop rotation methods.
On Sunday, April 1, the French Press Agency (AFP) published
disquieting reports on the subject of climate change, which experts
gathered by the United Nations already consider an inevitable
phenomenon that will spell serious repercussions for the world in the
coming decades.
According to a UN report to be approved next week in Brussels,
climate change will have a significant impact on the American
continent, generating more violent storms and heat waves and causing
droughts, the extinction of some species and even hunger in Latin
America.
The AFP report indicates that the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) forewarned that at the end of this century, every
hemisphere will endure water-related problems and, if governments take
no measures in this connection, rising temperatures could increase the
risks of mortality, contamination, natural catastrophes and infectious
diseases.
In Latin America, global warming is already melting glaciers
in the Andes and threatening the Amazon forest, whose perimeter may
slowly be turned into a savannah, the cable goes on to report.
Because a great part of its population lives near the coast,
the United States is also vulnerable to extreme natural phenomena, as
hurricane Katrina demonstrated in 2005.
According to AFP, this is the second of three IPCC reports
which began to be published last February, following an initial
scientific forecast which established the certainty of climate change.
This second 1400-page report which analyzes climate change in
different sectors and regions, of which AFP has obtained a copy,
considers that, even if radical measures to reduce carbon dioxide
emissions that pollute the atmosphere are taken, the rise in
temperatures around the planet in the coming decades is already
unavoidable, concludes the French Press Agency.
As was to be expected, at the Camp David meeting, Dan Fisk,
National Security advisor for the region, declared that ?in the
discussion on regional issues, [I expect] Cuba to come up (?) if
there's anyone that knows how to create starvation, it's Fidel Castro.
He also knows how not to do ethanol?.
As I find myself obliged to respond to this gentleman, it is
my duty to remind him that Cuba?s infant mortality rate is lower than
the United States?. All citizens ?this is beyond question?enjoy free
medical services. Everyone has access to education and no one is denied
employment, in spite of nearly half a century of economic blockade and
the attempts of US governments to starve and economically asphyxiate
the people of Cuba.
China would never devote a single ton of cereals or leguminous
plants to the production of ethanol, and it is an economically
prosperous nation which is breaking growth records, where all citizens
earn the income they need to purchase essential consumer items, despite
the fact that 48 percent of its population, which exceeds 1.3 billion,
works in agriculture. On the contrary, it has set out to reduce energy
consumption considerably by shutting down thousands of factories which
consume unacceptable amounts of electricity and hydrocarbons. It
imports many of the food products mentioned above from far-off corners
of the world, transporting these over thousands of miles.
Scores of countries do not produce hydrocarbons and are unable
to produce corn and other grains or oily seeds, for they do not even
have enough water to meet their most basic needs.
At a meeting on ethanol production held in Buenos Aires by the
Argentine Oil Industry Chamber and Cereals Exporters Association, Loek
Boonekamp, the Dutch head of the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD)?s commercial and marketing division, told the
press that governments are very much enthused about this process but
that they should objectively consider whether ethanol ought to be given
such resolute support.
According to Boonekamp, the United States is the only country where
ethanol can be profitable and, without subsidies, no other country can
make it viable.
According to the report, Boonekamp insists that ethanol is not
manna from Heaven and that we should not blindly commit to developing
this process.
Today, developed countries are pushing to have fossil fuels
mixed with biofuels at around five percent and this is already
affecting agricultural prices. If this figure went up to 10 percent, 30
percent of the United States? cultivated surface and 50 percent of
Europe?s would be required. That is the reason Boonekamp asks himself
whether the process is sustainable, as an increase in the demand for
crops destined to ethanol production would generate higher and less
stable prices.
Protectionist measures are today at 54 cents per gallon and
real subsidies reach far higher figures.
Applying the simple arithmetic we learned in high school, we
could show how, by simply replacing incandescent bulbs with fluorescent
ones, as I explained in my previous reflections, millions and millions
of dollars in investment and energy could be saved, without the need to
use a single acre of farming land.
In the meantime, we are receiving news from Washington,
through the AP, reporting that the mysterious disappearance of millions
of bees throughout the United States has edged beekeepers to the brink
of a nervous breakdown and is even cause for concern in Congress, which
will discuss this Thursday the critical situation facing this insect,
essential to the agricultural sector. According to the report, the
first disquieting signs of this enigma became evident shortly after
Christmas in the state of Florida, when beekeepers discovered that
their bees had vanished without a trace. Since then, the syndrome which
experts have christened as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has reduced
the country?s swarms by 25 percent.
Daniel Weaver, president of the US Beekeepers Association,
stated that more than half a million colonies, each with a population
of nearly 50 thousand bees, had been lost. He added that the syndrome
has struck 30 of the country?s 50 states. What is curious about the
phenomenon is that, in many cases, the mortal remains of the bees are
not found.
According to a study conducted by Cornell University, these
industrious insects pollinate crops valued at anywhere from 12 to 14
billion dollars.
Scientists are entertaining all kinds of hypotheses, including
the theory that a pesticide may have caused the bees? neurological
damage and altered their sense of orientation. Others lay the blame on
the drought and even mobile phone waves, but, what?s certain is that no
one knows exactly what has unleashed this syndrome.
The worst may be yet to come: a new war aimed at securing gas and oil
supplies that can take humanity to the brink of total annihilation.
Invoking intelligence sources, Russian newspapers have
reported that a war on Iran has been in the works for over three years
now, since the day the government of the United States resolved to
occupy Iraq completely, unleashing a seemingly endless and despicable
civil war.
All the while, the government of the United States devotes
hundreds of billions to the development of highly sophisticated
technologies, as those which employ micro-electronic systems or new
nuclear weapons which can strike their targets an hour following the
order to attack.
The United States brazenly turns a deaf ear to world public
opinion, which is against all kinds of nuclear weapons.
Razing all of Iran?s factories to the ground is a relatively
easy task, from the technical point of view, for a powerful country
like the United States. The difficult task may come later, if a new war
were to be unleashed against another Muslim faith which deserves our
utmost respect, as do all other religions of the Near, Middle or Far
East, predating or postdating Christianity.
The arrest of English soldiers at Iran?s territorial waters
recalls the nearly identical act of provocation of the so-called
?Brothers to the Rescue? who, ignoring President Clinton?s orders
advanced over our country?s territorial waters. Cuba?s absolutely
legitimate and defensive action gave the United States a pretext to
promulgate the well-known Helms-Burton Act, which encroaches upon the
sovereignty of other nations besides Cuba. The powerful media have
consigned that episode to oblivion. No few people attribute the price
of oil, at nearly 70 dollars a barrel as of Monday, to fears of a
possible invasion of Iran.
Where shall poor Third World countries find the basic
resources needed to survive?
I am not exaggerating or using overblown language. I am
confining myself to the facts.
As can be seen, the polyhedron has many dark faces.
April 3, 2007
Fidel Castro Ruz
いいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいい
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html
To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
いいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいい
|