Keith,
The argument that Mugabe - and others made was that the grain supplied
would get into the fields and prosper making the return to regular grain
plantings difficult or impossible.
He said he would accept seed that had been processed, thereby making
seeding impossible.
However as the villages which heavily opposed him in the election campaign
are not getting much in the way of supplies, maybe he just wants them to
die off. Lots of grain of any sort would save people better dead.
One recalls the position in Ethiopia where the government was conduit for
international food supplies. They used it to impose their will on the
population - starving those who were not acceptable, or trapping them when
they came to get food.
I remember an OXFAM spokesman saying "We don't want any more food. We have
plenty. We just want to distribute it."
Harry
_____________________________
Keith wrote:
>Bill,
>
>I don't doubt anything you've written below. However, I was merely asking
>what was the evidence that the GM food recently offered to starving
>Africans by the UN and the aid agencies was dangerous in some way.
>
>Keith
>
>At 12:14 19/09/02 -0400, you wrote:
> > Keith, US laws are probusiness and becoming more so as I write. When
> >I lived in Palestine, one of things I did was run a faith-based pharmacy
> >to supply our fixed and mobile clinics. ships elsewhere. For a
> >while a country could not get US bilateral aid without agreeing to buy US
> >tobacco since Americans were starting to wise up. We is bad dudes! Here
> >is an interesting link: Africa received shipments of
> >Metrecal, another weight- reduction aid, and WMR shipped
> >laxatives to Pakistan and Honduras where a major medical
> >problem was diarrhea.
> >
> >http://www.publiceye.org/research/Group_Watch/Entries-132.htm Bill
> ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >> Bill,
> >>
> >> At 12:41 18/09/02 -0400, you wrote:
> >> (KH)
> >><<<<
> >> . . . some African politicians have been frightened enough to
> >> prevent GM
> >> grain being imported by the aid agencies in order to cope with
> >> wide-scale
> >> starvation among their people -- even though, within the stomach,
> >> the
> >> variant genes within GM food are broken down and digested as
> >> thoroughly as
> >> all the others and are of absolutely no danger.
> >>>>>>
> >> (WBW)
> >><<<<
> >> Isn't it interesting that the food that was offered was genetically
> >> altered
> >> and was not saleable in the US?
> >>>>>>
> >>
> >> I was not aware of this and, in fact, doubt it greatly. Are you
> >> suggesting
> >> that the UN and the big aid agencies were proposing to supply GM
> >> food that
> >> was somehow dangerous or sub-standard? There are, in fact, different
> >> rules
> >> in different countries as to what GM foods are saleable or not --
> >> but in
> >> order to prevent it being planted in the first place and its
> >> environmental
> >> effects rather than any danger when eaten (though many opponents of
> >> GM
> >> foods believe this -- as though it falls into the same category as
> >> pesticide-treated food). I suggest that your "evidence" is due to
> >> disparities between legislation in different countries for different
> >> foods.
> >>
> >> Keith
******************************
Harry Pollard
Henry George School of LA
Box 655
Tujunga CA 91042
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Tel: (818) 352-4141
Fax: (818) 353-2242
*******************************
