The multinational thug goes under the legal microscope for
human deaths and ecocide and Dr. Channa
Jayasumana and Farmer Saman provide a damning indictment of Glyphosate
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| Farmer Saman at the tribunal |
It is well known that Monsanto promotes an agroindustrial
model that contributes to at least a third of anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
it is also largely responsible for the depletion of soil and water resources,
species extinction and declining biodiversity, and the displacement of millions
of small farmers worldwide.
Despite serious allegations against this multinational thug,
they have continued to engage in activities devastating to the earth, its
plants, its animals and its people through a systematic concealment strategy
through lobbying regulators and government authorities, lying, corruption,
commissioning bogus scientific studies, putting pressure on independent
scientists, and manipulating the press and in all of these, blithely, brutally
and unpardonably ignoring the damage to human beings and their social fabric in
every part of the world and their massive contribution to the destruction of
the stability of the global environment.
The world has had enough of this organization and its lies
and its corruption of science for its own profit and gain. As part of the
process to sweep them into the dustbin of one of the darkest chapters of human
history – that of corporate greed taking precedence over justice – the peoples of
the world gather today and tomorrow (16th and 17th
October 2016) at the Institution of Social Studies at The Hague, where 30
witnesses and experts from five continents give evidence against
Monsanto and its products in front of an internationally renowned panel of
judges.
The judges are Judge Dior Fall Sow of
Senegal who is a consultant to the International Criminal Court and a
former Advocate General at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Judge Jorge Fernández who is from Souza, Mexico and who is currently Judge at the Court of Administrative
Litigation of Mexico City, Judge Eleonora Lamm of Argentina who is
the Human rights Director for the Supreme Court of Justice of Mendoza with a
doctorate in bioethics and law, Judge Steven Shrybman of
Canada who is a partner in the law firm of Goldblatt Partners LLP and
practices international trade and public interest law in Toronto and Ottawa and Judge Françoise Tulkens of Belgium, who has a Doctorate
in Law, a Master’s degree in Criminology and is a former judge in the European Court
of Human Rights.
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| The Panel of Judges at the Monsanto Tribunal at The Hague - Follow the proceedings at http://www.monsanto-tribunal.org/ |
Sri Lanka was represented by Farmer Kolonnage Saman and Dr. Channa Jayasumana. They were the third duo to give evidence before the Hague Tribunal.
Farmer Saman paints the frightening socioeconomic scenario farmers in Sri Lanka face as a result of glyphosate:
Farmer Saman gave first hand testimony on the damage caused by glyphosate which
is the chemical found in such Monsanto herbicide brands as RoundUp. From him,
the tribunal heard of the rapid increase in the rise of kidney disease
occurring concurrently with the hardness of already hard water and both
damningly being noticed with the introduction of glyphosate herbicides from
Monsanto’s local cat’s paw – CIC. This was comparatively common knowledge but
more important was his indictment of Monsanto who did not inform them of the
dangers of using their herbicide and the social and economic cost of the chief
breadwinners getting sick and ripping apart the entire social fabric of farming
communities in rural Sri Lanka. He completed his testimony demanding that
Monsanto provide every one of the tens of thousands (government data says
69,000) of sick farmers as well as those tens of thousands (over 22,000 at
present)who have already perished with a significant financial compensation
package.
Dr. Channa Jayasumana testifies to the true medical facts behind glyphosate, the rationale for the ban and the effort made by Monsanto proxies to get the ban lifted:
Dr. Jayasumana, Head, Department of Pharmacology,
Rajarata University, in his testimony, took the tribunal through the history of
kidney disease in Sri Lanka starting as far back as 1994 and the reasons for
the 15 year hiatus from the start of the chronic application of these
herbicides to the incidence of the first cases of the disease. Citing his own
research as well as that of others, he outlined how the active ingredient of
such products as Roundup - isopropylamine salt of glyphosate – was identified as the
determining cause of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) in unshakable testimony that
the agrochemical industry has sort to deny and / or, suppress. He stated that
it combined with heavy metals, leached into ground water and created the toxins
that destroyed the kidneys of the farmers and their families in the rice
farming belts of the country. He also informed the tribunal that Sri Lanka was
the first country in the world to completely ban glyphosate and despite this
ban, the proxies of Monsanto were continuously striving to get the ban lifted
and using pressure on the government, threats to scientists and infiltration of
key academic and state institutions to prevent research from seeing the light
of day. He stated that the ban was still strongly in effect and that it was now
even firmer because the WHO has recently reported that glyphosate was a probable
human carcinogen.
On being questioned by the Tribunal on whether Monsanto knew
about the properties of glyphosate, Dr. Jayasumana stated that glyphosate was
an acylating agent capable of forming bonds with heavy metals and that Monsanto
knew of this when it bought the patent from its previous owner as far back as
1970 after which one of the Monsanto scientists John E. Franz, reformulated the
chemical glyphosate (assigned new purpose) to be used as a systemic
herbicide.
Responding to a tribunal question on whether there had been
attempts to suppress or curb the research, he stated that the University of
Peradeniya had recently appointed Buddhi Marambe as a council member when he
was also a director of the Monsanto proxy CIC and that every research that was
proposed had to be approved and the infiltration of the academic infrastructure
in Sri Lanka was typical of how Monsento worked in other countries as well.
When asked by the tribunal if the lack of protective gear
was a cause for the incidence of kidney disease, he said that women and
children in those areas who had never applied the chemical were also succumbing
to the illness although not in the same percentages and that this was due to
drinking toxin contaminated well water.
The key to his testimony was that it was not a product that
was banned but rather the active ingredient and this is of paramount importance since various
adjuvants for Glyphosate exist, under dozens of trade names ever since
Monsanto’s patent expired on it in 2000 with most of the giant biotech,
agrichemical corporations jumping on the bandwagon wanting some profits from
the world’s top-selling Roundup weed-killer (and human-killer) ingredient.
Citing all of this evidence, he appealed, with powerful
scientific backing to the international community to join Sri Lanka in banning
glyphosate and not just roundup while sending a strong message to the policy
makers of Sri Lanka to uphold the blanket ban on all glyphosate based
herbicides even though they are being pressured by various so-called scientists
and advocates and lobbyists who have been bought up by Monsanto and its proxies
to lift the ban.
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| The Tribunal in full swing. At left, before the panel, a witness gives testimony |
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