Wednesday, April 30, 2008

UN denounces IMF and WTO food genocide

The UN Special Rapporteur on food has blown the cover on the crimes of the IMF and the WTO, for their intentional policy of inducing famine. This is exactly what LaRouche has warned, for years - it is now recognized at the highest international levels. Will the world act, and abolish the WTO, and create a new world monetary system based on production, rather than speculation and British imperial genocide?

Here is the report on Jean Zeigler' statements. Remember - LaRouche will speak on the global collapse, and the US elections, next Wednesday, May 7, at 1:00 PM, in DC, or webcast on www.larouchepac.com Mike Billington



UN's Jean Zeigler: WTO, IMF and Biofuels Have Caused the

"Authentic Tragedy" of World Starvation



April 29 (LPAC)--Jean Zeigler, the UN's Special Rapporteur on the

Right to Food, used his April 28 press conference in Geneva to

denounce the World Trade Organization (WTO), biofuels, and the

"aberrant" policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), for

starving poor people around the world.

Zeigler was attending the meeting of several UN agencies in

Geneva, called to come up with emergency solutions to the world

food crisis. In what was his final press conference as Special

Rapporteur--his job ends on April 30--he minced no words. The

work of WTO director Pascal Lamy, he said, "is totally contrary

to the interests of people who are victims of starvation." Yet

the WTO is rushing to conclude the Doha Round for greater trade

liberalization, which will kill more people, he said. It is

protectionist payments that allow peasants and small farmers to

produce food, he continued, not trade liberalization!

The Swiss official charged that the IMF's "aberrant"

policies were tantamount to colonialism--encouraging poor nations

to produce non-food products for export, so they could pay off

their foreign debt, while leaving subsistance farmers to eke out

an existence on their own. Enough of such "colonial crops," he

said.

Zeigler made an impassioned call for increased donations to

the UN's World Food Program, which is the only source of food for

75 million people. Over the past three months, he warned, the

purchasing power of the world's poor has dropped by 40%, due to

food price inflation. Unless aid is forthcoming, millions of

people, in such places as the Gaza Strip or Darfur, will die over

the coming months, and food riots and unrest will intensify. High

food prices "are destabilizing the world," Zeigler intoned, and

the "daily massacre of hunger" is worsening, while speculators

seek gains from the ups and downs of commodity prices on

international markets.

In this context, Zeigler slammed the biofuels mania, which

he charged was one of the main causes for rising food prices. If

people want to fight global warming, fine, Zeigler said, but they

should do it without killing people. Today, biofuels "are a crime

against a large portion of humanity, which is intolerable," he

warned. There must be "total moratoria" on biofuels production,

lasting a minimum of five years, he stated. [crr]

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