Social movements have undertaken a number of great struggles in their history, but particularly in the neoliberal period. They have struggled against the sale of state enterprises and against the capitalization that was nothing more than a disguised sale of strategic enterprises. They have fought against the privatization of water and of other rights of Bolivians.

 

It must be said that these struggles are facing a much greater danger and this must be said with much sadness and alarm, since this danger comes from a government that regards itself as a government of campesinos, indigenous people, and social movements.

 

We face the great danger of privatization of seeds that for thousands of years were a heritage given to us by the Pachamama and at the present time are in danger of becoming private property. Is it true that there is a law in the works that would do this? Is it possible that a government such as our present one is proposing such a norm?

 

On June 3rd a newspaper in La Paz published a piece under the title: "A law bill proposes to legalize use of GMOs". A highlighted phase says that the proposed law foresees the control of production, importation and commercialization of genetically modified products.

 

No one said a peep. Neither ecologists nor defenders of mother earth came out against this proposal. The newspaper says that the future Law of Productive, Communitarian and Agricultural Revolution will be approved, under the leadership of the government, on the occasion of the Aymara New Year, June 21st.

 

The information that follows days that it was President Evo Morales who sent this project to the Legislative Assembly for consideration and its presumed approval.  The executive of the Asociación Nacional de Productores de Oleaginosas (Anapio), Demetrio Pérez, immediately applauded this project which would make them more competitive and more wealthy.

 

What would this norm mean if it is approved?  Simply that seeds can become private property and that the greatest beneficiaries will be multinational corporations, which in addition to having certain flexibilities for the production and commercialization of seeds, can demand the payment of royalties by those who produce with GM seeds.

 

We Bolivians are not aware of the implications of these norms that are currently under consideration. We do not know what this will mean for the livelihoods of campesinos, for our food supply, for our economy, and above all for the consequences against nature.

 

At the end of the 1990s, in the pages of the newspaper "Presencia" we launched a campaign against food produced from GM foods that the United States gave us and which was joined by many other La Paz print media.  There was a controversy with the Embassy, at a time when even a neoliberal government did not dare to authorize the use of GMOs in Bolivia.

 

Transgenic foods are genetically modified to resist insecticides, germs and insects.  The harvests are more productive and produce enormous gains, but what is not known is what harm may be done to the human body. Until now, we who live in the third world have become guinea pigs for the economic voracity of transnational corporations.

 

With the privatization of seeds, the great world laboratories, property of transnational corporations, will become the owners of seeds. They can manipulate their prices by raising them or cutting off distribution. We will become dependent on them.

 

We could be wrong,  but if it be true that we are going to allow the privatization of seeds,  this will extend to others apart from soya, which we now are given to understand will have authorization for GM production.