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THE LEAD LIFESAVER

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MONTEVIDEO, Aug 1 2006 (IPS) - Uruguay is becoming a world centre of cellulose production, writes Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer and journalist and author of \’\’The Open Veins of Latin America\’\’ and \’\’Memories of Fire\’\’. In this article, Galeano writes that it is a case of export monoculture in the purest colonial tradition: immense artificial plantations that call themselves forests and generate cellulose in an industrial process that floods the rivers with poisons and makes the air unbreathable. As usual, the blessings of nature become the curses of history. Our eucalyptus grows ten times faster than that of Finland, which means that the industrial plantations will be ten times as devastating. At the rate things are going, a large part of the country\’s land will be squeezed until the last drop of water is extracted. It is a tragic paradox: this was the only country in the world that submitted the ownership of water to a plebiscite. An overwhelming majority of Uruguayans decided in 2004 that water was public property. Is there no way to avoid this hijacking of the popular will?

Our countries are modernising. Now the official discourse demands that we honour the debt (though it is dishonest), attract investment (though it is disgraceful), and enter the world (though it is by the service entrance).

Will we continue to believe the usual stories?

Latin America was born to obey the global market, back when the global market was not known as such, when for better or worse we were bound to the duty of obedience.

This sad routine of the centuries began with gold and silver and continued with sugar, tobacco, guano, saltpetre, copper, tin, rubber, cocoa, bananas, coffee, and oil. What are we left from all these splendours? Neither inheritance nor country; rather, gardens turned into deserts, abandoned fields, punctured mountains, poisoned water, empty palaces stalked by phantoms, and long caravans of miserable people condemned to early deaths.

Now it is the turn of cellulose and genetically-modified soya. The history of fleeting glories is repeated once again, as the sound of their trumpets announces our great misfortune.

* * *

Will the past be mute?

We refuse to heed the voices that warn us; the sounds of the world market are the nightmares of countries that submit to its whims. We continue to applaud the confiscation of natural resources that God, or the Devil, granted us. And thus we work for our own ruin and contribute to the extermination of the little nature that is left in this world.

Argentina, Brazil, and other Latin American countries are gripped by the fever of genetically-modified (GM) soya. Tempting prices and soaring profits. For a while now, Argentina has been the world’s number two producer of GM products, after the United States. In Brazil, in one of those turnarounds that ill serve democracy, the Lula administration said yes to GM soya despite the fact that his party said it wouldn’t throughout his campaign.

Bread for today and hunger tomorrow, as certain rural unions and ecological organisations have put it. But we already know that ignorant country bumpkins refuse to understand the advantages of plastic meals and the electric cow, and that ecologists are just a bunch of killjoys who can’t enjoy a good steak.

* * *

The GM lawyers assert that there is no proof that these products are harmful to human health. But if they are so harmless, why do the manufacturers of GM soya refuse to clarify which products contain their product. Or perhaps the GM soya label wouldn’t be the best advertisement.

But there is evidence that these inventions of Dr. Frankenstein damage the health of the soil and reduce national sovereignty. Are we exporting soya or exporting our land? Aren’t we now trapped in the cage of Monsanto and other giant companies whose seeds, herbicides, and pesticides we have become dependent on?

Lands that produced everything for the local markets are now dedicated to a single product for the foreign market. Outward development, and domestic neglect. Monoculture is a prison and always was, and now with GM crops it is even worse. Diversity, in contrast, is liberating. Independence means little more than an anthem and a flag if it is not grounded in food sovereignty. Self- determination begins at the mouth. Only diversity of production can defend us from the sudden collapses in prices that are the custom, the deadly custom, of the world markets.

The vast expanses destined for GM soya are razing native forests and forcing out poor peasant farmers. This highly mechanised form of farming creates very few jobs; instead it exterminates small farm plots and orchards with the poisons it sprays. The exodus accelerates to the big cities, where it is supposed those driven from the land will be able to consume, with luck, as soon as they produce. It’s agrarian reform; or rather, agrarian reform in reverse.

* * *

Cellulose, too, is all the rage in certain countries. Uruguay, to take one case, is becoming a world centre of cellulose production, providing a once cheap material to far-off paper plants.

It is a case of export monoculture in the purest colonial tradition: immense artificial plantations that call themselves forests and generate cellulose in an industrial process that floods the rivers with poisons and makes the air unbreathable.

Here they started with just two huge plants, one of which was already half-built. Afterward another project was added on, and there is talk of another and another after that, while more and more land is turned over to the mass-production of eucalyptus trees. The big international companies have found us on the map and fallen suddenly in love with a Uruguay that lacks the technology to control them, a government that gives them subsidies and waives taxes, its low wages, and its trees that grow in a heartbeat.

* * *

Everything indicates that our little country will not be able to withstand the embrace of these giants . As usual, the blessings of nature become the curses of history. Our eucalyptus grows ten times faster than that of Finland, which means that the industrial plantations will be ten times as devastating. At the rate things are going, a large part of the country’s land will be squeezed until the last drop of water is extracted. The thirsty titans will suck dry both our soil and our subsoil.

It is a tragic paradox: this was the only country in the world that submitted the ownership of water to a plebiscite. An overwhelming majority of Uruguayans decided in 2004 that water was public property. Is there no way to avoid this hijacking of the popular will?

* * *

It should be recognised that cellulose has become something like a patriotic cause, while the defense of nature does not spark great enthusiasm. Worse still, in our country, ill with cellulosis, certain words which were never bad words, like environmentalist and ecologist, have become insults used to crucify enemies of progress and saboteurs of jobs.

The disaster is celebrated as if splendid news. Dying from pollution is worth more than dying of starvation. Many unemployed believe that they have no alternative but to chose between two calamities, and the hawkers of illusions show up offering thousands and thousands of jobs.

But publicity is one thing, and reality quite another. Brazil’s Landless Movement (MST), the organisation of peasant farmers without land, has issued eloquent data whose validity is not limited to Brazil: cellulose cultivation generates one job for every 185 hectares, whereas family farming creates five jobs for every ten hectares.

But the companies promise the very best: torrents of jobs, millions and millions in investment, strict oversight, clean air, clear water, and pristine land. It is worth asking: why don’t they install these marvels in Punta del Este, to improve the quality of life and stimulate tourism in our main seaside resort? (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

 
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