We, the Peoples’ Coalition for Food Sovereignty and all our members and networks, are one with the Stop Golden Rice Network in claiming this day – August 8 – as the Global Day of Action against Golden Rice. As an international rural peoples’ movement committed to assert the peoples’ right to food, we reiterate our utter disgust and condemnation to Syngenta-ChemChina’s efforts to pose their Golden Rice project as a “humanitarian service” to cloak their corporate agenda of further cornering seed markets and profiteering from farmers through it.
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Alarmingly, land grabbing by landlords and transnational corporations in the rural communities [of the Philippines] is often accompanied by militarization and brutal violations of the human rights. The political killings related to land conflicts in the country continue and worsen with blatant impunity.
PCFS denounces such schemes of state terrorism that only aims to stifle democracy, in order to facilitate the entry of development aggression projects that seize and destroy the people’s lands and resources. We challenge these states to uphold the laws of the land, respect the rights of the people, and fulfill the mandate of serving their people’s welfare. Particularly, we urge the Duterte administration to stop the attacks against development workers and human rights defenders especially in Mindanao and lift the Martial Law.
“While we welcome the DOJ decision, we are wary of the Philippine government’s continued pronouncements to still deport Sister Fox. [Presidential Spokesperson] Roque’s persistent taunts show us that this administration is willing to create an example out of Sister Fox’s case – that helping the poor and speaking up for them, as a foreigner, is not allowed in this country,” Roy Anunciacion, PCFS global coordinator said.
Our Coalitions are enraged by the arrest of five Indian activists on 6 June 2018 on the basis of trumped-up charges for their “provocative speeches” that “incited” the violence on 1 January 2018 in Pune during the Elgar Parishad, the 200th anniversary commemoration protest of the Battle of Bhima Koregaon. These prominent Dalit rights activists who were among event organizers, namely Sudhir Dhawale, Surendra Gadling, Shoma Sen, Mahesh Raut, and Rona Jacob Wilson, were also red-tagged and accused as sympathizers of the insurgent Naxalites plotting the assassination of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Philippine President Rodrigo Roa Duterte threatened to declare a national emergency in response to the growing movement against his unfolding dictatorship. He likened it to a declaring a nationwide Martial Law which curtails democratic freedoms and due process.
“We are appalled by the gross impunity of the Philippines’ Duterte administration and its outright terrorism against its constituent, especially farmers. As we speak, our farmers in Mindanao are kept from going to their farms, being tagged as terrorists, and have their communities strafed or bombed,” said PCFS global coordinator Roy Anunciacion.