When you want someone to wipe away the teargas...

When your eyes are streaming with tears and you can't breathe because of pepper spray, what do you do? If you're lucky, you get a street medic - a trained activist who will calmly lead you to a quiet spot, talk you through the pain, and squirt water in your eyes. According to Arwen, thats not all street medics do. You can listen to a 2 minute mp3 here which I recorded this afternoon in the back garden of the Indymedia centre in Cancun.

The Rolling Sunlight has arrived

After 4100 miles from San Francisco, the Greenpeace solar truck has arrived in Cancun.

The Rolling Sunlight powered part of the presentations at the closing of the media convergence held by Centro de Medios Independientes in downtown Cancun.

We have been on the road for two weeks, driving the Greenpeace solar truck, Rolling Sunlight, from San Francisco. Our last few miles were slow, as we got stuck behind a horse on the road from Campeche, and that delayed our arrival a bit.

The Rolling Sunlight has an array of solar panels on the back, a generator that runs on biodiesel for backup, and is powered by a biodiesel engine. Read more about the truck here.

This evening we supplied power for part of the closing gathering of the Media Convergence held by the local indymedia centre. It was held in Parque las Palapas, in downtown Cancun, around the corner from the Centro de Medios Independientes.

We are here for the rest of the meeting, then we turn the truck around and drive back to San Fran.

Sunil Bector was part of the crew that drove the Rolling Sunlight from San Francisco.

The chilling effects of the WTO

It's hot in Cancun, but there's a chill wind blowing. As the WTO sweeps into town the poorer countries in the South are feeling the chill effects of the US government's renewed agression against GMO restrictions around the world.

This entry is based on a presentation I gave yesterday at the Global Biodiversity Forum, a meeting designed to encourage dialogue about issues related to biodiversity. For more information, read The US War on Biosafety(PDF, 47K)

When the US filed a formal complaint in the WTO against the EU's de facto moratorium on GMOs in May, it was the beginning of a 5-month countdown to Cancun, where the WTO's forced trade regime will continue to bulldoze environmental and health regulations that pose 'barriers' to expanding corporate control and profit.

This corporate-driven agenda has the WTO on a collision course with Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs), like the the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety - a legally binding global instrument that gives countries the sovereign right to use the precautionary principle to restrict or ban the import of GMOs. In fact, the Protocol comes into force on September 11, 2003, coinciding with the second day of the WTO Ministerial in Cancun.

Since the EU's de facto moratorium was going to be lifted soon anyway, it's pretty clear that the US had a different target in mind when it used the WTO as a political weapon to hit GMO restrictions. The real target is the global South - where growing rejection of GMOs, including GMO food aid, is shutting down future markets for agribusiness giants like Monsanto. By filing the case against the EU, the US was sending a message to the South: restrict GMOs and you'll face trade sanctions. Since poorer countries in the South are locked into a vicious cycle of debt and export dependency (to earn the foreign currency needed to repay debt), the threat of POSSIBLE trade sanctions under the WTO is enough to scare many governments into retracting GMO restrictions. In 2001, the US threatened countries like Sri Lanka and Bolivia to lift bans on GMOs, and forced Thailand to change its draft GMO labelling laws without even filing a case in the WTO. The threat is enough.

This constant threat of WTO sanctions means that governments are forced to put all environmental and health policies and laws under a kind of risk assessment. Anything that looks like it might be used as grounds for a WTO complaint gets watered down. So instead of assessing the risk of GMOs, governments end up assesing the risks of restricting GMOs!

The other target in the US WTO complaint against the EU is the growing global consensus on biosafety. After a decade of trying to undermine the Biosafety Protocol, the US government must face the enforcement of the Protocol from September 11 onwards. So it has stepped up its attack, using the WTO to undermine this consensus and threaten countries in the South. In fact, this global
consensus is driven by the South, with developing and least-developed countries making up two-thirds of the total number of countries that have ratified the Biosafety Protocol. This contrasts sharply with the lack of consensus in the WTO - especially on agriculture - where poorer countries are being coerced into accepting MORE global inequality.

Gerard Greenfield is a Genetic Engineering campaigner with Greenpeace International

Shifting security zones

The WTO organizing committee cannot tell us where people can go without risk of arrest. They say they can't tell us this information for "security reasons"

Bridge into the Convention Centre where the WTO meeting will be held. These bridges will be the only access points to the meeting.

The Cancun area will be divided into colour-coded security zones; Green are open to all, Yellow require proof that the person has been cleared to enter and Red zones are closed to all peole without accreditation to the WTO meeting.

Most in our delegation have accreditation, which is a good thing because our office is in the shadow of the Convention Centre, and will most likely be in the Red zone. (This still doesn't mean we can go anywhere: we are restricted to areas in the Convention Centre open to non-governmental organizations - NGOs - and journalists)

The problem is that the security organizers cannot tell us the boundaries of the areas, and say they will change day-to-day. All our questions about access to our office and other areas of Cancun are answered with a "We can't tell you for security reasons".

This amounts to an arbitrary declaration of martial law in a constantly shifting area of Cancun.

Waiting out a hurricane in Veracruz

Four days to go before the opening of the WTO meeting and we are in the port of Veracruz - about three days sail from Cancun - doing some important work with the local people here. We had hoped to leave this port to get to Cancun earlier but the small matter of a hurricane has meant we have to stay here for longer.

It is a little frustrating to wait for the weather but we are not wasting our time. We have opened the ship to the public so they can get a real feel for our life on board. It also gives the crew a chance to practise their Spanish.

With our campaign information about GMOs at hand we can offer the Veracruzians some alternative information on the maize that comes at regular intervals to their home port. It is amazing to see the look of recognition and understanding that comes over people when they realise the mutant food delivered, by forced trade, to their doors by the USA. Wouldn't you want to know the truth?

Once the weather clears we will be on our way again to bear witness to the madness that is the WTO. A body that we did not elect or ask for and yet is making huge decisions about fundamental issues for our existence. If I think about it long enough I am terrified. My future, your future, our future in the hands of an elite, undemocratic, out of touch, group of suits.

I'm grateful that at least I have the opportunity to protest with Greenpeace against this legalised crime against humanity and you can too.

Get active, get informed find out your own truth before it is too late.

Emily is the radio operator on the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise

Learn more about genetically engineered maize contamination in Mexico (PDF, 148K)