Demonstration
against the Second Round Table on ‘Responsible Soy’.
Today, 31st of August, early in the morning peasant
organisations, women and neighborhood associations, NGOs and many more gathered
to protest against the agro export model of monoculture crops promoted by
government officials and the main national and multilateral corporations who
are meeting the coming 2 days in the Yacht and Golf Club in Asunción, Paraguay.
A march, colored by stilt walkers, murga drum players, banners, pictures and
the presence of approximately 300 people.
They all met in front of an ecological park,
known as Ita Enramada, from where they marched to the hotel, closely followed
by police and riot cops who stopped them 100 meters away from the entrance of
the hotel. They installed a Popular Tribunal to denounce monoculture (soy)
production.
Different representatives of peasant organisations,
highlighted the importance of this event by showing to the public and
international opinion that there are groups, peasant organisations,
neighborhood associations, fisher syndicates and women’s movements who mobilise
against ´responsible´ soy, and the production model that drives this.
The National Coordination of Indigenous and
Peasant Women, CONAMURI, opened the tribunal, highlighting that the only case
of intoxication that has been taken to court
is the one of Silvino Talavera, an 11 years old kid who died as a
consequence of intoxication by agrotoxins in 2003. “Now we raise the flag of our struggle to denounce the
indiscriminate use of agrotoxins so they stop destroying life in the rural
areas.”
Obdilón Espinola from the National Peasant
Federation made clear that the only responsibility linked with soy is theirs in
“the eviction of peasants from their plots, the contamination of the
environment, the migration from rural areas to the cities and abroad and on top of this there are many peasants who
are have been taken to court, imprisoned and murdered because of this
production model. “ This model is responsible for the enduring misery, hunger,
unemployment and extreme poverty.”
Luis Aguaya of the MCNOC, said : “there exist
two models in the world, one from the agroexporters, the mafia, criminals who
evict the peasant and indigenous communities, contaminate our natural
resources; they are the ones who are meeting and they are the ones representing
to the government, the agro-business and producers to gain profit, that soy
production is responsible and sustainable. But in fact this model is destroying
the environment, murders the social strugglers, destroys our forest and
contaminates us”
Finally Jorge Galeano from the Movimiento
Agrario y Popular stated that “at this moment around 30 peasants were murdered
in 4 years time, defending their land. The cultivation of soy takes 250 000
hectares every year which leads to the expulsion of 90 000 peasants. This all
for the production of soy to be fed to the animals the Europeans are
consuming.”
300 demonstrators of different sectors, urban,
rural, women, indigenous and intellectuals shouted with strength and color
their disgust of this model.