Confederation Paysanne's bank accounts seized by Monsanto

Member of the CPE and Via Campesina
104, rue Robespierre - 93170 Bagnolet
Fax : 01 43 62 80 03
contact@lesamisdelaconf.org Site : www.lesamisdelaconf.org

Bagnolet, 1 December 2005

To whom it may concern

GMO : Monsanto increases its repression

Call for an increased resistance

On the 26th of November, the Monsanto Corporation (Round-Up, Agent Orange, Terminator)
seized the bank accounts of the Confederation Paysanne, France's second largest
agriculture trade union.

This decision follows a judgment after the neutralization, in 1998, of open-air
cultivations of GM maize and soya.

The Confederation Paysanne is being attacked, even though this action was aimed
at avoiding genetic pollution and the patenting of the living by multinational corporations.

« Les Amis de la Confederation paysanne » (Friends of the the Confederation paysanne)
denounce this repression.

We invite you to support initiatives of resistance and financial solidarity:

· Via postal mail to : Amis de la Confederation Paysanne
Solidarite contre Monsanto
104 Rue Robespierre
93170 BAGNOLET
· Through a credit transfer : IBAN (International Bank Account Number)

Account owner – LES AMIS DE LA CONFEDERATION PAYSANNE

IBAN : FR 76 1027 8060 4100 02100 0214 059
BIC (Bank code) : CMCIFR 2A

CCM PARIS 3E 4E LE MARAIS BASTILLE

8, RUE SAINT ANTOINE

750004 PARIS

Thank you in advance !

The Executive Councils of the Confederation Paysanne and Friends of the the Confederation paysanne

What's the story here? How can Monsanto "seize" an asset? Only governments can seize assets.

And what is Confédération Paysanne?

A group of anti GMO protesters destroyed GM crops.
Their leader went to jail. Monsanto sued them,
won a judgment, and seized their assets through
the courts. Now they are crying "Oppression!"

Confédération Paysanne also made world headlines by
demolishing a McDonalds restaurant.

http://www.mindfully.org/GE/GE3/Monsanto-Confederation-Paysanne.htm

Confederation Paysanne farm union destroys maize at Monsanto French site
Reuters 22aug01

BEAUCAIRE, France -- Around 150 activists destroyed genetically modified (GM) maize plants on Wednesday at a test site run by Monsanto Co (MON) in France, drawing condemnation from the U.S. biotechnology giant.

The activists, including members of the left-wing Confederation Paysanne farm union, tore up bio-engineered maize being grown on around 800 square metres in the southern French town of Beaucaire, government authorities in Nimes said....

...In March, a French court gave Bove a 10-month suspended jail sentence and two years' probation for destroying GM rice plants at a research institute in June 1999.

Two months earlier, Bove and other anti-globalisation activists helped uproot some three hectares of GM soybeans at an experimental farm in Brazil operated by Monsanto. --- 3. Greenpeace In Doll Demo Over GM Baby Food Claim




some history of Confederation Paysanne and its founder
http://www.counterpunch.org/bove.html
March 20, 2001
Jose Bove of Millau/A Farmer for Our Time

The crowded courtroom in the southern French town of Montpellier listened on February 9 to prosecutor Olivier Decout sweep through his peroration: "One cannot systematically use violence against scientific progress!" Outside, the police held back a thousand French farmers who poured into the university town to rally for their leader, Jose Bove, charged with fomenting an attack on a nearby biotech research station belonging to a corporation called CIRAD.
...

The action, led by Bove, was one more in a series of attacks by French farmers on genetically modified crops and fast food restaurants. In answer to the prosecutor's accusation in Montpellier that he and his companions were mere Luddites, Bove replied, "Why refuse something which is presented as 'progress'? It's not because of old-fashionedness, or regrets for the good old days. It's because of concern for the future, and because of a will to have a say in future developments. I'm not opposed to fundamental research. I think it would be illusory and detrimental to want to curb it. On the other hand, I don't think that every application of research is necessarily desirable, at the human, social or environmental level. And the only regret that I have now is that I wasn't able to destroy more of it."...

...Now 47, he cut his teeth on insurgency in the famous student/worker uprisings in France in 1968. In the 1970s he and his wife Alice led a successful campaign to keep the French military from building missile silos on the Larzac plateau where they had just moved to raise sheep for milk for the area's famous Roquefort cheese. Bove speaks fluent English. In fact, he spent four years of his youth in Berkeley, where his parents, both biochemists, did research at the University of California.

In 1987 the Boves founded the Confederation of French Farmers, and in one of the first of many brilliantly conceived publicity coups, the farmers ploughed up a few acres of ground under the Eiffel tower to protest an initiative of the EEC favoring corporate agriculture....

support. Monsanto is a real plague. Most people don't even recognize how evil they are. A Duer - unfortunately I forgot who - has been following Monsanto closely and posted a lot of interesting facts here.

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Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

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Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!