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27/03/2006
The Governor Roberto Requião complete speech in the opening meeting with the ministers of the environment
President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva.
Minister of the Environment, Marina Silva.
Executive Secretary of the Conference, Ahmed Djoghlaf.
Ministers and Delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen.
In the press release made available on Wednesday, March 22nd, reporting on the signing of the regulation on labeling of products containing transgenics, the Reuters press agency says: “The Governor of Paraná, the populist Roberto Requião, signed the law and so on and so forth.”
This is how big media, the international press agencies and our ineffable big newspapers treat the resistance of Paraná against the transgenic products.
We are populists, they call us “outdated”, confronters of “modernity”. At the same time that they seek to devaluate our partnership with the popular movements, the NGOs, the indians.
Advanced would be Monsanto and its insidious attempt to monopolize the seed production, controlling the Brazilian soybean production, submitting products and countries and making them dependent on its patents. Advanced would be Sygenta and the experiments it is making in areas near the National Park of Iguassu with the Terminator seed, the suicide seed.
Advanced would be the transnationals and their insatiable appetite for profit. Rabelais’ Pantagruel, indecent, immoral, inhuman, repulsive. Advanced would be the market that has no commitment with people, and the preservation and destiny of the planet.
Outdated are those who believe that the State plays a transcendental role, indispensable and unique, not only as to care with the social welfare and protection but also in defense of the environment.
The weakening of the State, the decrease of its role and attributions is the pleasant, delightful dream of transnationals, neoliberals, these people who wants absolute freedom to be able to exploit our natural resources, exhausting them to the last tree, the last animal, the last water spring.
Now I see a declaration by the economist Jeffrey Sachs, one of the proclaimers of neoliberalism and globalization in the eighties, advising the world on bringing the State back. For him, the market forces are not the solution for poverty and other fundamental problems of the modern world.
And other fundamental problems of the modern world are as fundamental as the protection to the environment.
These conferences, MOP3 and COP8, are a mirror of confrontation between the State and the market interests. The market is only committed to profit, financial results and business success.
In case measures of protection to the environment as, for example, the Kyoto Protocol, come across the transnationals, worse for the environment. As I stated at the opening of COP8, those positions rejecting the Kyoto Protocol do not seem to be civilized, advanced and progressist; they ignore global warming, and despise the advancement of desertization, marine pollution, the death of rivers and the destruction of forests.
This is barbarism.
And to hold back barbarism, it is necessary to build dams, defenses, powerful fortifications against the predatory advance of the transnational capital.
After all, who do we want the planet for?
Do we want it so that men can live here in a pacific, fraternal, solidary form accomplishing their dreams of a comfortable and healthy life? Or for the transnationals to achieve their fantastic and insane profits?
The market advances like hordes of barbarians. Because the market has no commitment with civilization, the future or History. It does not respect national areas, national diversities, biodiversity. The market thinks of stock exchange quotations for today, and profits for today. For the market, the future is a utopia inside the dream of a few romantic populists, maybe.
I confess that I am getting more and more concerned about the environmental policies that seek to reconcile development and nature protection. This is what I see under the protective cover of the “sustainable development” proposal, dangerous concessions.
My God, we have already conceded so much, the aggressions have been so extensive and yet, regarding the small remainder still untouched or relatively preserved, there we go making exceptions and concessions here and there, opening space for the so-called progress.
Who is this progress for? Cui prodest? Whom does it concern?
Let us examine the statistics, verify the results of decades of an almost absolute dominance of the market in the world’s south hemisphere, in this world’s end, and we will prove that misery has advanced, and that the abyss of inequality has become wider and deeper. That the so-called deregulation also deregulated some rules of protection for the environment, making them flexible to favor the large corporations; that privatization and other political recipes, applied with so much subservience and irresponsibility by some governors, did not redeemed our people from poverty, illiteracy, diseases, unemployment and subemployment, subdwelling, subliving.
Jeffrey Sachs, when reverting in defense of the State, quotes what happened in some African countries. About twenty years ago, he says, the World Bank insisted that agriculture in the African continent did not produce more because of State intervention. Well, some African leaders decided to stop subsidizing small farmers and adopted some market rules to regulate production. As a result, the situation became even worse.
Cui prodest?
Actually, what we see is the wolf’s reasons prevailing.
The facts are there. Reality shouts its despair out loud everyday. We have gone too far, way beyond we should have. And yet there are those defending the idea that we should make concessions, and be flexible and adaptable, sensible. That we should concede to the wolf’s reasons, even though it is upstream, as in Aesop fable.
And the contradiction between the market, neoliberalism, environment preservation and biodiversity keeps on advancing, to the point of becoming unsolvable. It is not possible to make exaggerated profits, megacorporations, empire monopolization and life compatible. Such cyclopic profits, such an uncontrolled search for results is not good either for nature or for man.
And the governors seeking to withhold the destructive advance of the transnationals are classified as populists.
In any event, these meetings, MOP3 and COP8, have advanced in some decisions. We Brazilians, on our part, are proud of our government because of two positions: the shipment identification of transgenic products and the position against production, testing and commercialization of the Terminator seed, the suicide seed.
Of course, it would have been ideal if, instead of postponing the enforcement of decisions to some more years, all the measures advised and adopted at theses conferences could become immediately enforceable. This feeling of urgency should mean pressure on international bodies and governments.
It is with pleasure that I highlight the participation of popular movements, Via Campesina, non-governmental organizations, indigenous peoples, workers unions, and students who, coming from all around the world, came to Paraná bringing the colors of their rebelliousness, generosity and solidary view to these conferences. Without the pressure of these movements, little would we have advanced. It is their shout, from such a long time, that have alerted and awakened the planet to the danger of destruction.
I believe there is a clear relationship between the advances of the anti-nature and anti-civilization forces, the weakening of the State and the public policies of environmental defense.
At least in what regards this South of the world.
It is in the vacuum of distance and omission of the State that we have had the severe and continuing aggressions to our ecosystems in the last twenty years. And along with such omission, abuses, insults, offenses, insolences like the smuggling of transgenic Monsanto soybean to Rio Grande do Sul and therefore, its diffusion to some Brazilian States. As to this, the Government of President Lula, as we know, had to face a dramatic situation, with few alternatives when confronting the fait accompli.
Thus I believe that the State should play its role again in the preparation of public policies of environment defense. State and popular movements, with the cooperation of conscious businessmen could, in a solidary partnership, oppose themselves to the forces of obscurantism, destruction and these new vandals that attempt against civilization and this magnificent adventure of Men on planet Earth.
The most generous of all utopias that man has dreamed of was the utopia of equality, fraternity, solidarity, happiness. The accomplishment of this utopia is the only possibility, the last hope of saving the planet.
It is worthwhile to dream.
Thank you very much.
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