Activists against dangerous genetically engineered trees in Brazil was recently assassinated

Edited by José Fernandez

The Global Justice Ecology Project had reported that on 21 October 21 at 1:30 PM, a Via Campesina encampment (located at Syngenta's 127-hectare farm used for field trials of genetically modified crops in Santa Tereza do Oeste, in Parana, Brazil), was attacked by an armed militia. During the brutal attack, a leader and activist from the Movement of Landless Workers (MST) and member of Via Campesina, Valmir Mota de Oliveira, 42 years old (known as "Keno,") was killed at point-blank range by two shots to the chest.

Via Campesina represents itself as "an international movement which coordinates peasant organizations of small and middle-scale producers, agricultural workers, rural women, and indigenous communities from Asia, Africa, America, and Europe". They are a coalition of over 100 organizations, advocating family-farm-based sustainable agriculture and were the group apparently that first coined the term "food sovereignty".

Food sovereignty refers to the right to produce food on one's own territory.

Brazil may be the first country after China to commercially release genetically engineered (GE) trees under the auspices of Big Business interests. The dangers of Brazil's open arms policy to genetic engineering companies is demonstrated by the apparent assassination of an MST activist who was occupying a field of GE crops. Please take action

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