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| Bill Gates |
World-renowned environmental leader and ecologist Dr Vandana Shiva has expressed concern that Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft Corporation, has joined the bandwagon of “a poison cartel of three" – Monsanto and Bayer, Syngenta and ChemChina, Dow and DuPont – all of whom allegedly have “roots in Hitler’s Germany and finding chemicals to kill people”.
Accusing Gates, known to be one of the world’s biggest IT giants, of being behind the effort to “get cash banned” in India in November 2016, Dr Shiva, who is a recipient of the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize, the Right Livelihood Award, says, the “war on cash” was announced at a time when “90 percent of India’s economy is cash… Overnight, everyone lost their lifetime savings. Everyone was made poor. Everyone was made vulnerable. Demonetization is what it was called…”
Asserting that Gates “did not invent anything”, that his Basic programme “was made by some mathematics professors in a college”, and that the “Office operating system was by a software engineer, and he bought it for $50,000”, all of which he organized to build “an empire by creating patents on software”, Dr Shiva says, after making huge profits he “started to put some of his money into philanthropy.”
While everyone thinks, "Wow! He’s such a generous man. He gives so much", Dr Shiva, speaking to Democracy Now, underscores, “Every place he gives to is his former future markets”, and one of them is “the first generation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the Bt cotton, the Roundup Ready soy and Roundup Ready corn”, which “have started to breed superpests and superweeds.”
“So now they’re trying to get new GMOs based on gene editing and gene drives. In gene editing, not only is Gates financing the research, he has created a company for the patents. It’s called Editas. So, he will collect rents when gene editing is pushed through”, Dr Shiva says.
Pointing out that “in the United States, half the farmlands are overtaken by superweeds”, and “the most important one is Palmer amaranth, a sacred crop”, Dr Shiva says, “Now, the US Defense system DARPA and Gates have joined hands for a new technology called gene drives to push species to extinction. And they want to drive the amaranth to extinction.”
Concerned about its possible impact on India, Dr Shiva says, they are already saying, “Oh, yeah, there will be a food insecurity impact on India. They eat amaranth.” Meanwhile, Gates continued with his “very big role in pushing GMOs in Africa, through the Alliance for the Green Revolution in Africa, pushing patents on seeds, against the laws, the sovereign laws that countries like India have created.”
Indicating that is following Monsantos and Bayers footsteps – of imagining a world of agriculture without farmers, farming without farmers, farming with drones, farming with spyware in the tractors, farming with robots, farming with artificial intelligence – Dr Shiva says, meanwhile, not only people are people being killed, but butterflies, bees and pollinators, are also being destroyed.
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| Dr Vandana Shiva |
Criticizing Monsanto of “illegally collecting royalties via Indian seed companies” despite the fact that its “Bt cotton seed does not have a patent”, Dr Shiva, “With its push for “more royalties” the price of seed “jumped 80,000 percent”, which became the main reason why in the suicide belt of India – which “overlaps largely with the cotton belt” -- 310,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide”.
According to Dr Shiva, “99 percent of the cotton seed is controlled by Monsanto”, as is clear from the fact that “we have an anti-trust case in the Indian Competition Commission saying 99 percent seed is a prima facie monopoly.” This happened even as there was “80,000 percent jump in seed”, with complete failure to “control the pests”, pushing “farmers got into debt”, driving them to “suicide.”
According to Dr Shiva, “99 percent of the cotton seed is controlled by Monsanto”, as is clear from the fact that “we have an anti-trust case in the Indian Competition Commission saying 99 percent seed is a prima facie monopoly.” This happened even as there was “80,000 percent jump in seed”, with complete failure to “control the pests”, pushing “farmers got into debt”, driving them to “suicide.”
And, says Dr Shiva, “When the Indian companies said, ‘We can’t keep paying. Our farmers are dying. We can’t extract more royalties’, Monsanto sued them, using patent law, infringement”, the reason she intervened in the High Court, and then in the Supreme Court. “The attempt of Monsanto was to knock down India’s law. They failed”, she says, accusing Indian media, “totally in the hands of the poison cartel” of lying “about what happened in the Supreme Court.”
Insisting that Monsanto “lost”, Dr Shiva says, “They wanted to declare the genetically engineered Bt as a chemical for which they wanted a product patent, which means wherever it would have existed, no matter where, it would have been their property. And the existence of Bt in the seed would have been an infringement of their patent.” But “they totally lost with their agenda”, as they were functioning “illegally” in India.
Monsanto has now been bought by Bayer, which making Zyklon B, the gas that was used to kill millions in the concentration camps, in Hitler’s Germany, says Dr Shiva, adding, “They were part of IG Farben. IG Farben was the cartel that was tried at Nuremberg… One of Bayer’s inventions is heroin.”
It was called heroin, says Dr Shiva, because it made you feel like a hero, which devastated many societies, including the economy of Mexico, drug trade took shape; rural America, as well as the unemployment in the industrial belt, that created the opioid crisis; and Punjab, the land of the Green Revolution, where “75 percent youth are now drug addicts.”
Insisting that Monsanto “lost”, Dr Shiva says, “They wanted to declare the genetically engineered Bt as a chemical for which they wanted a product patent, which means wherever it would have existed, no matter where, it would have been their property. And the existence of Bt in the seed would have been an infringement of their patent.” But “they totally lost with their agenda”, as they were functioning “illegally” in India.
Monsanto has now been bought by Bayer, which making Zyklon B, the gas that was used to kill millions in the concentration camps, in Hitler’s Germany, says Dr Shiva, adding, “They were part of IG Farben. IG Farben was the cartel that was tried at Nuremberg… One of Bayer’s inventions is heroin.”
It was called heroin, says Dr Shiva, because it made you feel like a hero, which devastated many societies, including the economy of Mexico, drug trade took shape; rural America, as well as the unemployment in the industrial belt, that created the opioid crisis; and Punjab, the land of the Green Revolution, where “75 percent youth are now drug addicts.”
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