Peter Jaques

26 May 2003

US plans death camp

from the Melbourne Herald Sun

THE US has floated plans to turn Guantanamo Bay into a death camp, with its own death row and execution chamber.

Prisoners would be tried, convicted and executed without leaving its boundaries, without a jury and without right of appeal, The Mail on Sunday newspaper reported yesterday.

The plans were revealed by Major-General Geoffrey Miller, who is in charge of 680 suspects from 43 countries, including two Australians.

The suspects have been held at Camp Delta on Cuba without charge for 18 months.

General Miller said building a death row was one plan. Another was to have a permanent jail, with possibly an execution chamber.

The Mail on Sunday reported the move is seen as logical by the US, which has been attacked worldwide for breaching the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war since it established the camp at a naval base to hold alleged terrorists from Afghanistan.

But it has horrified human rights groups and lawyers representing detainees.

They see it as the clearest indication America has no intention of falling in line with internationally recognised justice.

The US has already said detainees would be tried by tribunals, without juries or appeals to a higher court. Detainees will be allowed only US lawyers.

British activist Stephen Jakobi, of Fair Trials Abroad, said: "The US is kicking and screaming against any pressure to conform with British or any other kind of international justice."

American law professor Jonathan Turley, who has led US civil rights group protests against the military tribunals planned to hear cases at Guantanamo Bay, said: "It is not surprising the authorities are building a death row because they have said they plan to try capital cases before these tribunals.

"This camp was created to execute people. The administration has no interest in long-term prison sentences for people it regards as hard-core terrorists."

Britain admitted it had been kept in the dark about the plans.

A Downing St spokesman said: "The US Government is well aware of the British Government's position on the death penalty."

3 June 2003

Brazil activists target Monsanto

from the BBC

The MST has won millions of supporters around the country Members of the million-strong landless movement in Brazil (MST) have invaded a farm owned by biotech giant Monsanto in the central state of Goias.

It is the third protest of this kind against Monsanto property this year, and the company has urged the government to take back the land, warning that repeated invasions "damage the image of the country".

It has filed for a repossession order from a court but no decision has yet been announced.

There is torrid debate in Brazil over whether genetically modified (GM) crops should be let in amid mounting pressure on the government from the multinationals.

'Illegal'

Local newspaper reports say between 200 and 2,000 people invaded the 307-hectare farm in Santa Helena de Goias on Monday morning.

Monsanto says the centre is used for research, training and seed-processing.

Brazil's vast agricultural tracts are a tempting prospect for biotech companies The MST says the centre is being used to grow and stockpile seeds, ready to flood the market if GM is legalised in Brazil.

"It's an illegal centre," said one MST leader, Luiz Afonso Arantes.

"They might be producing seeds just for research, but they are also planting with the intention of reproducing," Agencia Folha quoted him as saying.

The MST has expressed fears that if GM is made legal in Brazil, big growers will force small farmers out of business.

But in a statement, Monsanto said: "Repeated invasions like this one, as well as compromising the progress of science in Brazil, damage the image of the country on international markets and threaten the development of national agriculture."

It said failing to crack down on land invasions jeopardised international investment in Brazil.

Brazil's new Workers' Party government has expressed sympathy with the aims of the huge MST, but the two have clashed over the pace of agrarian reforms.

GM leakage

There is furious debate over GM crops in Brazil. Many farmers argue that by allowing them in, Brazil will lose lucrative markets for non-GM foods.

Others fear the creeping introduction of GM crops to Brazil, in part through leakage from neighbouring countries.

Earlier this year the Brazilian Government agreed that a large soy crop in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul found to have been tainted by Argentine GM soy could be sold, but said the moratorium on GM crops there would be reintroduced next year.