The United Nation’s Stabilization Mission in Haiti, known by its French acronym MINUSTAH, has de facto controlled the island for more than seven years. Since the January 2010 earthquake, it has increased its force “in order to support immediate recovery, reconstruction and stability efforts.” Its work falls under a strict mandate of human rights, meant to ensure the protection of the Haitian people.
The Nation Editor's Note: Frances Moore Lappé's essay below kicks off our forum on the food movement. Raj Patel, Vandana Shiva, Eric Schlosser, and Michael Pollan have contributed replies. [Links to those replies appear below.]
The elderly woman sat cross-legged atop a worn tribal carpet in the dirt, her eyes downcast and swollen from tears. Above us, a plastic tarp hanging precariously on sticks flapped loudly in the wind as she began to speak. “You need to know what happened here today,” she said in Arabic. “Today we lost everything.” Earlier, we had set out by truck to visit some of the projects Grassroots International supports through our partner the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC). Their work includes supporting Palestinian farmers through the provision of seedlings.
Rwanda is the first nation to sign the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP). The CAADP is one of the many weapons deployed in Africa's so-called Green Revolution, designed to produce better yields through investments in agriculture.
Soon after shameful attacks killed six in southern Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu said that militants would pay “a very heavy price.” And then his warplanes proceeded to pound civilian areas with missiles. So far nine Palestinians—including two children—have been killed, and dozens injured. Retaliatory strikes have not always been limited to sought-after militants but have also affected the more vulnerable and punishable civilian population. Ahmed Sourani, from the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees, a Grassroots International partner near Gaza City, said that they were getting shelled from both sides, even though it is not yet clear who was responsible for the attacks in Israel. “We are very scared about this escalation,” he admitted.
From her humble beginnings, Sayra never imagined the profound impact she would have on the global movement for food sovereignty.
In the article below, Ronnie Cummins outlines the danges posed by Monsanto's takeover of global food systems, and the mounting resistance occuring across the world. Thousands of Davids -- including the Via Campesina, Millions Against Monsanto, Combat Monsanto and other coalitions -- are rising up to thwart this hulking Goliath.
July 20, 2011
In Bir Nabala, a neighborhood in East Jerusalem, Israel’s separation Wall provides a concrete backdrop to what was once a view of the old city. On a stormy afternoon, Bir Nabala’s head of counsel Haj Tawfik Nabeli guided me through the ghostly streets isolated from the rest of the city by massive sections of the eight-meter high Wall that is, in Nabeli’s words, “affecting every single aspect of life.”
“Food sovereignty is the right of peoples, communities, and countries to define their own agricultural, labor, fishing, food and land policies, which are ecologically, socially, economically and culturally appropriate to their unique circumstances. It includes the true right to food and to produce food, which means that all people have the right to safe, nutritious and culturally appropriate food and to food-producing resources and the ability to sustain themselves and their societies.” –“Food Sovereignty: A Right For All, Political Statement of the NGO/CSO Forum for Food Sovereignty,“ Rome, June 2002
The International Links Committee of Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC) announced the Landless Workers Movement (MST) of Brazil as the recipient of the 2011 Food Sovereignty Prize. Grassroots International congratulates our longtime partner and celebrates their accomplishments in promoting community-led initiatives for land and food rights in Brazil, and leading the struggle worldwide.
Bev Bell, a long time Grassroots International ally, recently published the article below, which describes a Learning Exchange program between Brazil and Haiti, supported by Grassroots International. Bev has worked with Haitian social movements, including many of Grassroots International’s partners, for decades. This piece describes the dynamic cross-border collaboration between partners in Haiti and Brazil. Jose Luis Patrola of the Landless Workers Movement puts it well: "We're not here to teach, we're here to learn." He also acknowledged the financial support provided by Grassroots that helped make the Haiti-Brazil learning exchange happen. Perhaps it’s largely true, as noted by Patrola, that social movements have forgotten the concept of internationalism.
RAFAH, Gaza—I’m sitting around a table at the Rural Women’s Development Society (RWDS) near the Gaza Strip’s southernmost border with a group of women discussing grassroots agricultural initiatives and drinking sugary sage tea. For a second, the sound of a war plane suffocates our words. One of the center’s leaders looks out the window and rolls her big brown eyes. “As I was saying,” she repeats, “we are dealing with real threats here.”
Below is an article from Grassroots International’s ally, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, outlining actions planned for the commemoration of the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba on May 15, 2011. Al-Nakba, which means “the catastrophe” in Arabic, commemorates the day in 1948 on which Palestinians either fled or were forced to leave their homes, villages and towns as war broke out between the newly declared State of Israel and neighboring Arab countries in the wake of Israel’s declaration of statehood on May 14, 1948.
GAZA CITY— The turnstile locks behind me and I’m standing in a small metal room. I flashback to the first time I crossed Erez checkpoint last year and remember the claustrophobic feeling of walking into a trap, three small metal doors blending into the steel. This time, I know the drill, and place bets on which one of these gateways to Gaza will randomly open. One finally does, revealing a seemingly endless open-air tunnel that snakes through the expanse of the buffer zone. I have been waiting for this moment, for the long walk alone to the other side. I crank up Gran Vitaly’s “Looming Hurricane” on my iPod and weave through the cage, separated from heavily armed soldiers by razed agricultural land. Time stands still for a while, and then before I know it, I’m back in the Strip.
Below is an article from Grassroots International partner, the Via Campesina, in preparation for the International Day of Peasants’ Struggles. The Via is an international movement which brings together millions of peasants, small and medium-size farmers, landless people, women farmers, indigenous people, migrants and agricultural workers from around the world. It defends small-scale sustainable agriculture as a way to promote social justice and dignity and strongly opposes corporate driven agriculture and transnational companies that are destroying people and nature.
Last year, significant international donors (including several nations and financial institutions) gathered at the United Nations headquarters in New York to discuss the massive reconstruction task ahead of them in post-earthquake Haiti. One year later, the situation on the ground in Haiti demonstrates their failure—both in terms of the lack of meaningful reconstruction, and by refusing to allow Haitians themselves to speak for their own development and sovereignty.
