27/04/2005 - Meet Pat
and Jay. Do they look like criminals who should
be locked away for five years?
Jay has a Phd in Ecology from the University
of Gorgia. Pat is a journalist and yoga instructor.
Their story is about papaya.
Papaya is grown in almost every backyard and
is a staple food in some parts of Southeast
Asia. It is a vital part of the Thai kitchen
and features in famous Thai dishes such as
Som Tam, a spicy papaya salad. Large numbers
of people in Thailand grow the fruit, and
were worried when the Thai government began
to experiment with genetically engineered
(GE) strains.
Hawaiian papaya disaster
Their worry was well founded. Commercial
plantings of GE papaya in Hawaii had been
disastrous for organic papaya growers. The
selling price of GE papaya fell to 30-40 percent
below production costs, and the price that
farmers got for their GE papaya in 2003 was
600 percent lower than the price for organic
papaya. Japan screens to ensure no GE papaya
enters the market, and it is illegal in many
countries.
The government approved experimental plantings
at a number of research stations regardless.
Greenpeace discovers contamination
On 24 June 2004, we received test results
showing that the fruit of a papaya tree on
a local farmer's land had been genetically
engineered.
Send a message to the Thai government: Free
Pat and Jay. Find the real criminals.
The GE papaya tree was 12 months old and had
been grown from papaya seeds purchased from
the government research station at Khon Kaen
in June 2003. Sale of GE seeds is illegal
in Thailand.
In July of 2004, Pat and Jay took this story
public when they acted as spokespersons for
Greenpeace activists who sealed off GE papaya
in experimental fields at the Khon Kaen research
station -- the source of GE papaya contamination
in the region. The activists, dressed in protective
suits, removed GE papaya fruit from trees
and secured them in hazardous material containers.
Pat and Jay call for destruction of test
field
Pat and Jay appeared on television and in
print demanding that the government complete
the process begun by the activists and immediately
destroy all papaya trees, fruit, seedlings,
and seeds in the research station to prevent
further contamination. The story became one
of the biggest scandals in Thailand.
They were charged with theft, trespassing
and destruction of property.
No charges were made against the officials
at the research station, who threatened to
rob papaya farmers of their livelihoods by
contaminating their crop, whose seeds trespassed
into the fields of farmers who didn't want
them, and whose error led to the contamination
of papaya which then had to be destroyed.
Almost two months after Greenpeace took action
against the contamination, the government
acknowledged that a plantation 4 kms from
the research station had been contaminated,
and destroyed the farmer's papaya.
Greenpeace was proven right.
The government collected samples from 2,345
plantations in 35 provinces.
They admitted that 24 plantations had been
contaminated.
Government destroys test field
On September 15th, 2004, the government destroyed
the GE papaya in the research station's experimental
field.
Thus, they fulfilled their civic duty by completing
the job that the Greenpeace team had begun.
Instead of getting to the bottom of who precisely
was responsible for the contamination, the
very department that was responsible for the
contamination decided to take legal action
against Pat and Jay.
Shutting down opposition
These charges are not about the events of
July 27th, 2004: they're about preventing
future events of this nature.
This story is about putting a chill on further
protest against GE crops in Thailand.
It's about making examples of a journalist
and an ecology professor who dared to speak
up, and throw them in jail for it.
At stake is the entire nature of civil society
in one of the most developed countries of
Southeast Asia.
