Ufrieda Ho
Activists opposed to the genetic modification of food have slammed management at the Indaba Hotel in Johannesburg for being heavy-handed in trying to stop them from distributing information pamphlets at a conference on biotechnology for Africa.
The South African Freeze Alliance on Genetic Engineering (SAFeAGE) held a parallel meeting to the AfricaBio conference that took place at the hotel on Wednesday. Their aim was to highlight the potential risks of genetically modified (GM) foods to humans and the environment.
One SAFeAGE volunteer handed out pamphlets to journalists and delegates arriving for the AfricaBio conference. It caused a stir and hotel management was alerted to stop SAFeAGE from distributing their literature. Two hotel security guards were also placed outside the room SAFeAGE had hired for their function.
“It was heavy-handed and uncalled for for them to place guards outside our room. They were criminalising our action. We as a volunteer organisation cannot afford the R1700 fee to AfricaBio’s conference. This clearly shows that they do not want any open debate or opposition on this issue,” says Karen Kallman, coordinator of SAFeAGE.
The Indaba’s deputy general manager Volkmar Furweger says the hotel had not agreed to allow the distribution of the pamphlets. He says he was unaware that two meetings with opposing views were being held at the same time. “The guards were placed there to ensure that there wasn’t going to be any protests inside the hotel.”
AfricaBio held the conference to discuss the advantages of using bio-technology to aid farmers on the African continent. GM crops can be manipulated to be resistant to harsh climates and can also be engineered to obviate the need to use certain pesticides. GM foods are also being pushed as a solution to stave off any food-shortage crisis in Africa.
SAFeAGE says the monopolies behind the production of GM seeds will make small-scale farmers dependent on large, foreign conglomerates and the proliferation of GM will negatively impact on the loss of bio-diversity and contamination of natural crops. The spread of GM seed by wind or insects cannot be controlled.