[asia-apec 999] FOOD RIGHTS WATCH Volume 7 Number 1

[Anuradha Mittal]

FOOD RIGHTS WATCH               Volume 7     Number 1

Food First/ Institute for Food and Development Policy believes that true
food security can be achieved only if national governments and other
international institutions of power recognize that the right to feed
oneself is an inalienable human right which must not be violated under any
circumstances. The right to food has been touted ceremoniously in numerous
international agreements, including the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights (ICESCR), yet continues to be practically ignored in an
increasingly greedy New World Order.

Food Rights Watch is dedicated to gathering and distributing information
about food rights issues, as well as other economic and social human rights
issues, in the belief that education leads to action. Subscriptions to the
electronic version (e-mail) are free. To subscribe, send a message to
foodfirst at foodfirst.org. We welcome submissions to Food Rights Watch.
E-mail news about activities, events, and new resources to Anuradha Mittal,
at amittal at foodfirst.org or call (510) 654-4400 (x 108).

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FOOD RIGHTS WATCH, Volume 7, Number 1
Editor: Gabrielle Thompson
National News
* Act to End the Bombing and Sanctions Against Iraq
* Largest Pentagon Budget Increase in Decade
* The Right to Organize

International News
1. Argentina: Growing Gap Between Haves and Have-Nots
2. UN Makes Debt a Human Rights Issue
3. Toxic Ship-Scrapping Protested in Singapore

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Food Rights Watch

1. Act to End the Bombing and Sanctions Against Iraq

 It is crucial that the citizens of the United States demand the U.N.
sanctions against Iraq be lifted.  All available evidence from the U.N,
UNICEF, and the World Health Organization confirms that those affected by
the sanctions are the Iraqi people, particularly women and children.
Saddam Hussein's power is in no way threatened by the devastation caused by
the lack of vital materials, such as food and medicine, in Iraq.  The
sanctions are de facto declaration of war against the Iraqi civilians:
according to UN statistics, 250 people die each day in Iraq due to the
effects of sanctions.

What allows the campaign of cruelty to continue is the silence of the U.S.
public.  Without significant domestic pressure and protest, our government
is free to pursue actions more "pragmatic" to U.S. "interests", i.e.
policies of destruction towards the Iraqi people.  The oft-repeated claim
that the U.S. is acting only to ensure peace by thwarting Iraq's desire for
weapons of mass destruction needs to be re-examined.  What has been
conveniently forgotten is that before Saddam invaded Kuwait, we cheerfully
encouraged his ability to construct and use such weapons against the people
of the Middle East.

The recent bombings in December are just another tactic of destruction
whose justification falls apart under closer examination.  In the first
place, the U.S. is clearly in violation of international law when it bombs
countries without security council consent. But even when dismissing the
relevance of international law regarding the December bombings, it is
difficult to imagine what has been accomplished in terms of limiting Iraq's
weapons of mass destruction and weakening the rule of Saddam Hussein.

A good place for information on what can be done about the sanctions and
bombings is the Iraq Action Coalition at http://leb.net/IAC/.  This web
site has valuable statistics about the effects of sanctions, recent reports
of U.S. bombing, and updates on protests going on around the world.  For
those in the Bay Area, this Saturday, January 16, there will be a protest
against the sanctions and bombing at Market and Powell streets in San
Francisco.  The demonstration will begin at 6 PM, and falls on the 8th
anniversary of the Persian Gulf War.  For more information call the
Emergency Coalition to Stop the U.S. War in Iraq at (415) 821-6545.

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2. Largest Pentagon Budget Increase in Decade

To start the year off with a bang, President Clinton announced on his
January 2 radio address that he was asking Congress to add 1.1 billion
dollars to this year's Pentagon budget and a 12 billion dollar increase for
fiscal year 2000.  These additions are part of the largest increase in
defense funding since the Cold War; over the next six years the pentagon
budget will receive an additional $110 billion.

Without disclosing the current Pentagon budget or more importantly, how US
military spending compares to that of the rest of the world, he stuck to
general assertions: "We want our forces to remain the best equipped in the
world into the next century, and that is what this effort will assure, by
paying for the next generation of ships, planes, and weapons systems."   It
is a familiar tactic to create hysteria in order to fatten the military
budget (one need only remember the alleged missile "gap") because the
public's fear can be determined by their perception.  But just as was the
case with the missile gap crisis, the image of the US military struggling
to keep up with the rest of the world is ludicrous. The country that comes
closest to the US in military funding, Russia, spends $63 billion-less than
a quarter of the US total.  The Pentagon identifies Cuba, Iran, Iraq,
Libya, North Korea, and Syria as our most likely adversaries.  The US
outspends these combined six countries by seventeen times.  It must be kept
in mind that these dramatic figures reflect the situation before the newly
approved Clinton increases, increases that will only further an already
ridiculous situation.

So what could possibly warrant a steep increase in military funding?
Pentagon officials look to the inability of the United States alone to
fight two wars at the same time.  As the US obviously dominates the world
in terms of military spending, "emergencies" like our failure to
potentially fight multiple wars must be concocted.  Why not three wars,
five wars, ten wars?   But as convoluted as the Pentagon's logic may be,
increasing their budget has serious social consequences.  While programs to
aid the poor, such as health care, Head Start, and food stamps are being
cut substantially, Clinton is deciding to dump more money into an already
bloated military which has demonstrated repeatedly a propensity for wasting
public funds.  Although US military spending towers above all other
countries, among industrial nations it ranks last in infant mortality,
health care coverage, and has the highest rate of children in poverty.  The
question must be asked: who needs the money more?

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3. The Right to Organize

Jobs with Justice (JwJ), a community/labor coalition, is leading the "Right
to Organize" campaign to ensure the rights of workers who wish to form a
union are respected.  Although under US labor law workers have the right to
organize, they are fired in one out of every three union election in the
US.  "Many employers calculate that they are better off disobeying the law
than playing by the rules," reports Karl Klare of Northeastern University.
(dollars and sense, #221, Jan/Feb '99)

Right to Organize campaigns exist in Denver, Seattle, and Boston.  Along
with these campaigns, JwJ organizes Workers' Rights Boards, which are
"hearings" where abused workers share their experiences in the presence of
elected officials and community members.  So far, Workers' Rights Boards
have been organized in Ohio, Illinois, and New York.  The idea is to
generate community support for the workers and to pressure companies to
respect the rights of the workers to organize a union.

Working with JwJ on the Right to Organize campaign is the AFL-CIO.
Throughout 1999 the AFL-CIO will be holding public events with Amnesty
International, drawing attention to the signing, fifty years ago, of the UN
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.   In this declaration, workers are
guaranteed the right to "form and join trade unions", a right that is still
consistently ignored in the United States.

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International News

1. Argentina: Growing Gap Between Haves and Have-Nots

By Marcela Valente from Inter Press Service

The gap separating haves and have-nots in Argentina widened significantly
over the past year.  While two decades ago members of the wealthiest
stratum earned eight times more than their poorest compatriots, today the
ratio is 25 to one. Artemio Lopez, a sociologist who specializes in
economic issues related to poverty, said it has been clearly demonstrated
that the so-called "trickle-down effect" does not exist in Argentina,
because even with economic growth and rising employment, society is
becoming more and more inequitable. "Eighty percent of the new jobs created
in 1998 were low quality," said Lopez, referring to the one percent drop in
unemployment seen in the past year.

In 1991, when then-economy minister Domingo Cavallo put his anti-inflation
plan into effect, the richest Argentineans earned 15 times more than the
poorest. Today, Argentina has one of the lowest inflation rates in the
world, 0.7 percent a year, and economic growth averaged five percent last
year.  Nevertheless, the gap dividing rich and poor continues to grow.
Argentina is no exception to the region.  According to 'Facing Up to
Inequality in Latin America', an Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)
study released in November, Latin America and Caribbean countries have the
most unequal distribution of income in the world.

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2. UN Makes Debt a Human Rights Issue

>From Jubilee 2000 News

The United Nations new Special Rapporteur on the Effects of Foreign Debt
will make his first report to the United Nations High Commission on Human
Rights at its next meeting 22 March to 28 April 1999.

The appointment of the special rapporteur was important and controversial
because it makes debt a human rights issue as well as a financial one, and
because it reflected an explicit rejection of the World Bank/IMF HIPC
(Heavily Indebted Poor Countires) Initiative as inadequate. "Foreign debt
constitutes one of the main obstacles preventing the developing countries
from fully enjoying their right to development," according to the
resolution.  And it instructs the special rapporteur to pay "particular
attention to:
(a) The negative effects of the foreign debt and the policies adopted to
face it on the full enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights in
developing countries;
(b) Measures taken by Governments, the private sector and international
financial institutions to alleviate such effects in developing countries,
especially the poorest and heavily indebted countries."

The appointment of the special rapporteur was controversial, and it was
only approved by 27 votes to 16, with 9 abstentions.  The resolution was
proposed by Cuba.  Japan opposed the appointment on the ground that debt
was not a human rights issue; the US opposed it on the ground that it would
"impose external conditions on terms which the debtors and creditors had
already agreed upon."

The report also said that "the international community should adopt more
effective measures to resolve the external debt problem of developing
countries for a more effective promotion and realization of the right to
development.  The should be an initiative for a comprehensive, rather than
piecemeal, resolution of this problem covering commercial, bilateral and
multilateral debt, and also involving reduction of debt stock."

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3. Toxic Ship-Scrapping Protested in Singapore

>From Environmental News Service (ENS)

Singapore, January 12, 1999 - Environmental activists confronted the ship
Encounter Bay in the Port of Singapore Monday, to draw attention to what
they say are "illegal and immoral" ship-breaking practices in Asia.
Environmental activists from Greenpeace and Basel Action Network (BAN) held
banners reading "P & O Nedlloyd Stop Toxic Trade" as the vessel approached
the harbor.  After it docked, they attached another giant banner to the
side of the ship.  Singapore is the fifth city where Greenpeace and BAN
have protested the ship as it makes its final journey before being
scrapped.

P & O Nedlloyd admits that the environmental and health risks associated
with scrapping ships like Encounter Bay are "unacceptable" but do not
intend to stop sending their ships to Asia. Many of the ships go to India.
Other ship-scrapping work takes place in Bangladesh and China, Vietnam and
the Philippines.

The Encounter Bay was made of lead and asbestos in the 1960s.  The tanker
is due to leave Singapore today on its way to shipbreakers in China.  Its
toxic materials will pollute the environment and endanger the health of
workers during the scrapping process, Greenpeace maintains. The Singapore
environmental ministry in a letter on Friday to the two groups said they
would look into the matter.  "We will be investigating the matter
thoroughly and take the appropriate action if warranted," said the letter,
given to journalists and activists.

The United Nations Basel Convention prohibits the export of hazardous
materials including asbestos, from members of the Organization of Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) to non-OECD countries.  China has banned
the export of toxic waste. According to a 1989 Singapore study,
shipbreaking is a hazardous industry with significant and debilitating
toxic lead exposure.  It has been estimated that a quarter of the world's
80,000 shipbreakers will contract cancer due to exposure to asbestos and
toxic substances.












NOTE NEW E-MAIL:  amittal at sirius.com
---------------
Anuradha Mittal
Policy Director
Institute for Food and Development Policy - Food First
398 60th Street, Oakland, CA 94618 USA
Phone: (510) 654-4400  Fax: (510) 654-4551
http://www.foodfirst.org