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“Reconstruction Programme”, an initial contract to the tune of more
than $680 million had been signed with – guess who! – the Bechtel
Group. This puts the company in an excellent starting position, considering
how the cost of the entire reconstruction programme is estimated
to be in the region of $100 billion.
“Reconstruction” by U.S. companies in Iraq not only involves the
nation’s oil production but also its water supplies and foodstuffs. In
May 2003, Paul Bremer, former associate of Henry Kissinger, was appointed
administrator of the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority)
in Iraq. In April 2004, Bremer enacted one hundred new laws, among
them “Order 81”, under which Iraqi farmers are forced to buy and
cultivate varieties of plants patented by large corporations – for a period
of twenty years. The patenting of plants was prohibited during the
Saddam Hussein era.
The people of Iraq have been farming since around 8000 B.C.
Throughout the ages, they have succeeded in developing many types
of wheat and cultivating hybrid varieties which, by nature, are extremely
resistant. The Iraqis safeguarded this cultural heritage in a national
seed bank in Abu Ghraib, until it “disappeared” during the U.S.
occupation. Those articles in “Order 81” which apply to seed, were
drawn up by Monsanto, the world’s leading supplier of geneticallyengineered
seed and grain.
4.4 Brazil – The Transposition of the Rio São Francisco
One example of river-linking comes from Brazil. President Luiz Inácio
Lula da Silva is currently trying his hand at the art of landscape
gardening and has an ambitious (i.e. megalomaniac) project in mind,
one which Emperor Pedro II tried in vain to accomplish in 1850: he
wants to divert one of Brazil’s biggest rivers, the Rio São Francisco,
which is over 2,700km long, into two canals which will then transport
the water hundreds of kilometres to seven states in the North-East of the
country (Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Sergipe, Alagoas
and Pernambuco). Construction work will supposedly devour around
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