Supreme Court urged to ban GMO

Supreme Court urged to ban GMO

Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A coalition of environmental non-governmental organizations has
urged the Supreme Court to rule against the government's policy
allowing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to be planted in
Indonesian soil.

Executive director of the National Consortium for the
Preservation of Indonesian Forest and Nature, Tejo Wahyu Jatmiko,
told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday the policy violated an
existing law on environmental management.

"We hope the Supreme Court will deliver its verdict soon,"
Tejo said.

Tejo said the NGOs had initially filed a lawsuit with the
State Administrative Court against the Ministry of Agriculture in
September 2001. The lawsuit challenged the ministry's decision to
grant a license to PT Monagro Kimia to distribute transgenic
crops.

Monagro is the Indonesian unit of U.S.-based genetically
modified crops producer Monsanto Co.

The coalition lost the first and second round of its legal
battle and decided to appeal to the Supreme Court in March 2002.

Tejo explained the decision by the ministry in granting
license for Monagro to distribute and plant genetically modified
crops was against Environmental Management Law No. 23/1997.

He said that according to the law, Monagro should have
completed an environmental impact assessment first before the
Ministry of Agriculture could issue the permit.

"We are very suspicious why the ministry issued the license
(to Monagro)," Tejo said.

The U.S. Department of Justice has recently launched an
investigation into issues related to Mosanto's unit in Indonesia
over an improper US$50,000 payment to an Indonesian government
official in 2002.

In October 2000, the Indonesian government scrapped plans to
release transgenic products to the local market.

But the Ministry of Agriculture then designated South Sulawesi
as a testing ground for Monsanto's transgenic crops in 2001,
prompting protests from environmentalists.

The biologically engineered plants are meant to be resistant
to pests or herbicides.

But environmentalists oppose them because little is known
about the long-term impact of GMOs on the environment and on
human health.

A number of European countries have rejected outright their
commercial use. American companies remain at the forefront of
producing a variety of transgenic crops, and they have been
actively looking for markets in the developing world.