The biotech industry and repression in St. Louis.

• Author: Fitz, Don
• Position: Bio-Repression

[Note. The May 2003 Biodevastation 7 Gathering was the first international conference critical of genetic engineering which zoomed in on connections between environmental racism and the biotechnology industry. It was scheduled to occur immediately before the World Agricultural Forum (WAF), which brings people from all over the world to Monsanto's home town of St. Louis to hear praises of genetic engineering. On May 16, the first day of Biodevastation, 27 people who were to participate in it were arrested at four St. Louis locations. The Green Party of St. Louis, which hosted Biodev 7, later held a forum on "Police Repression in a Police State." The following is based on the author's presentation at the forum.]

On the opening day of the Biodevastation Gathering, nine members of the Flying Rutabaga Bicycle Circus were arrested for the fictitious crime of "riding a bicycle without a license." About the same time, a building inspector nailed a "condemned" sign on a St. Louis home just before police pushed through the door, announced to inhabitants that they did not need a search warrant, and arrested those who had been planning to take part in weekend protests on the charge of "inhabiting a condemned building." Two hours later, police raided the Community Arts and Media Project (CAMP) building, which houses the St. Louis Independent Media Center, Green Party of St. Louis and several other groups, taking more to jail. Sarah Bantz, organizer for Missouri Resistance Against Genetic Engineering (MoRAGE), which was coordinating the demonstration planned at the WAF, was pulled over while driving to give a talk at Biodev 7; her Vitamin A was seized as possible illegal drugs; and she was taken to a St. Louis jail for not wearing a seatbelt.

Biodevastation 7 nevertheless began on time at Forest Park Community College. For three days, speakers from Africa, Asia, Latin America, London, Canada and the US decried the immense concentration of power in Monsanto, that corporation's use of genetically engineered (GE) crops to destroy family farmers, attacks by industry on Black and Hispanic farmers and farm workers, the racist attempt to impose GE crops on Africa, and the suicidal expansion of bioweapons labs across the US.

It is important to address the broader questions of the May 16 repression: What was different about this particular repression? What does it tell us about the new wave of attacks on civil liberties? What should we do about it?

Police abuse is as old as police forces. Ever since they formed, unions have known which side of the class line the supposedly "neutral" police is on. State violence has continued non-stop from...