What the police won't apologize for.

AuthorFitz, Don
PositionBidevastation 7; St. Louis police - Essay

In early September, St. Louis police promised to send an apology for their illegal arrest of biodiversity activists. But the letter of apology is highly unlikely to address the most serious aspects of the repression. Be assured that it will not mention their role in destroying public dialogue on dangers of genetically contaminated food.

On August 24, 2009, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Eastern Missouri announced that the St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners would pay $13,500 to each of four anti-genetic engineering activists for violating their first and fourth amendment rights and would apologize to them for police actions in May, 2003. (1) That was when several hundred people gathered to protest the World Agricultural Forum [WAF] and hold the 7th Biodevastation Gathering to expose the racist use of genetic engineering in agriculture.

Do not expect the letter to say anything about helping to consolidate control of world agriculture and throw 1 billion people off of small farms. Don't look for the letter to mention the role of police in attempts to force genetically contaminated food on Africans with immuno-compromised health. And don't be surprised if the letter contains not a word about St. Louis police entering into a conspiracy with Monsanto, the FBI and corporate media to eliminate public discussion of the potential threats of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

St. Louis police were not stand-alone players. As Daniel (digger) Romano wrote in the August 31 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "... Allied Intelligence [is] the private security agency hired by the WAF and its principal player, Monsanto, the biotech giant. Allied Intelligence told police '50,000 anarchists' were coming to St. Louis to riot and wreak havoc on the city." (2)

The police apology will certainly misdirect attention onto its own illegal and repulsive behavior of May, 2003: warrantless entry into a home where a woman was subjected to "an unlawful and humiliating strip search," a second warrantless entry under the false claim of the building being condemned, and arresting several activists for "riding a bicycle without a license," a crime which did not exist. (1)

Under the FBI eye

Preparations for the Biodevastation 7 Gathering started in 2002 when Jim Scheff, an organizer for the Missouri Forest Alliance, called to tell me that the WAF would be meeting in St. Louis the upcoming year. He suggested that Biodevastation, which had been held in five cities after beginning in St. Louis in 1998, return to Monsanto's home town so that people coming to WAF could hear a different view of biotechnology.

Documents obtained by the ACLU under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show that the FBI was deeply involved in scrutinizing many documents that I wrote for the event, including emails from my computer. The ACLU judged the FBI reports to be some "of the most troubling documents we received." (3)

A November 2005 cover letter from the FBI refers to "Subject: GATEWAY GREEN ALLIANCE/01012000 TO PRESENT," indicating that we had been in FBI sights for years. (4) Its first memo on "Counterterrorism" asserted that "The WAF was created to provide a continuing, neutral arena for the discussion of world agriculture ..." Counterposed to the "neutral" WAF, the memo warned of "issue-specific terrorist groups ... which oppose ... the bio-engineering of plants and animals." (5)

What particularly worried authors of the memo was that "organizers from the Gateway Green Alliance, a local affiliate of the Green Party USA, have joined with members of the Organization for Black Struggle in St. Louis and are attempting to label the WAF as a 'forum on environmental racism' in an attempt to lure African-American groups." (5) (The authors probably meant to say "Biodevastation" rather than "WAF.")

The memo observed that "no specific threats of violence or unlawful protest have been received." But its authors were disturbed that "protest...

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