Canada Blocking Visa for Important African Biotech Critic to Attend International Biosafety Conference

--- From Beth Burrows <beb@igc.org:

Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 10:52:41 -0700
Subject: Urgent: Canada Denies Visa to Tewolde - Key Southern Negotiator for Next Week's Biosafety Talks

Dear All, I received the below very serious email this morning. It would seem to indicate that the Government of Canada is using its position as the home of the Convention on Biological Diversity to prevent a key negotiator for the South - Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher of Ethiopia - the man who some call the architect of the Cartagena Biosafety Protocol - from entering Canada and attending the negotiations that begin next week. IF this is the case and the beginning of a trend, this could signal the end of diplomacy altogether.

Next week's negotiations and those of the week that follow are key insofar as the protocol is concerned. Important decisions on labelling are due to be made, to cite just one example.

If you want to write to the Canadian government, here is the address, fax number, and email for the Canadian Embassy in the US.:

Canadian Embassy 501 Pennsylvania Ave., NW Washington, DC 20001
202-682-1740; Fax: 202-682-7701 canada@canadianembassy.org

Those who live outside the U.S. might want to find the Canadian Embassy address and email in their country/region.

In concern, Beth Burrows Director The Edmonds Institute

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TITLE: Canada denies visa for chief African biosafety negotiator
SOURCE: Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, Ethiopia
DATE: 17 May 2005

It will be recalled that the final show down in the negotiations on the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety involved a Canadian delegate negotiating on behalf of the Miami Group (Canada, USA, Argentina, Uruguay and Chile), a European Commission delegate negotiating on behalf of the European Union, and myself negotiating on behalf of the developing countries including China, with the exception of Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. It will also be recalled that the two main issues left pending during the final negotiation session of the Protocol in 2000, to be negotiated and settled soon after the Protocol comes into force, were identification (labelling) (see Article 18.2 (a)) and liability and redress (See Article = 27).

The issue of identification has to be settled in COP/MOP 2 in Montreal, 30 May-3 June 2005, and I expect that the shape of the future negotiations on liability and redress will be determined in the preceding 3-day meeting of the 1st Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group of Legal and Technical Experts on Liability and Redress on 25 -27 May 2005. Both meetings will take place in Montreal, Canada, in the territory of a State which is not a Party to the Protocol.

I had planned to participate in these negotiations and continue with trying to help finalize the unfinished business of protecting biodiversity and human beings.

In a related forum under the auspices of the FAO, I helped negotiate the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture as the chief negotiator of the African Group. In this treaty also, we have an unfinished business-that of negotiating a Material Transfer Agreement to go with the Treaty.

On the 11th and 12th of May 2005 we were to have an African Preparatory Meeting on the Material Transfer Agreement in Lusaka, Zambia. On the 19th and 20th of May 2005 we were to have an inter-regional meeting on the same issue in Oslo, Norway.

Fom Oslo, I was to travel to Montreal via London.

Based on these facts, I planned my travels and obtained all my visas for Zambia, the Schengen States, and the United Kingdom and sent my diplomatic passport to the Canadian Embassy in Addis Ababa for the Canadian visa.

They gave me some highly complex forms to fill in. I filled them in. The passport and the forms duly filled in were sent to the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi by courier on 5 May 2005.

The Canadian High Commission sent me back even more complicated additional forms to fill in. I filled them in immediately and sent them back on 10 May 2005 together with clear information on all my travel plans.

I should have left for Lusaka on 10 May 2005. So, I missed the African Preparatory meeting on the Material Transfer Agreement of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture because my passport was still in the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi.

Today is the 17th of May 2005. My passport returned from Nairobi and was given to me this morning at 10:00 hrs. The British Airways flight which was to take me to Oslo had already left in the night. Therefore I will not be able to attend the meeting in Oslo. My passport came back to me without a Canadian visa. Therefore, I am not going to Montreal to attend the liability and readdress and COP/MOP 2 negotiations either.

What a neat instrument of interfering with negotiations to which you are not a party refusing an entry visa has become!

My friends, we have passed various hurdles in assuring our rights for fairness and justice in both the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and in the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and = Agriculture.

I am writing this letter to you all for the following reasons:

1. I would like to urge you all Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to continue withstanding the ex-Miami Group and insisting on:
a. Clear labelling on all genetically engineered commodities;
b. State liability in cases of damage to the environment and/or human beings arising from products of genetic engineering;
c. Entitlement to full compensation in cases of damage to the environment and/or human beings;
d. Burden of proof of any product of genetic engineering not being the cause of damage resting on the country exporting that product;
e. Venue of litigation and enforcement of judgement being in the country where the damage occurred and not in the country of export.

2. But, now that I have been prevented from coming to Montreal, who knows which ones of you will be prevented next time=3F Should we allow the country where our own Secretariat of the CBD is located to become the sieve to let pass only those of us it wants to participate in = negotiations=3F

I protest, and I invite you to join me in the protest, to the Government of Canada. If this act of sieving by Canada continues, I suggest that we either move our Secretariat of the CBD elsewhere, or at least refuse to hold any negotiation sessions in Canada.

3. I would like to urge you all my African and other friends in the Material Transfer Agreement discussions to ensure a common understanding on aiming at communally obtaining the benefits that the CBD entitles us, = i.e.

a) Research on the genetic resources accessed to be carried out "with the full participation of" the Parties that need to develop their capacities ( Art. 15.6);
b) Research to be carried out in the territories of the Parties that need to develop their capacities (Art. 15.6);
c) Research results to be made available to Parties (Art.15.7);
d) Financial benefits to be shared with the Parties (Art.15.7);
e) Technologies generated to be transferred to the Parties (Art. 16);
f) The continuing right to revise the Material Transfer Agreement to be maintained by the Parties to make it consistent with developments in the CBD, especially with the outcome of the ongoing negotiations on access and benefit-sharing.

Of course, inspite of this present hindrance by the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi, I will try to get on the processes with you at a later stage.

Please, in the mean time, negotiate effectively.

With best wishes for you all, Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher cc:
- Dr. Hamdallah Zedan, Executive Secretary of the
CBD
secretariat@biodiv.org
- The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Addis Ababa
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Addis Ababa
- Embassy of Canada, Addis Ababa

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forwarded by:

The Edmonds Institute 20319-92nd Avenue West Edmonds, Washington 98020 USA
phone:(001) 425-775-5383
email: beb@igc.org
website:<http://www.edmonds-institute.org

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