PRESS BRIEFING BY SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON RIGHT TO FOOD

(Issued on 29 October 2004)

Because of the world’s riches, dying from hunger today was absurd, unnecessary and reflected a “murderous world order”, Jean Ziegler, Special Rapporteur on the right to food, told correspondents at a Headquarters press briefing this morning.

Having presented a report to the General Assembly yesterday, he lamented that, over the past year, hunger had progressed, but the right to food had regressed.  Such a dichotomy contradicted the noble goals of the United Nations, he said.

Defining the right to food as the “right to have regular, permanent and unobstructed access, either directly or by means of financial purchases, to quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumer belongs, and which ensures a physical and mental, individual and collective, fulfilling and dignified life free from anxiety”, he drew attention to four areas of concern.

He said the first of the four “crisis points” needing international attention was the Darfur region of western Sudan, an area as large as France.  With over 65,000 people having already died there, and many more having been internally displaced or having fled as refugees to neighbouring Chad, he declared that humanitarian access, for the World Food Programme (WFP) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), needed to be guaranteed.  Also, the Janjaweed militia, which was depriving people of their right to food, needed to be stopped.  Determining whether the situation in Darfur was a case of genocide or not fell outside his mandate.  Nevertheless, the food situation was dramatic and had to be addressed immediately.

The second crisis point was the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, where 6.2 million people were gravely undernourished and depended on the WFP.  He called attention to the border between that country and China, which many Koreans were attempting to cross everyday because of hunger.  Currently, the Chinese policy was to consider those migrants illegal and to send them to Pyongyang, where they encountered severe repression.  That policy was correct in a legal sense but incorrect in a humanitarian sense.  He urged the international community to engage in dialogue with the Chinese authorities to rectify the intolerable situation.

The third area of concern, he continued, was the occupied Palestinian territories, where the situation had worsened.  The Israeli army had destroyed many houses, including greenhouses, and 85 per cent of the West Bank’s water had been diverted to Israel and its illegal “colonies”.  The construction of the separation wall continued, even though it had been condemned by the International Court of Justice.  That barrier had led to the expropriation of thousands of acres of agricultural lands, he said.

He drew special attention to Caterpillar Cooperation, an American company that had built armed and armored bulldozers for the Israeli army.  Because those machines led to violations of the right to food, he appealed to Caterpillar to respect human rights, as a non-State actor, in accordance with Commission on Human Rights resolution 2004/19.

The fourth crisis area was Cuba, he stated.  Declaring that citizens of the island country must have the right to buy food and medicine from the United States, he stated that anything else would be contrary to humanitarian norms.  While the Cuban authorities had accepted his request to travel to the island and study the situation there, he regretted that their United States counterparts had not even responded to his appeals for more information.

Asked for more details regarding Caterpillar, he called the company an efficient, highly professional, and good multinational corporation.  He also said that he understood the necessity of such vehicles in military operations.  However, the bulldozers in question were being used to destroy agricultural land and greenhouses, and that was unacceptable.

Responding to a question about links between famine and mental deficiencies, he said that every age group had a minimum caloric intake.  In addition, if children under the age of five experienced grave malnutrition, then their brain cells would never develop properly, even if they received better nourishment later in their lives.  Currently, he added, the malnutrition rates in the occupied Palestinian territories were alarming.  He also stated that, every four minutes, somebody in the world lost his or her eyesight from vitamin A deficiency.

Asked how malnourishment among pregnant mothers affected their babies, he said that, each year, 500,000 mothers in sub-Saharan Africa died during childbirth as a result of malnourishment, leading also to the deaths of their babies.  He added that the situation was complicated by the fact that even when mothers were able to procure food substitution formulas, they often could not find clean water to dilute them.  What was especially tragic about that scenario was that it could be stopped if there was greater commitment from the international community.

Fielding a question about Israeli NGOs, he lauded the Alternative Information Centre, which provided reliable data and encouraged dialogue between Palestinian and Israeli intellectuals.

* *** *