[Marxism] Food price rises are "mass murder": U.N. envoy

[Eli Stephens <elishastephens@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080420/ts_nm/un_hunger_dc&printer=1

Global food price rises are leading to "silent mass murder" and commodities 
markets have brought "horror" to the world, the United Nations' food envoy told 
an Austrian newspaper on Sunday.

Jean Ziegler, UN special rapporteur on the right to food, told Kurier am 
Sonntag 
that growth in biofuels, speculation on commodities markets and European Union 
export subsidies mean the West is responsible for mass starvation in poorer 
countries.

Ziegler said he was bound to highlight the "madness" of people who think that 
hunger is down to fate.

"Hunger has not been down to fate for a long time -- just as (Karl) Marx 
thought. It is rather that a murder is behind every victim. This is silent mass 
murder," he said in an interview.

Ziegler blamed globalization for "monopolizing the riches of the earth" and 
said 
multinationals were responsible for a type of "structural violence."

"And we have a herd of market traders, speculators and financial bandits who 
have turned wild and constructed a world of inequality and horror. We have to 
put a stop to this," he said.

Ziegler said he believed that one day starving people could rise up against 
their persecutors. "It's just as possible as the French Revolution was," he 
said.


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