Tail-End Trophy For Greenpeace

29 Aug, 2002 by John Hawkins

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Tail-End Trophy For Greenpeace: This just says it all about the World Summit for Sustainable Development. I love it!

“Johannesburg – African and Asian farmers, and hawkers from across South Africa handed over a “Bullsh*t Trophy” (yes, that is the trophy’s real name) to Greenpeace, the Third World Network and BioWatch for their contribution to the “preservation of poverty” in developing countries.

The trophy comprises of a piece of wood on which two heaps of dried cow-dung – “unfortunately not elephant dung” – are mounted.

Barun Mitra of the Sustainable Development Network (SDN), a coalition of non-governmental organisations which believes, among other things, that sustainable development is attainable only through free trade, officiated at the symbolic handing-over in Johannesburg on Wednesday.

Mitra denounced the three NGOs as parasites which “prey on the blood of the poor” and did not help to improve agricultural productivity in the Third World.

“They are not interested in famine or poverty. This lot is concerned only about their own interests.

“They sit here at the World Summit for Sustainable Development in their rich man’s hotels and romanticise everything,” he said.”