by Nicolas Fichot REUTERS NEWS SERVICE March 16, 2001
MONTPELLIER, France - A French court handed rebel farm leader Jose Bove a 10-month suspended jail sentence on Thursday for destroying genetically modified rice plants during an assault on a research centre.
Bove, an anti-globalisation campaigner best known for trashing a McDonald's fast food restaurant, was found guilty with two others of leading a raid on the publicly funded centre in the southern town of Montpellier in June 1999. He was also placed on probation for two years and ordered to pay substantial costs and damages in addition to a symbolic one franc to the laboratory.
"The courts in Montpellier have shown yet again that they are supporters of genetically modified food," Bove said. "The justice system has not understood a thing about the dangers that face us all."
Bove returned to France from Mexico for the verdict. He had joined Zapatista rebel leader Subcommander Marcos on his triumphal march on Mexico City.
The walrus-moustached sheep farmer, 47, has proudly admitted to spearheading the assault on the Cirad laboratory by some 100 protesters opposed to genetically modified food.
Laywers for the laboratory say the protest caused four million francs ($550,000) of damage.
Bove announced immediate plans on Thursday to appeal against the sentence, one of three hanging over him for protests that have propelled him to international prominence.
Opponents of GM crops fear they may spread modified genes, with the risk of harming insects and humans, and spur the creation of pesticide-resistant superweeds. Supporters say they are needed to develop hardier crop types to help feed the poor.
GLOBAL ACTIVIST
Bove, head of the Confederation Paysanne farmers' union, has skilfully mobilised radical farmers and tapped French prejudices against the United States and its fast food.
A court of appeal will rule on March 22 on a three-month jail sentence he received last year for ransacking the McDonald's diner in 1999 during a protest against "la malbouffe" (junk food) and U.S. tariffs on French cheese and foie gras.
The prosecution wants the jail term doubled. Bove wants it quashed but says he is not afraid to go to jail and will march there from his sheep farm if ordered behind bars.
The same court will also rule whether a lower chamber was right not to convict Bove and eight others for having locked up French farm ministry officials in an office during another protest in March 1999.
Bove's jovial style and fluent English, learned as a child while his parents studied at Berkeley, California, have helped him become a star at anti-globalisation protests from Seattle to Davos since the McDonald's incident.
He joined poor Brazilian farmers in January in uprooting rows of genetically modified soybeans at an experimental farm owned by U.S.-based Monsanto.
The prosecution at the Montpellier trial had sought a three-month jail sentence for Bove.
The Cirad centre argued that his protest was misguided because the laboratory has developed ways to trace altered genes in GM products. It says it provides an unbiased scientific view on GM foods and an alternative to company research.:
