Day 285 - 23 Oct 96 - Page 14
1 you remember, although you cannot give the binder and the
2 page, whether the doubling in beef production was in oral
3 evidence or in one of the documents which gave the
4 production and export of some Central American
5 countries?
6
7 MR. MORRIS: It possibly is in the Jim Nations's thing.
8 Partly because of the dates. 1959 to 1972 does not sound
9 like oral evidence.
10
11 MR JUSTICE BELL: Do not search for it now. If it comes back
12 to you or Miss Steel...
13
14 MR. MORRIS: I will try and chase that up somewhere else.
15 I would not expect you to trawl through the transcripts,
16 although I do believe that the general picture in Costa
17 Rica has been established.
18
19 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am not disputing that it is so. On what
20 I have heard it may be very likely that something like
21 that happened. But if there is chapter and verse for it
22 then it helps to have it.
23
24 MR. MORRIS: One thing I do remember was the graph that we
25 looked at. I think that was in the Tozey documents which
26 had how beef production went up and the amount of area it
27 was covering in the country. I have not had time to look
28 in the transcript on this issue. Furthermore, just on
29 this global point, if we look at Dr. Nations's article at
30 page 16, at the bottom of column 2, he says, "The process
31 of converting Central America's rainforests and
32 agricultural land to grassland is largely financed by
33 international credits." Then he mentions, "The World
34 Bank, United Nations Development Fund", et cetera, "have
35 provided generous loans to Central American countries to
36 expand the amount of land in beef cattle production,
37 construct new beef packing plants and protect livestock
38 against disease."
39
40 This is part of, if you like, the dollar hungry privileged
41 elite argument that world trade is not just dominated by
42 US multi-nationals but it is actively encouraged and
43 organised by US led and US dominated international finance
44 institutions in terms of infrastructure, and Dr. Nations
45 talks more about that as well and so does Douglas Shane.
46 In fact, all the expert witnesses, I think, on this
47 subject, in making sure that the interests of... Well,
48 whatever, anyway.
49
50 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can we break there until twelve o'clock?
51
52 MR. MORRIS: Can I carry on for a little bit?
53
54 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Very well.
55
56 MR. MORRIS: Just one thing, did you get yesterday's
57 transcripts by the way?
58
59 MR JUSTICE BELL: Yes, I have now got yesterday and the day
60 before.
