Reuters | December 7, 1999
MEXICO CITY - Greenpeace activists Tuesday were cited as blockading railway tracks from Mexico's Gulf Coast port of Veracruz in a bid to stop imports of genetically modified corn from the United States.
The Mexico branch of the international environmental group added that protesters dressed in orange chained themselves to the tracks and, holding up signs reading "stop genetically modified maize," demanded port officials show them their authorization to transport so-called GMOs.
The group added that countries like Mexico, which are rich in biodiversity, risk losing their original plants through genetic contamination because controls on the shipment and transport of GMOs are nonexistent.
Mexico, where corn was first developed by Mesoamerican Indian peasants mixing various strands of wild maize thousands of years ago, imports around 5 million tons of corn from the United States every year.
Greenpeace says up to 25 percent of that is genetically modified. U.S. exporters are not required to label or separate GMOs and therefore mix them freely with normal produce.
Greenpeace was quoted as saying in a statemen that, "There is a great irresponsibility on the part of the authorities."
