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Al-Ahram Weekly 28 Oct. - 3 Nov. 1999 Issue No. 453 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 28 Oct. - 3 Nov. 1999 Issue No. 453
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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A week in the world
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Profile Study Special Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Staying the course
By Peter SnowdonIt was not a good week for high-profile right-wing torturers hoping to evade justice and live out their twilight years in the peace and comfort of their own homes. Not only did a UK court decide that Chile's General Pinochet (aged 83) could be extradited to Spain to face charges of crimes against humanity, but Maurice Papon (aged 89), the former Vichy official who was sentenced last year to 10 years in jail for his part in the deportation of thousands of French Jews to Nazi death camps during the Second World War, was recaptured last Thursday in the Swiss resort of Gstaad, less than two weeks after he fled France. Papon had been granted bail pending an appeal. In the words of Alain Krivine of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR), "If he had been called Mohamed and had stolen a moped, he would have been in prison."
Papon's arrest was something of a public relations coup for the Swiss government, though how Papon had entered the country in the first place remained less than clear. Justice Minister Ruth Metzler told the press, "With this decision, the Federal Council wants to show that Switzerland is no refuge for someone condemned to crimes against humanity." As if any of us might have got that impression... Following the furore over the country's role in laundering the assets of Holocaust victims earlier this year, the massive swing to the far right in this weekend's parliamentary elections, which saw the Swiss People's Party (SPP) catapulted out of its traditional last place to take a projected 23 per cent of the vote, merely confirmed the mountain nation's reputation as a bastion of internationalism and a bulwark of freedom. The SPP campaigned on a platform of radical reform of both the state finances and the present asylum laws, which it claimed are open to "abuse". In that case, perhaps it's just as well Papon got out when he did, before he found himself deported as an illegal alien...
While Papon and Pinochet found themselves with a one-way ticket to Pentonville, those who came earlier in the alphabet were rather more lucky. Guilio Andreotti, seven times prime minister of Italy, was acquitted on Saturday of collusion with the mafia at the end of a trial which has lasted some six and a half years. Andreotti is 80-years-old. This is the second time he has been tried on mafia-related charges, and found innocent. The acquittal, however, relates only to specific charges of consorting with certain named mafiosi. Andreotti, a long-time Christian Democrat, has been a close friend to a number of rather dubious figures, including Michele Sindona, the financier involved in the collapse of the Vatican bank, as well as to at least two Popes. The Vatican for its part took a suitably spiritual view of things, declaring itself "satisfied" with the two acquittals. Nice one, Giulio. (Sighs deeply. In the background, the sound of ethereal cherub choirs:) If only the world were that simple. If only the bad guys were the ones in the broad-brimmed hats carrying the violin cases, and the good guys were the ones in the Armani suits who never missed mass at San Giovanni Battista dei Fiorenti. But then, the problem isn't the mafia. The problem is the system that makes the mafia both necessary, and ultimately, expendable. (I'm not going to spell this out for you. Do your own homework.)
So it came to some as no surprise when Celera Genomics announced at the weekend that it had decoded one third of the human genome -- the DNA blueprint on which the biological identity and structure of human life depend -- in less than a month, and that it was now applying for patents to protect 6,500 of its discoveries. Celera predicts that it can complete the unravelling of the genome by early next year, thus beating a joint Anglo-American publicly funded project.
"Celera's mission is to become the definitive source of genomic and related agricultural and medical information," the company declared in a statement. Although Celera's president, Craig Venter, had told Congress last year that the results of the company's research would be freely available, he now argues that it is only right that Celera should be able to charge for access to that information in order to cover the costs of its research. "There are no losers in this system," said Venter. "Every researcher in the world will have the human genome ahead of time."Where have we heard that argument before, eh? I hope you are all reading this column. In fact, I hope you are cutting it out each week and sticking it in your scrapbook, to show your grandchildren.
The aim of human genome research is to enable a new, genetically-based medicine, in which disease and illness could be combatted by directly manipulating the DNA which controls the myriad operations of the human body. Celera's move to patent its discoveries would effectively privatise access to that information. In this way, whichever company gets there first will be able to levy a tax on all future research which builds on the basis it has laid down.
The announcement comes as the British government is trying to broker an international deal under which all biotechnology companies would waive their intellectual property rights in human genome discoveries, so that the fundamental data would fall irrevocably into what is known rather quaintly in the North as "the public domain". Not surprisingly, many activists feel the British proposals miss the point. After all, the fact that the information itself is public property does not mean that amateur pharmacists across the world will now be able to go down to the shed at the bottom of their garden and knock up a genetic cure for cancer of the prostrate before tea time. DNA decoding and manipulation depend upon the deployment of extraordinarily powerful (and expensive) super computers, the market for which has long been supported by public funding, and especially by defence budgets. Venter himself was employed by the Anglo-American public genome project until he quit at the end of last year to found Celera.
Any genetic medicine is likely to generate exponentially increasing demands for computing power as it proceeds. While Tony Blair's government, supported by certain pressure groups, is presenting genome patenting as a threat to "affordable" health care both for the South and for the poor in the North, the publication of the genome is unlikely to mean that Angola and the Philippines will now leapfrog into the front ranks of the world biotech elite. Nor is it likely to improve the health of the vast majority of people, as genetic medicine diverts resources away from basic needs and into areas of research which, although intellectually glamorous, are clinically marginal, if not downright dangerous. The present argument over patents is essentially an argument between the state and the private sector over how to divide up the return on their investment. Why should one company get all the profit, when it could be shared out between half a dozen? Once again, it all comes down to who you want to pay your protection money to: that nice Giulio from the Inland Revenue, or the man in the dark glasses and the Borsalino hat?
