MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Gays and lesbians accuse Bolivia’s Morales of “state homophobia”

Morales doesn’t eat chicken and hates baldness

Gay and lesbian organizations world wide are up in arms demanding Bolivian president Evo Morales rectify his statements on homosexuality which were described as outrageous and “state homophobia”.

Spain’s Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals and Bisexuals (FELGTB) sent a letter to the Bolivian embassy in Madrid demanding an immediate clarification of President Evo Morales words who said that genetically modified (GM) food is responsible for men’s “deviations” towards homosexuality and widespread boldness in Europe.

President Morales was addressing the opening ceremony of an alternative grass roots climate change conference taking place in Bolivia.

Antonio Poveda head of FELGTB said that Morales statements only help to promote “hatred towards this collective” and recalled that in Bolivia lesbians, gays, transsexuals and bisexuals “have no rights at all.”

“Furthermore, it is entirely surprising that a president who likes to call himself progressive and left wing, should make statements of this nature”, added Poveda. “Homophobia is in no way or in any case justified; this comes as a double surprise for us”, said Poveda.

“The chicken that we eat is full of female hormones. Because of this the men who eat these chickens have deviations in their being as men”, Morales was quoted.

He added that widespread baldness in Europe, which he labelled a “sickness”, can only be blamed on the genetically modified diet of Europeans.

“They are almost all bald and this is because of the things they eat, while among the indigenous peoples there are no bald people because we eat other things” said the lustrously haired Aymara Indian.

Morales added that industrialised western powers were responsible for bringing “more and more poison” into the world, warning that “within 50 years everyone will be bald”.

The People’s World Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in the town of Tiquipaya, close to the city of Cochabamba is being attended by five left-wing Latin American leaders and 15,000 activists.

However ecologists and agriculture organizations downplayed Morales statements which they described as “erroneous”.

“It’s a shame a more wide ranging speech on freedom and human rights should have been interfered with erroneous scientific statements”, said Juan Felipe Carrasco, head of Greenpeace GM Department.

Carrasco said that a political leader “must be careful with his words” and insisted there is no scientific evidence to support Morales statements. Andoni García from Spain’s organization of farmers and livestock breeders said that the Bolivian president represents the struggle against GMs “in spite of the mistakes in his speech”.