Quotes of the Day

Sometime in the next few days the United Nations World Food Program will carry out one of its most unusual shipments ever. Under police guard to prevent looting by desperate locals, WFP workers in Zambia will load 18,000 tons of maize into waiting trucks. The trucks, which are normally used to ferry grain to refugee camps or emergency feeding stations, will then carry the precious food out of the drought-stricken southern African country and away from 2.9 million people facing starvation.

This relief effort in reverse follows the Zambian government's decision in August to ban the distribution of all genetically modified food. It's also the latest chapter in an ugly and often absurd trade war between the European Union and the U.S. over genetically modified organisms (GMOS). Though genetically modified foods are consumed by millions of Americans without apparent ill effects, many Europeans are wary of them. Some imports are allowed into the Union, but a handful of member states placed a moratorium on approvals for new imports in 1998. The U.S., the world's biggest grower of GM crops, wants to be able to export its GM food. Green groups and some European officials charge America with deliberately sending GM maize to Southern Africa to force a showdown, while American officials believe the E.U. exploited Zambian concerns to bolster its own anti-GM views. "I don't think there are any particular heroes or villains in this whole thing," says former Zambian Agriculture Minister Guy Scott. "It's just a balls-up."

Faced with a massive food shortage, the Zambian government was at first happy to take GM food. "If Americans can eat GM, Zambians should be able to eat GM," Vice President Enoch Kavindele told parliament in June. But within two months Zambia banned the import of all GMOS. The GM maize sitting in warehouses was illegal and "poisonous," according to President Levy Mwanawasa. Zambia sent a group of scientists to the U.S., Europe and South Africa to investigate the risks of GM food, and last month they recommended retaining the ban. The offending grain will be taken to neighboring Malawi, while Zambia will receive non-GM aid. The U.S. was furious. Says one State Department official: "Beggars can't be choosers."

Why the sudden about-face? The Zambians say that public concerns about GMOS encouraged a government rethink. But a senior government official told Time that diplomats from at least two European countries leaned on the Zambians in private discussions. E.U. officials in Brussels and at the European Commission office in Lusaka, Zambia's capital, deny the charge, pointing out that the Union made clear that the distribution of GMOS would not prejudice future exports of Zambian food to the E.U. "We've always said, 'If your people are starving take the food,'" insists a senior European Commission official in Brussels Whatever prompted the change — some Zambia watchers blame government infighting — "the Europeans have been quick to provide funds for alternative sources of maize," notes former minister Scott. "They're pretty entertained by the U.S. discomfort over this." Green groups and other nongovernmental organizations have also latched onto the Zambian decision. "The U.S. is exploiting the world's most effective marketing tool: starvation," says Ben Stewart, a London-based spokesman for Greenpeace, which accuses the Bush Administration of sending GM grain to Africa to increase acceptance of GMOS and U.S. exports. U.S. officials reject the accusation. "We clearly have a major humanitarian problem," says Roger Winter, assistant administrator at USAid, which distributes U.S. food aid. "We were not aware that this suddenly was going to emerge as such a heavy impediment to a timely response in the region." The publicity surrounding the Zambian decision may actually hurt the anti-GM cause. To avoid an American challenge at the WTO, the European Parliament voted last week to lift the E.U. moratorium. "The repercussions have not been good for anybody," says the Brussels official. Least of all for Zambia's hungry millions.

• SIMON ROBINSON
• Zambia rejects genetically modified food aid as its people face starvation