The Anglo-French Cover-up

by Kevin Feakins, Llancloudy

As if it was not bad enough to suffer the biggest cover-up and distortion of fact Europe has ever known, France is now paying out compensation of approximately 60% of what the sheep cost when they were purchased.

The emergency law that was enacted by the French government to pay for the stock they had slaughtered to prevent FMD, allows for only 60% of the sheep's value, but suspiciously 100% of cattle values. Of course everyone knows that the cattle slaughtered were all of French origin, whereas the sheep were mostly British, Dutch or Irish with the major proportion British.

People must ask themselves has this been purposely designed to take the money out of the live animal trade, which the British MAFF especially detests so much.

The whole scenario with FMD frankly stinks. We have the unknown source of the infection. Is it a man-made virus? Did it escape from a UK research establishment? Accidentally or purposely? How long did the European governments know of the presence of a virus in the UK? Did they ever sanction it? What is evident is the speed at which France, Holland, Germany etc. swept up all British sheep they had imported and slaughtered them almost as if they were waiting for the green light. How fortuitous it was that they could get rid of all the sheep destined for the Muslim feast of Eide that the European governments hate so much, and have failed to regulate. One wonders if the European Muslims realised that the feast of Eide 2001 could possibly have been artificially manipulated by EU governments.

David Byrne is the European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection. His office in Brussels and British MAFF have refused to try and persuade the French to pay for the British sheep on a correct and moral basis, seeing as they expect to get the bulk of it paid by Brussels anyhow. In the months since the outbreak in the UK all sheep were valued before being slaughtered. In France they were slaughtered and burnt without even consulting the owner of the stock in some cases. The French authorities made no attempt to record ear tag numbers of the sheep they slaughtered even though those sheep were obliged under EU law to be separately identifiable back to the farm of source. One would think that in a contagious viral situation essential steps would be taken to ensure tractability of the sheep slaughtered. The French authorities have indicated that they have positive test results of some of the sheep they have slaughtered but have not presented the owners of those sheep with proof of test results even when they have been asked to do so. Test results of sheep slaughtered at Mr Nozin in France which were positive and fell into the hands of the British exporter were questioned about their validity by the British MAFF, notably Mr Robin Bell, a senior MAFF vet, head of the international trade section of MAFF's veterinary service, because they left the UK in January one month before Britain admitted having FMD. At the request of Mr Robin Bell's office the French authorities retested those samples and guess what?! They are now negative! That now suits the MAFF statement that there was no FMD in the UK before mid-February.

All in all these cover-ups, deceit and theft by the French government will cost British farmers dearly. Many will be broke. Those live sheep suppliers who will lose 50-100% of their capital will in turn not be able to pay their creditors who are again British farmers and transporters, causing another huge blow to the UK sheep sector.

With all the rumours and speculation of the materials ordered by MAFF, and other countries seemingly aware of FMD in Britain pre-December 2000, and the rumours of the origins of the virus, wouldn't it be nice, honest and perhaps morally correct if somebody who had concrete evidence of a cover-up would singularly or collectively come forward with statements that would lead to some conclusion of the devastation that has affected the British livestock industry.