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March 16, 2006
Whose Right is the right Right?
TODAY, AS THE WORLD WATER FORUM BEGINS, a large protest march will be held by Mexican and international activists to call attention to the exclusionary nature of the Forum. Here is a press release sent out by the organizers of the alternative forum. After the press release, some commentary….
PRESS RELEASE
MARCH 13th, 2006
International Grassroots Activists Join Forces to Create an
Alternative to the 4th World Water Forum
Hundreds of organizations promote community water events to defend water as a human right
A massive outcry in defense of water for people and the planet is brewing. As
official governmental bodies, influential world players such as the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund, and some of the largest global water and energy
corporations prepare for the Fourth World Water Forum in Mexico City, grassroots
organizations are creating an alternative space to hear the voices of people who have been
shut-out of the “official” Forum.
Between March 14th and March 22nd, thousands of people will join open forums,
seminars, workshops, protests and cultural events to defend the fundamental human right
to clean, affordable water. These events call for water to be recognized as part of the
global commons and call for new visions of community and public management of water.
Rallies in Defense of Water have been organized by and for indigenous and
campesino organizations, community groups, human rights groups, academics, trade
unions, students, grassroots organizations, women’s groups, public health advocates, and
social movements from within Mexico. The events highlight the voices of those who face
a dire global water crisis daily - a lack of adequate sanitation, rising water rates, and
displacement from dams. However, many of these communities have successfully built
an alternative vision that puts health and human rights before profits, and they have built
local, community-based institutions to defend this vision.
Unfortunately, few of these institutions, groups and visions are represented inside
the Fourth World Water Forum. International groups have been shocked by the lack of
cooperation on behalf of the Fourth World Water Forum and the Mexican government to
incorporate alternative viewpoints in the program and activities of the official planning.
The Fourth World Water Forum is dominated by corporate interests, North
American and European governments, agencies and international financial institutions.
Despite rhetoric of participation and inclusion, the registration fee of $240-$600 US
dollars excludes public participation at the Forum. International activists have faced a
lack of support from both conference convenors and the Mexican government in
obtaining visas, effectively excluding activists from attendance.
In contrast, private corporations and groups such as the World Water Council
have played a strong role in the conference planning. The Council is a private think tank
headed by the CEO of a subsidiary of the transnational water giant Suez. Conference
convenors have continued to promote privatization, despite numerous examples of
private sector failures over the past year, from Argentina to Bolivia, and community
opposition to private sector involvement.
“Over the last 10 years, the privatisation of water has been a disaster for the
world’s poor – causing rate hikes, poor service, and water cutoffs. The movers and
shakers within the Fourth World Water Forum need to hear from those civil society
groups around the world who have been struggling against the corporate control of water
resources,” says Tamsyn East from the World Development Movement, which has been
fighting European governments who promote privatization around the world.
Because of these failures, international grassroots activists present at the
alternative events have a deep and growing revulsion to any attempts to place control
over water in the hands of transnational corporations, governments and international
organizations. Activists have seen the failure of these global water players to secure the
fundamental human right of safe, clean, affordable water for all.
Rallies in Defense of Water condemn the Fourth World Water Forum for
promoting water as a negotiable commodity to be bought and sold on the international
marketplace. The alternative events condemn the exclusionary nature of the official
Forum. In response and offering a truly democratic alternative, international grassroots
activists are bringing together people from across the world to defend water as a common
good and a public trust for all people and for the planet.
The Mexican movement, Asamblea Nacional en Defensa del Agua y la Tierra y
en contra de su privatización has spearheaded the organizing efforts in Mexico City.
"The Fourth World Water Forum says its theme is "local actions," but they have not even
helped local groups right here in Mexico, the host country, participate. There is an urgent
need to create alternative spaces for groups to express their struggles and solutions," says
Brenda Rodríguez, the spokeswoman of Coalición de Organizaciones por el Derecho de
Agua, which is a founder and active member of the Asemblea.
IF THIS PRESS RELEASE APPEARS TO POLARIZE THE TWO SIDES – the Official Forum and the Alternative Forum – that polarization reflects what seems to be the reality on the ground – two events in opposition to one another.
The underlying truth is in fact much more subtle – many of the participants in the official forum, including UN bodies and NGO’s, have the best of intentions and are doing important work to provide equitable and sustainable access to water. Many groups and agencies involved in the forum are promoting such decentralized, locally accesible technologies as ecological sanitation systems, simple rope pumps to lift water from shallow wells, and low-cost ceramic water filters, as well as community education strategies intended to develop the capacity of ordinary people to manage and control their wate and sanitation systems. Many participants have traveled from all over the developing world seeking an audience for their small-scale local water initiatives. But many other participants, and the organizers, do not share the philosophy of empowerment that lies behind the best of these initiatives. And the fact that the World Water Council is deeply corporate and the Forum is sponsored by the likes of Suez and Coca Cola, the fact that registration for the forum has been absurdly difficult, insulting, and expensive for small NGO’s (the $600 fee is 4 times the monthly income of a tyocial Mexican worker), and the fearful stance taken by the Mexican Government towards the alternative forum, have all contributed to the polarization.
My first morning in Mexico City, taking a taxi across town, I noticed a gathering of riot police in full gear near the Monument to the Revolution. Not assuming that their presence had anything to do with the forum, but with some local workers’ strike or other issue, I asked the driver if he knew what this was about. He said, “There’s going to a big demonstration by the ‘globalphobicos’” – the cute Mexcian term for ‘anti-globalization activists.’ In short, he meant they were there to deal with me and a few thousand of my closest friends.
“Do you expect it will get violent?” I asked him.
“I expect it will,” he said.
So, this is the tone of events outside the Water Forum in Mexico City.
Aside from some cracked skulls (tune in tomorrow…) the challenge facing the alternative forum is one of trying to present a clear message. Unfortunately, the tendency towards polarization, combined with the corporate sector’s careful framing of the issues, skews the message so as to make it entirely mystifying.
What we are here to promote -- the Human Right to Water -- seems simple enough. But, using all the classic cooptation strategies they have so succesfully perfected, the corporate sponsors of the World Water Forum are also promoting ‘the Right to Water” -- by which they mean their right to sell water and our right to buy it. But the distinction is far too subtle for the Press to get. So, what you will see in the media, perhaps, is that several thousand “globaliphobicos” – the world-fearing anti-development anarchists who oppose everything and support nothing – are, for entirely mysterious reasons, violently opposed to a Forum which only intends to do good.
Somehow, what has been intended by some organizers to be “an alternative voice” has become a battle between “our human rights” and “their human rights.” Ultimately, such a conflict serves nobody. Rather, ultimately such a conflict serves the corporate sector, which thrives on public ignorance and misinformation.
WHAT IS AT STAKE?
Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute has pointed out that, if no action is taken to improve water and sanitation access worldwide, as many as 135 million people will die from water-related causes by the year 2020. Even if the UN’s Millenium Development Goals are met – highly unlikely given current funding commitments – between 36 and 72 million people will die by 2020.
The necessity for a major shift in priorities is needed, which is why a Human Right to Water is essential. While the corporate sector claims to hold the answer, in terms of increased efficiency of water services, the facts do not bear this out. In most places where public water services have been privatized, water rates have doubled and even tripled. The corporations “providing” this water argue that “increased pricing leads to increased efficiency and increased conservation.” But, for the majority of the world’s people who lack access to even the basic amounts of water needed for health, conservation of water is neither the problem nor the solution. The solution is equitable access and assurance that basic needs will be met before corporate greed.
Some statistics on the lack of equity in access to water:
• In 1994, when Indonesia was hit with a major drought, residents' wells ran dry, but Jakarta's golf courses, which cater to wealthy tourists, continued to receive 1,000 cubic meters per course per day.
• A family in the top fifth income groups in Peru, the Dominican Republic, or Ghana is, respectively, three, six, or twelve times more likely to have water connected by pipe to the home than a family in the bottom fifth in those countries.
• In Lima, Peru, poor people may pay a private vendor as much as $3 for a cubic meter of water, which they must then collect by bucket and which is often contaminated.
• The more affluent, pay 30 cents per cubic meter for treated water provided through the taps in their houses.
• In Dhaka, Bangladesh, squatters pay water rates that are twelve times higher than what the local utility charges.
• In Lusaka, Zambia, low-income families pay, on average, half their household income on water.
• Austin, Texas' industrial water rates are less than two-thirds of what residents pay.
• For its Rio Rancho facility in New Mexico, Intel recently received a tax subsidy of $8 billion via an industrial revenue bond and an additional $250 million in tax credits and other subsidies.
• In the maquiladora zones of Mexico clean water is so scarce that babies and children drink Coca-Cola and Pepsi instead.
• During a drought crisis in northern Mexico in 1995, the government cut water supplies to local farmers while ensuring emergency supplies to the mostly foreign controlled industries of the region.
WHENCE WATER EQUITY?
What is needed to provide better water access to the world’s poor is not a command and control strategy of centralized, for-profit water services, but massive investment in community-scale water systems, education and training to build the capacity of ordinary people to provide for community water needs, and sanctions against industries that abuse or contaminate common water resources.
Tune in next time to find out how much closer, or further away, we are to realizing these goals….
Posted by jeff at March 16, 2006 06:33 AM