The World Water Forum: A Dispute Over Life

Mexico City, March 17, 2006: The fourth World Water Forum began yesterday in this Latin American city with a strong and resounding critique coming from national and international civil society. Amid an intense controversy over the issues to be discussed at the official event organized by the World Water Council (a private group) and the Mexican federal government, more than 15,000 people – members of nongovernmental organizations and political collectives, activists and students – marched against the privatization of the vital liquid. All along Reforma Avenue up to Club Mundet, just a few meters from the police barricade guarding the Banamex Cultural Center (the event’s main venue), the mobilization in general shined in its pacifism. The exceptions were a few violent incidents and the arrest of 27 young agitators by police.   Throughout the afternoon, the Coalition of Mexican Organizations in Defense of Water (COMDA, in its Spanish initials) and several different environmental groups gathered members of civil society to participate in the peaceful mobilization with the goal of stopping the implementation of policies from the official forum (which is slanted toward the privatization of this liquid), and of seeking out alternative ways to exploit it. The cosmopolitan march, which brought together children, youth, adults and elderly people from diverse socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, stood out for its success in expressing the real will to demonstrate and bring the people’s critical political discourse into action on the capital’s most exclusive streets. The slogans could be seen and heard not just in the placards that read, “Life is not for sale, and neither is water,” or, “Nature does not privatize water,” but also in the drums of rebellion and the faces of the many organized groups: the “Sección XVIII Zamora” of the Michoacán teachers’ union, the Mazhua Movement, the Council of Ejidos and Communities of Guerrero Opposed to the Parota Dam, students from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the Otra Metropolitana Collective (an adherent to the Zapatista “Other Campaign”), the National School of Anthropology and History, the National Polytechnic Institute, many groups of peasant farmers from Veracruz, Oaxaca and Nayarit, and other individuals.

Representatives from the rest of Latin America and the world were present for the entire demonstration with colorful and noisy ways of expressing their rejection of the multinational corporations that seek to appropriate the world’s water. The activists came from Bolivia (including Oscar Olivera, from the Coordinating Committee for the Defense of Water and Life of Cochabamba), Chile, Puerto Rico, Canada, the United States, Chile, Spain and others.

Three Forums and a Tribunal

As the second largest consumer of privately sold bottled water in the world, Mexico is the proud host of the official forum, attended by about 320 companies from 27 countries, and where the delegations and officials from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Inter-American Development Bank will hold meetings with the governments of the six continents. Nevertheless, two parallel forums were also held: the Alternative Water Forum and the “Mirror of Water” alternative forum — both of these being initiatives with cultural and political programs that privilege speaking and listening, as well as debate with specialists in artistic dynamics. The alternative forums that hope to influence people’s consciousness on the vital problem of water will run until March 21.  

For its part, the Latin American Water Tribunal, which will meet parallel to the fourth World Water Forum as well, is an autonomous and independent hearing on environmental justice. It was created with the goal of supporting a solution to conflicts due to the region’s water systems. At its first session, from March 13–21, a jury was selected. In addition to cases in Mexico, seven more will be examined from Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Panama and one from Central America that involves three countries.

From Mexico, the tribunal will hear the case of the Parota hydroelectric project. This case was presented by the Council of Ejidos and Communities mentioned above, and alleges that the project would mean the flooding of 17,300 hectares (42,700 acres) with the construction of a 192-meter (630-foot) retaining wall. At the same time, the tribunal will study the oil spill in the river and coast of Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz — which affected 15,000 inhabitants of the town of Nanchital, for which they sued the pseudo-state oil company Pemex — and the pollution of the Zihuatanejo Bay (near Acapulco on the Pacific coast of Guerrero state), blamed on the negligence of state and federal authorities who failed to develop a strategy to prevent or mitigate it.

The Resistance Struggle

The newspaper La Jornada reported on March 16 that at the joint press conference he held with former IMF director Michel Camdessus, World Water Council president Pierre-Fréderic Téniére-Buchot said that “they should raise fees, taxes, whatever is missing, because free water is very dangerous for people, for public health, for the state. If you don’t pay a normal price for the liquid, you get yourself into a lot of trouble.” Nevertheless, he clarified that he is “in favor of free water for the poor and that industries and the rich pay double or triple the price.” This seems like it will be the main line taken at the official forum.

And for their part, the communities in resistance to mega-projects have also expressed their voice and struggle: the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to the Parota Dam reported that international bodies carried out an investigation in the area of Guerrero in question and warned that there is a global strategy to privatize dams at the cost of communities’ subsistence, which would be the first phase of placing the commercialization of water into the hands of businessmen and international capital. In the opinion of many specialists, the Parota project is an attempt to expand Plan Puebla-Panama, Mexican President Vicente Fox’s 2001 proposal that includes the investment of $850 million between the government and Mexican, U.S., Chinese and Brazilian construction companies. Nevertheless, the project was halted in January on the order of a judge from the Unitary Tribunal of Guerrero (the state’s superior court), who questioned the validity of the public consultations on the expropriation of lands. In the workshop on “defense and communal management of water in the countryside and the cities,” Aldo González of Oaxaca state said that the indigenous are the guardians of water and biodiversity, not “producers” of those resources.

In the session of the Latin American Water Tribunal, six Mexican cases are expected to be evaluated. Among them is the pollution of the Coatzacoalcos river and the case of the Lerma-Chapala basin, in which Pemex and the Secretariat of the Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) are accused.

The other conflict is that of the Cutzamala river system, in the Valle de México region. The Mazahua Movement and the Ecomunidades group report that the river system is being drained to maintain consumption and waste in Mexico City. The deterioration of the Lerma-Chapala-Santiago river basin is also being considered for similar reasons. The Movement of People Affected by the Construction of Dams and in Defense of the Rivers filed the complaint in this case, reporting a deterioration of Chapala Lake due to overexploitation and waste dumping and damage to the surrounding basin from excusive fertilizer and pesticide use. Finally, there is the case of the industrial pollution of Atoyac River in Tlaxcala, which could be the cause of the high incidence of cancer in the area. Waste from nearby factories has also reportedly contaminated local drinking wells.

The coin is now up in the air, and a delicate resource, water, is at stake. Meetings, discussions and agreements are happening at both the official and alternative forums; participants in the latter will have to defend their ethical criteria with respect to water and reject international capital’s rush to privatize.

Originally published in Spanish March 17, 2006

(juan_trujillo26@yahoo.com)