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| Oscar Olivera
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| Deepa Joshi
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| Mark McPeak
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3089 Water Wars: Privatization and Profit
Moderator:
Mark McPeak, Deputy Director, Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC)
Speakers:
Oscar Olivera, Shoemaker from Bolivia , a leader in the protests in Bolivia in 2002
Dr. Deepa Joshi, UUSC program manager for Environmental Justice
Translator:
Susan Scrimshaw, UUSC Board Member
Sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee.
Prepared for UUA.org by: Allan Stern, Reporter; Jone Johnson Lewis, Editor
Mark McPeak:
Water as a fundamental human right was only declared two years ago by the United Nations; it is a right, not something for profit.
The mission of Unitarian Universalist Service Committee: UUSC advances human rights for justice around the world.
A video, brought from Bolivia by Oscar Olivera, was shown, about the city of Cochabamba, Bolivia, a city of 1 million people.
According to the video: Access to water equals a better standard of living. But the government of Bolivia gave away rights in a 40-year concession to a private company, Bechtel; the company subsequently raised water prices 30 to 300 percent. This action ignited a firestorm of protests in Bolivia .
After many protests, which included a lot of street demonstrations, in March, 2002 the water company signed a contract to finance the delivery of water services. The company became institutionalized, and could not be privatized any more. Today it is a publicly controlled entity.
Oscar Olivera:
All the isolationism and separation of different groups disappeared with the resistance and its solidarity; people lost their fear of repression, of bullets.
This is a story of a David and a Goliath, of a small community against a large economic party. There have been five presidents in Bolivia in the last five years.
In neighboring countries: In Peru a million people rose up against the privatization of electricity. In Uruguay there was a constitutional law passed against the privatization of public utilities. In Chile there is a great mobilization to have all the companies that have privatized water to leave. We can see there is a great mobilization in many countries against the privatization of basic utilities.
I didn't come here to teach, but to build bridges between north and south; we need support from you here. If you don't know our troubles, then soon you, too, will be fighting the privatization of these resources. Privatization increases the price of water, it means taking possession of great aquifers; it means people having to buy bottled water when they have few resources to begin with.
This is fundamentally a story of two victories: the first is the voice of the people of the community which develops its power to speak. The second victory is a victory for democracy, in the struggle over "Who Decides Things" – a small group of businessmen and politicians, or the community.
Why did we discover our voice? Not to control water, or petroleum/natural gas (the current struggle) but because we want a different country.
Our struggle is your struggle...
We have weapons that can never be privatized – our dignity, our hope, and the capacity to visualize a better world.
Deepa Joshi:
She gave a background history to why privatization occurred. The World Bank would often say, "Water utilities are not functioning well, they are not reaching out to all the people, they are not being efficient. Private water companies will be the cure for all the problems that are taking place."
Why is it important for UUs to take notice of this? The World Bank, the IMF, and other international organizations are all headquartered in Washington . They're often called "The Washington Consensus." Water is an economic commodity, the same market place principles of buying and selling would apply to water as well.
Spending of resources on water is at its lowest ever; the same thing COULD happen here in the US.
Most of the third-world grants being attached to water distribution have conditions attached to them, such as "We can loan you money provided you have a private company manage your water resources."
In Bolivia , water resources are not in good shape (even though Bechtel was thrown out).
The UN Covenant on water rights was in 2002 (why did it take so long?). "The human right to water is indispensable to leading a life of dignity." Some 1.1 billion people world-wide lack access to safe water.
UUSC hopes to be working with partners who can fight against privatization.
Questions and Comments
From the San Antonio UU church: aquifers are already being bought up around the area for private use. The UU church was instrumental in gathering 10,000 signatures in protest.
Henry Irving, Dallas First UU church: What is the technical background of what's going on in Bolivia?
Oscar: Some houses where you can only get water 2 or3 times a week have no water meter, and the company charges you a flat rate, which means people don't get the water they are charged for. The company deliberately doesn't put the meters in the poor areas; there's no technology, no investment, it's like a raid on the pocketbook of the community.
We're not against technology, or foreign investments, but they must be accompanied by the wisdom of the community in the management of the utility. In neighborhoods with scarce water supplies, people know how to take care of water and not waste it, but the World Bank and other investors think we're ignorant.
If investments are very transparent, where cost and benefits are clear, then we can work together.
Rev. Lindi Ramsden, California: Water rights are one of the issues on the table in California; you need to be paying attention to that...also, there are many qualified people in our congregations (engineers, lawyers) and we need to be aware of them and use them.
Jackie Ziegler, minister of UU church in Boulder: What about alternative economies?
Oscar: There is no one recipe for the whole world; each region has its own story, its own wisdom; we should be optimists that there are alternatives, and project them as a new reality in the world. What I have learned here at GA, from listening to the UUSC leaders and others, is that we can change the world.
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