Fifth World Water Forum Marked by Violence and Repression
As the World Water Forum opened on March 16th in Istanbul Turkey, 300
Turkish activists gathered near the forum’s entrance were faced with an
overwhelming force of 2000-3000 police. The peaceful protest quickly
escalated as police charged the crowd, firing water cannons, tear gas,
and rubber bullets and lunging into the crowd with fists and
truncheons.
The World Water Forum is a triennial gathering
which, according to it’s website, is “an open, all-inclusive,
multi-stakeholder process” where governments, NGOs, businesses and
others “create links, debate and attempts to find solutions to achieve
water security.” The World Water Council, the forum’s main organizer,
is dominated by two of the world’s largest private water corporations,
Suez and Veolia. Loïc Fauchon, president of the Council, is also the
president of Groupe des Eaux de Marseille,
a company owned jointly by
Veolia and a subsidiary of Suez. The alternate president, Charles-Louis
de Maud’huy, has been working at Compagnie Générale des Eaux, a
subsidiary of Veolia, since 1978. Critics contend that the Council’s
links to Suez and Veolia, as well as the large representation of the
business industry in the Council, compromise its legitimacy.
With
1.4 billion people lacking access to clean drinking water worldwide
according to WHO figures, the issue has come to the forefront of the
global agenda, and sparks anger in many who are close to the problem,
especially in poor countries.
At a meeting of the Freshwater Action
Network, a global gathering of civil society organizations the day
before the Forum’s opening, Zimbabwean water activist Nyanzone Malimi
warned his colleagues from many countries in the Global South, “The
World Water Forum is not a politically neutral space, it is a very
ideological space, and so while we are here this week, we’ve got to go
out there and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight.”
The
World Water Council and the four previous forums have promoted policies
such as Public-Private Partnerships (PPP’s) that put water services
under private ownership. PPP’s in Argentina, Bolivia, the US, and other
countries have resulted in price hikes, decreased pollution control,
and water cut-offs, which, in the language of the water justice
movement, “deny people the right to water.” Despite these and other
harmful impacts, the Istanbul Water Consensus, a key document of the
5th Forum, attempts to secure the commitment of local authorities to
similar water policies, including private sector management.
police riot at the forum’s gate resulted in 26 arrests and three people
severely injured, two by beating and one by rubber bullets.
The
police riot at the forum’s gate resulted in 26 arrests and three people
severely injured, two by beating and one by rubber bullets. According
to Turkish law, they can be held up to 48 hours before charges are
brought.
One of the
Turkish organizations protesting the forum is the Campaign Another
Water Management is Possible.’ A spokesperson for the Campaign, Turkish
musician Birol Topaloƒülu, has criticized his government’s current water
policies, focusing on the rash of dams being planned and constructed.
Turkey’s General Directorate of State Hydraulic Works, or DS, plans to
build 600 dams on the country’s rivers, including several in the
Eastern Kurdish region where the local population has been demanding
political independence from Turkey for decades.
“Although it
is going to create 10,000 megawatts of energy annually, they don’t take
notice of the damage it will cause to nature,” said Topaloƒülu. “There
are plans to build 50 dams on just one river near the Black Sea. The
Dam Project will leave 313 square kilometers of settlement
underwater, which will also destroy the 10,000-year-old city,
Hasankeyf.”
Just after the violent scuffle outside the forum’s main
gate, another scuffle erupted inside at the inaugural event.
Ann-Kathrin Schneider and Payal Parekh of the organization
International Rivers unfurled a banner reading “No Risky Dams.” While
many WWF participants applauded the protest, the police immediately
detained the two. After being held in jail overnight, charged with
“manipulating the public opinion,” they were given the option of one
year in Turkish prison, or immediate deportation.
Meanwhile, a block of
southern governments led by Uruguay is building support for an
alternative, legitimate forum to be led by the United Nations, and
high-profile civil society voices such as Maude Barlow are calling for
this to be the last World Water Forum.
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