Happy World Water Day! In 1993, the United Nations designated March 22 World Water Day, and across the globe, people are writing letters, discussing films, marching, and otherwise celebrating water by protecting it as a public resource. Also today, the 4th World Water Forum ends, with countries (including Bolivia, Venezuela and Uruguay) refusing to sign the official ministerial declaration and with international press resoundingly highlighting the failure of water privatization.

Read some of the U.S. coverage here:

• Clashes Over Global Water Policy in Mexico City
• At World Forum, Support Erodes for Private Management of Water

The irony was almost unbelievable: Inside the 4th World Water Forum, a young woman in a pant-suit asked the bow-tied bartender if she could have some water. His response: Not until 4:30, when the session ends.

Inside the 4th (Corporate) World Water Forum, one is hard-pressed to find water to drink. The only available water is, of course, Ciel -– Coca-Cola’s Mexican bottled water brand. And that is only available in the 45-minute breaks between workshops. If you’re thirsty during a session, you’re out of luck, unless you manage to find the one small kiosk in the maze of thousands of people that will sell you Ciel for 15 pesos ($1.50).

Another irony can be found in the rhetoric of the World Water Forum. While inside officials give lip service to public participation, outside 20,000 people marched in the streets of Mexico City Thursday because they lack access both to clean water and to the air-conditioned rooms where the decisions are being made.

In the session on financing water projects, the corporate and World Bank panelists made no effort to hide the fact that privatization has not been successful in bringing clean affordable water to the poor. They admitted this, insisting that more local participation (read: better PR) is needed for privatization to be successful. And yet, this “local participation” is excluded from the World Water Forum. During the Q and A for this panel, one audience member raised this point, and while the panelists did not respond, the rest of the audience answered with applause. He also asked why there were only two workshops during the entire six-day forum about public water management, and why those two workshops were scheduled at the same time.

Highlighting the lack of the public’s voice in the World Water Forum, at about 2 pm, the rattling sound of plastic bottles emptied of their water and filled with coins spread through the conference center.

Chanting in Spanish, “The World Water Forum does not represent us,” and “The people outside bring you a message: we’re fighting, we’re fighting, we’re fighting for our water,” dozens of people from regions as diverse as South Africa, the Philippines, Mexico, the UK, Canada, Korea, the United States, Venezuela, Mexico, Guam, Germany and Poland, marched through the main halls of the World Water Forum. They carried banners reading “¡Basta! $H2O,000,000,000” (Basta is Spanish for “Enough!”) and “Right to Water ≠ Corporate Control.” Other forum participants as well as staff members joined the demonstrators along the way in a show of support.

While many photographers and reporters were present, others were locked into the pressroom by forum officials who did not want the people’s message getting out to the public. Those officials failed: Stories and photos ran in every major Mexican newspaper the next day.

Playing his drum, Garry John, Chief of the Seton Lake Band of Shalalth, British Columbia, lead the peaceful marchers to a workshop organized by Friends of the Right to Water on enshrining water as a fundamental human right, unobstructed by corporate power. More than 500 people attended the workshop.

March 17-18, 2006

"¡Aguas a las transnacionales! ¡Aguas al Foro Mundial del Agua!" "Watch out for the transnationals! Watch out for the World Water Forum!"

The musician who opened the alternative forum--the International Forum in Defense of Water - reminded the participants of this Mexican phrase: "¡aguas!" means "watch out!"

The phrase was an apt opening to a weekend of empowering workshops, strategy sessions, and cultural events, organized by and for people in Mexico and around the world who share a positive and people centered vision for the world’s water.

The opening panel featured Oscar Olivera (one of the leaders in the Bolivian water movement), Danielle Mitterrand, (president of France Liberte and former First Lady of France), and leaders of the Mexican water movement (including representatives of the indigenous community of Masaguas, whose rivers are being sucked dry to service a sprawling Mexico City).

Also on the opening panel, Maude Barlow, co-author of the book Blue Gold who welcomed participants “to the “real” World Water Forum!"

A day of engaging workshops concluded with an open plenary where representatives from around the world contributed to the further development of a unified strategy for the movement for local democratic control of water. Reports from allies inside the corporate-driven 4th World Water Forum indicated that the delegates there appear less-than-stimulated and that the speakers have offered little more than rhetoric.

March 16, 2006

The worldwide movement for local, public control of water, reached new heights March 16 when more than 20,000 people from around the world marched in Mexico City, Mexico.

Since the World Water Forum in Marrakech 1997 resistance has grown, signaling the mounting strength of the water movement. The March in Mexico City, organized by the Coalition of Mexican Organizations in Defense of Water, underscored the power of civil society and the resistance to the privation and commercialization policies long touted by the World Water Events.

Beginning at the Monument of the Angel in downtown Mexico City, the 5 mile march, through neighborhoods and parks, to the Banamex Center, where the World Water Forum takes place. Along the way, the peaceful marchers passed hundreds of armed riot police. Along the route water activists shared stories from struggles in the diverse communities represented at the alternative events. The march was a festive and joyous celebration of the diversity and solidarity in the water movement.

The march was a fitting start to a weekend of panels, workshops and celebrations at the International Forum in Defense of Water – the counter forum to the World Water Forum.

March 15, 2006

The World Water Forum is apparent everywhere in Mexico City. Even the taxi drivers and the money-changers know about it. There are giant photographs lining the Alameda, a beautiful park downtown Mexico City. There are ads on the sides of kiosks and buildings, and all the major and alternative press are covering the events.

You get the first whiff of this when you stepped out of customs area of the international airport into the family/friends/chauffeur waiting area. The first sight is a man holding a sign for United Water representatives (the U.S. arm of global water giant Suez). Apparently Mr. & Mrs. United Water were yet to arrive.

Due to the steep cost of entering the official World Water Forum access is prohibitive for the average person not associated with a large corporation or government (US$240-600). People actually affected by the world water crisis have instead organized the International Forum in the Defense of Water, an alternative gathering. The inauguration ceremonies begin Friday March 17.

On Wednesday, March 15, the main event was the presentation of cases against Suez (Suez Speak-Out) at the Latin American Water Tribunal, organized in part by Food & Water Watch, as part of the Red VIDA coalition events (Red VIDA is the Vigilancia Interamericana para la Defensa y el Derecho al Agua). The Water Tribunal consists of panel of distinguished judges (including prominent university professors, lawyers and judges) who throughout the week will hear cases of water abuse and crisis on the continent. They verdicts will be read on Monday, March 20.

At the Suez Speak-Out, leaders from seven Latin-American countries, along with France and the Philippines, spoke out, citing Suez´ many abuses and illegal acts.

In Uruguay, Suez sucked the Laguna Blanca dry, while raising water rates out of reach for many Uruguayans. In Rosario, Argentina, more public works had been completed in the 10 years prior to Suez´ contract began then in the 10 years since, while during Suez’ tenure the arsenic level rose to twice the allowable level. In Manila, Suez sued the Philippine government for $303 million dollars. Though the corporation lost its case Suez has frontloaded its profits leaving the utility destitute. Meanwhile, the Philippine government is paying significant debts, from multilateral banks, which conditioned the loans and is preparing a full asset sale to cover the loses. Argentina is faced with a similar situation.

One witness presented an account of seven years of Suez´ illegal and corrupt activities in the form of a report, which was placed in the hands of one of the judges of the official Water Tribunal.

The Speak-Out was a moving event which should remind us all the fundamentals of the human right to water and served to remind the Water Tribunals panel why the events are taking place in the first place. Before there was anything else, there was water. Everything we have, it exists because water exists. When we fight for the right to water, all we have left is the fight between life and death. Who’s on the side of life, and who’s on the side of death?

Though Suez representatives are in Mexico City for the World Water Forum, they turned down an invitation to attend the Tribunal and the Speak-Out, instead submitting a written statement.

Coming up on Thursday: “La gran movilizacion” - The big mobilization - where water activists will march to the gates of the Forum. Till then!