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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | March 2006 
Protesters Say Water Wars Turning Deadly
 Mark Stevenson - Associated Press
| | Members of the group World Wildlife Fund wear signs signifying the deaths of major rivers around the world during the World Water Forum in Mexico City, Mexico. A group of about fifteen members walked through the exhibition hall of the forum wearing the signs to call attention to the destruction of the rivers. (AP/Gregory Bull) |
Mexico City - Water is worth fighting for - even to the death, say activists holding an "alternate" forum outside the world water summit. That attitude might seem strange in developed countries, where water flows at the touch of a faucet. But it isn't nearly as accessible in the developing world.
And water wars aren't an apocalyptic vision of the future. They're already starting to happen, the protesters say.
"We've been beaten, we've been jailed, some of us have even been killed, but we're not going to give up," said Marco Suastegui, who marched alongside about 10,000 protesters Thursday outside a convention center where the international Fourth World Water Forum is being held.
Suastegui is leading the battle against a dam being built to supply water for the Pacific coastal resort of Acapulco. Opponents fear the dam will dry up the nearby Papagayo River.
"We will defend the water of the Papagayo River with our lives, if need be," Suastegui said.
Protesters on Friday organized an alternate forum in Mexico City, miles from the convention site, in which they accused the official summit of serving as cover for companies that want to privatize water services.
"The Fourth World Water Forum doesn't represent us," said Audora Dominguez of the nongovernmental Mexican Committee for the Defense of Water Rights. "It's a forum where you have to pay to speak. It's a forum where the poor aren't included."
On Thursday, youths in ski masks attacked journalists and fought with police, smashing a patrol car and hurling rocks during largely peaceful water forum protests involving about 10,000 marchers. The disturbances appeared to be carried out by mostly radical youths not directly involved with the groups demonstrating against the forum.
Many of the battles over water in Mexico don't involve people who would otherwise be considered radicals. Those on the front lines are residents of low-income neighborhoods in Mexico City who get in fistfights over water-truck deliveries, or housewives who can no longer stand the stink of untreated sewage flowing beside their homes.
And then there are the Indian families whose crops are ruined by the diversion of water to feed a nearby city, while their children go without safe drinking water.
For farmers and fishermen whose river is about to be dammed, or a rural resident who sees his town overrun by tens of thousands of new housing units in the space of a few years, water is a fighting issue.
"We will fight for the rest of our lives. For us, fear doesn't exist," said Victoria Martinez Arriaga, a 33-year-old Mazahua Indian woman who led a militant protest in 2004 to demand safe drinking water for local families. The demonstration temporarily cut off part of Mexico City's water supply.
Martinez stressed, however, that the last thing her community wants is violence.
"Our wooden rifles are symbolic," she said, referring to the props the Indians carry in their protests. "They're symbols of the idea that we still can stop the wars for water from breaking out. We still have time to solve things through dialogue and understanding."
Local Mexico City legislator Aleida Alavez Ruiz says the conflicts may intensify, especially in the capital, whose combination of floods and water shortages, urban sprawl, pollution and wasteful practices make it a sort of poster child for the world's water woes.
"It's getting critical, and if we don't recognize the problem now, when the dry season comes, the conflicts will get worse," Alavez Ruiz said of her district, where residents have fought over water trucks that make deliveries when tap water runs out.
Residents have to line up for hours to sign up for such a delivery, and tempers sometimes boil over when a neighbor tries to get water out of turn.
The concept of battles breaking out in the future over shrinking water supplies is gaining credence. Loic Fauchon, president of the nongovernmental World Water Council, and a co-chair of the official water forum, has proposed the creation of a peacekeeping force to solve water conflicts as they erupt around the world. The force would be modeled after the U.N.'s "blue helmets."
"We don't want to override national governments," Fauchon said. "We just need a force that will take over in cases of water conflicts."
On the Net: Fourth World Water Forum: http://www.worldwaterforum.org |
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