The Hindu : International : Water forum's focus on the poor

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 18, 2006

International

International

Water forum's focus on the poor

Many live on less than 20 litres per day

MEXICO CITY: Groups of young demonstrators battled with police, smashing a patrol car and hurling rocks during protests that continued into Friday morning at the World Water Forum.

Police stopped a massive march late on Thursday about a mile from the convention centre where representatives of some 130 nations were debating ways to bring more water to the poor.

17 detained

The Government news agency Notimex reported that police detained 17 persons found carrying homemade gasoline bombs, rocks and sticks. At least one police car and a police motorcycle were smashed and at least two journalists were injured.

The seven-day forum, which got under way on Thursday, pledged to focus on the world's poor, many of whom live on less than 20 litres of water per day — one-thirtieth of the daily usage in some developed nations. But protesters said the conference represented big corporations interested in running water systems for profit.

Demonstrators came from the ranks of those who live daily with sewage pollution, people whose water is being diverted to supply big cities and farmers whose lands are scheduled to be flooded by hydroelectric projects.

``You feel rage, you feel sadness,'' said Delfino Garcia Velazquez, a construction worker from the town of Tecamac on the outskirts of Mexico City, where tens of thousands of new housing units have sprung up in the past few years.

Officials took over Tecamac's formerly community-managed water supply — already over-stretched — to supply the new developments.

``We just want to have a say over our own water and manage it ourselves, like we always have,'' Garcia Velazquez said.

Local initiatives and community-level projects to supply, conserve and treat water were supposed to be at the heart of the water summit, but the larger, international dimensions of the problem often overshadowed that.

The forum heard a proposal for an international peacekeeping force to deal with future conflicts over water, as well as a call for massive donations to rebuild water systems in poor nations. — AP

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail