Today's Stories

March 27-29, 2009

Michael Hudson
How the Scam Works

José Pertierra
Gesture for Gesture: How to Free the Cuban Five

Andy Worthington
A Letter to Obama From a Guantánamo Uighur

Mike Whitney
Geithner's Hog Wallow

Souad N. Al-Azzawi
Iraq: Let the Numbers Speak for Themselves

Dave Lindorff
A Financial History Lesson

Ian Masters
The Zombie Presidency

Jami Tarn
Smearing Tristan Anderson

Diane Farsetta
The Nuclear Industry Targets Wisconsin

David Ker Thomson Against Democracy

Ramzy Baroud
Netanyahu and the Future of the Peace Process

Rannie Amiri
Saudi Shiites' One-Word Demand

Wajahat Ali
Writer as Fighter: the Genius of Ishmael Reed

Nick Egnatz
Whatever Happened to the Fierce Urgency of Now?

Gregory A. Burris
The Insolents Abroad: a Defense of Iceland

Missy Beattie
This Land

March 26, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Is the Bail Out Breeding a Bigger Crisis?

Sharon Smith
Another Blow to Labor ... from the Democrats

Neve Gordon
Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's Shame

Patrick Madden
Why the Geithner Plan Will Fail

Gareth Porter
The Big Con on Iraq

Dave Lindorff
Why Do We Need a Health Insurance Industry?

Hannah Safran
The Israeli Resistance: "Ready to be Traitors"

Keith Newell
Will the Cellphone Please Take the Stand?

Todd Chretien
Behind the Green Collar

Nelson P. Valdés
When It Comes to Cuba and the Media Anything Goes

Website of the Day
G20 Meltdown

March 25, 2009

Robin Blackburn
Media Revolution or Mirage?

Conn Hallinan
Europe in Crisis

David Rosen
Sexting: a First Amendment Challenge for Obama

Jonathan Cook
Turkey's Fallout with Israel Deals Blow to Settlers

Dean Baker
Billions More for Failed Banks

Ron Jacobs
Karzai on a String

Russell Mokhiber
Corporate Liberals vs. Single-Payer

David Macaray
Slice and Dice on Card Check

Dave Lindorff
Geithner's Power Grab

Sarah Knopp
LA Teacher's Sit-In Over Layoffs

Website of the Day
How to Create an Animal Rights "Terrorist"

March 24, 2009

Robert Sandels
Obama and Cuba: Real Change or Minor Tweaks?

Harvey Wasserman
People Died at Three Mile Island

Franklin Lamb
Who Tried to Kill Palestinian Ambassador Abass Zaki and Why?

Michael Donnelly
Obama's Team of Losers

Norman Solomon
Denial and Evasion on Afghanistan

Elizabeth Schulte
The Stark Facts About Violence Against Women

John Goekler
The Most Dangerous Person in the World?

Nicole Colson
Is Justice Finally in Sight for Sami Al-Arian?

Global Balkans
NATO's 78-Day Bombing of Yugoslavia: Ten Years On

William S. Lind
Cat-and-Mouse Off Hainan Island

Website of the Day
Video: IDF Fired on Medics in Gaza

March 23, 2009

M. Shahid Alam
Capitalism From the Standpoint of Its Victims

Uri Avnery
Israel's Most Revolting Law?

Mike Whitney
Zombie Economics: Judgment Day for Geithner

Ralph Nader
Bush the Teacher

Brian Cloughley
Tilting at Afghan Windmills

Dave Lindorff
Toxic Bailouts

Amira Hass
The Rules of Engagement in Gaza: Open Fire on Rescuers

Chris Irwin
When Nonprofit Groups Go Bad

Binoy Kampmark
The Celebrity of Celebrity

Michael Dickinson
Tollbridge Over Troubled Waters

Website of the Day
State of the Birds

March 20-22, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
On the Edge of the Volcano

Paul Craig Roberts
When Things Fall Apart

P. Sainath
Slumdogs vs. Billionaires

Robert Weissman
Lessons From AIG

Saul Landau
Sliding Down in Anger: If We Bail Out the Banks, Why Shouldn't We Own Them?

David Michael Green
Obama and the Altar of Greed

Greg Moses
Winter Soldiers Come to Texas

Ron Jacobs
Pakistan in Turmoil: an Interview with Farooq Tariq

Michael D. Yates
A Nation of Immigrants

John V. Whitbeck
Happy New Year, Iran!

Andy Worthington
The Case of Ahmed Zuhair

Linn Washington Jr.
Supreme Test: the Latest Twist in the Mumia Case

David Ker Thomson
Actions: Things to Do Instead of Hailing the Chief

Laurent Jacque
Is the Euro Doomed?

Rannie Amiri
The Middle East's Jittery Monarchies

Reiko Redmonde /
Larry Everest
The Cold-Blooded Murder of Oscar Grant

David Macaray
The Myth of the Powerful Teachers' Union

Kenneth Couesbouc
Where has the Consumption Gone?

Martha Rosenberg
Meltdown in the Drug Industry

Alan Farago
The Recession, the Developers and Baseball

Missy Beattie
Still Waiting for Change

Richard Rhames
Invisible But Not Completely Insolvent

Stephen Martin
Barack and the Jets

Charles R. Larson
Impeach Obama!

David Yearsley
On Bach's Birthday

Lorenzo Wolff
Manic Levity

Poets' Basement
Three Poems by Gary Corseri

Website of the Weekend
Teachers for CEO Merit Pay!

March 19, 2009

Dave Marsh
Sir Bono: the Knight Who Fled From His Own Debate

Paul Craig Roberts
Was the Bailout Itself a Scam?

Mike Whitney
Why Business is Hysterical About Card Check (And Why America Needs It)

Sam Smith
The Economy in Two Eras of Democrats

Harvey Wasserman
The Crash of France's Nuclear Poster Child

Binoy Kampmark
Back Into NATO: the End of French Exceptionalism

Kathy Sanborn
Broken Culture: the Desecration of Iraq's Art Treasures

Christopher Brauchli
Taxing Problems

George Wuerthner
Permanent Damage From Temporary Logging Roads

Diann Rust-Tierney
New Mexico Abolishes the Death Penalty

Website of the Day
Bailout Plan: "Cross Your Fingers and Hope"

March 18, 2009

Michael Hudson
The Real AIG Conspiracy

Paul Craig Roberts
Israel's American Chattel

Nelson P. Valdés
Why Obama's New Cuba Rules Violate the Constitution

Jonathan Cook
Bedouin Villages Left in the Dark Ages

John Ross
The Death of the American Newspaper

Yifat Susskind
Where Are We Leaving Iraqi Women?

Dave Lindorff
Who's Calling the Shots Now?

Frances Moore Lappé
The City That Ended Hunger

Richard Grossman
Beware the Madoff Diversion!

Rev. William E. Alberts
On Being Whole Not Holy

Website of the Day
Three Weeks in Cuba: a Painter's Perspective

March 17, 2009

Michael Hudson
Mr. Bernanke Spreads the Fire

James G. Abourezk
Show Business: AIG and the Posturing Democrats

Harry Browne
Ireland's Blast From the Past

Joanne Mariner
U.S. Human Rights Abuses in the War on Terror

Alan Farago
The National Ponzi Scheme

Dean Baker
Getting Lehman Bros. Wrong ... Again

Peter Morici
Cuts for Autoworkers, Bonuses for Derivatives Traders

Bill and Kathleen Christison
Obama and the Empire

Richard Gott
Victory for the Left in El Salvador

Walter Brasch
Dog Mutilations vs. Cosmetics

Website of the Day
Single-Payer Action

March 16, 2009

Pam Martens
Has a Comedian Just Saved America?

Uri Avnery
The Rape of Washington

Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Witness Protection Program

Ralph Nader
Americans Want Justice for Wall Street Crooks

Nikolas Kozloff
Down But Not Out: the Latin American Right

John Walsh
Redbaiting on the Left

Ron Jacobs
A Call for Common Sense

Binoy Kampmark
The Case of Tim K

Stephen Fleischman
Coxey's Army Will March Again!

Christian Christensen
A 25-Year Misunderstanding: Springsteen's "Born in the USA"

Scott Handleman
Shooting Tristan Anderson

Website of the Day
Clean, Green, Sustainable

March 13 / 15, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Parable of the Shopping Mall

Peter Lee
What the Chas Freeman Fight Was Really About

Diana Johnstone
NATO's Global Mission Creep

David Harvey
Is This Really the End of Neoliberalism?

Petrino DiLeo
Inside Obama's Housing Plan: Will Millions be Left Out in the Cold

David Ker Thomson
Tender to the Earth

Eric Ruder
Massacre in Slow Motion: an Interview with Haider Eid on Gaza

Fred Gardner
Cannabidiol Now!

David Yearsley
Music Torture

Saul Landau
How Israel Gives Jews a Bad Name

Laura Carlsen
Drug War Doublespeak

Robert Weissman
We Told You So

John Goekler /
Merle Lefkoff
The Struggle in Saffron

Tom Barry
Imprisoning Immigrants for Profit

Kathy Sanborn
Money Out of Thin Air

Chris Mobley / Leela Yellesetty
Criminalizing Poverty: the Jail Seattle Doesn't Need

David Michael Green
The Perils of Being Right and Wrong

Alan Maass /
Lee Sustar
A Socialist Moment?

Christopher Brauchli
Pity, the Poor Tax Collectors

Richard Morse
Clinton in Haiti

Lorenzo Wolff
Taking It From the Streets: From Springsteen to the Wu-Tang Clan

Poets' Basement
Springate and Johnston

Website of the Weekend
Hear the Buffalo

March 12 , 2009

Sharon Smith
Bottom Feeders at the Trough

Christopher Ketcham
Full Spectrum Penetration: Israeli Spying in the United States

Mike Whitney
Haircut Time for Bondholders

Ray McGovern
Obama Caves to the Lobby

Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
The Doublespeak of a Discredited IMF

John Ross
The War is Not Over

M. Reza Pirbhai
Men in Black: Another View of Pakistan

Chris Floyd
Lost Liberty Blues: Prisons, Profits and the Banality of Evil

Steve Early
Why Labor Doesn't Need a "House of Lords"

Quentin Gee
Hiding the Costs of Coal

Website of the Day
Amadee Coral Reef: a Spherical Panorama

March 11 , 2009

Mike Roselle
From Birmingham to Coal River: Why is the Environmental Movement So Timid?

Paul Craig Roberts
The Criminal Injustice System

Henry A. Giroux
Academic Labor in Dark Times

Nikolas Kozloff
The Death Cries of the Salvadoran Right

Norm Kent
I am Patient Number 380206011

Mitu Sengupta
Reforming the World Bank: Different Image, Same Tune?

Ludwig Watzal
The Structure of Israel's Occupation

David Macaray
The Battle Over EFCA Has Begun

William S. Lind
Rounding Up the Usual Suspects

Martha Rosenberg
A Merger From the Folks Who Brought You Vytorin

Website of the Day
American Indicator: One in Fifty Kids are Homeless

March 10 , 2009

Franklin Spinney
What Israeli Peace Process?

Vijay Prashad
What Did Hillary Clinton Do?

Stan Cox
There's No Free Lunch on Your Browser: the Internet's Energy Drain

Zoltan Grossman
Coffee Strong: Listening to the G.I. Voice at Fort Lewis

Reuven Kaminer
Pure and Unadulterated Racism

Jonathan Cook
Memoricide in the West Bank

Dave Lindorff
Business Rules

Brian McKenna
How Anthropology Disparages Journalism

Harvey Wasserman
Is This the End of the Age of the Automobile?

Corey Pein
He Told You So

Website of the Day
AIG and Systemic Failure: $1.6 Trillion in Insured Deriviatives

March 9 , 2009

Pam Martens
Madoff and the Sorkin Affair

Ralph Nader
Too Big...Period

Peter Lee
Meet Gulbuddin Hekmatyar: the US's Worst/Best Hope for Afghanistan?

Mike Whitney
Geithner's Charade

Peter Morici
Fixing the Banks: Treasury's Doomed Strategy

Dean Baker
Why Do We Need a Private Health Insurance Industry, Anyway?

Steve Ault
Kiss Thailand's Tolerance for Gays Goodbye

Stephen Lendman
Guantánamo Under Obama

Farooq Sulehria
Tennis Without Spectators

Belén Fernández
Chávez, a Cockfight and the Caracazo

Website of the Day
How Lincoln Learned to Read

March 6-8 , 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Harlots High and Low

Chris Floyd
Tangled Up in Karl

Uri Avnery
Remember Ophira?

Dave Lindorff
Kiss the Banks Goodbye

Mark Weisbrot
The Crisis vs. the Dogma

David Ker Thomson
Against Work

Phil Aliff
Soldier Suicides

Rebekah Ward
Georgia Injustice: Another Young Life Wrecked

Tracey Briggs
How Capitalism Feels in the Head

Dean Baker
Depression Nostalgia?

Daniel P. Wirt, M.D.
Remove the Handle From the Health Insurance Misery and Death Pump

Carl Finamore
The Recovery Plan: Save Us From Those Who Would Save Us

Wajahat Ali
The Pakistani Monster

David Michael Green
Smart is the New Stupid

David Macaray
The Minimum Wage Revisited

Michael Dickinson
On Financial Fools Day

Susie Day
Line in the Sand

Bob Sommer
Echoes of the Townhouse Explosion

Ben Sonnenberg
No Forgiveness for the Bourgeoisie: Buñuel's "The Exterminating Angel"

David Yearsley
Sonic Fakery in "Slumdog" From the Mozart of Chennai

DC Larson
They're Writing Those Depression Songs, Again

Lorenzo Wolff
Live Truth: Music Sans Headphones

Poets' Basement
Dominquez, MacNeil and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
The Environment & Obama: a Conversation with Jeffrey St. Clair

March 5 , 2009

James G. Abourezk
This Time It's Mrs. Clinton's Turn

Kathleen and Bill Christison
U.S. Military Aid to Israel

Robert Weissman
Wall Street's Best Investment: Paying for Public Policy

Patrick Cockburn
My Day at the Terror "Charity"

William Blum
Being Serious About Torture...Or Not

Robert Fantina
From Iraq to Afghanistan: Augmentation All Over Again

Saul Landau
The Unseen Crisis

Benjamin Dangl
Striking a Blow Against the Beer Cartel: a Grassroots Victory in Utah

Christopher Brauchli
The New Leaders of the GOP

Website of the Day
The Angola 3: 36 Years of Solitude

March 4, 2009

Marjorie Cohn
Blueprints for a Police State

Mike Whitney
Blowing Up the Economy: How Securitization Lit the Fuse

Ron Jacobs
The Banality of Occupation: the Rand Papers

Ashley Smith
War by Another Name

Joanne Mariner
Obama's War on Terror

Dan Bacher
The California Water Wars: Why It's Not a Conflict Between Fish and People

Mark Engler
Will the Winds of Change Reach El Salvador?

Franklin Lamb
"What's Hezbollah Done for Us Lately?"

Cal Winslow
Slugging It Out in California

David Mandelzys
Apartheid Week

Website of the Day
Guantánamo: the Definitive Prisoner List

March 3, 2009

Conn Hallinan
Ethnic Cleansing and Israel

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
The Long, Dark Night of Pakistan

Brian M. Downing
The Changing Game in Afghanistan

Robert Larson
External Damnation: Companies are Designed for Destruction

Daniel P. Wirt, MD
Single-Payer Health Reform

Russell Mokhiber
Burn Your Health Insurance Bill!

William Loren Katz
Obama, One Ape and Two Newspapers

Kathy Sanborn
The Lazy Man's Guide to the Economic Crisis

Pauline Imbach
A New Start for the World Social Forum?

Christopher Ketcham
The Best Journalism You'll Write is Priceless

Website of the Day
The Surveillance Self-Defense Project

March 2, 2009

Andrea Peacock
A Poisoned Town's Shot at Justice

Paul Craig Roberts
Obama's Budget

Peter Lee
Pakistan Lurches Toward the Abyss

John Blair
Locking Down Big Coal

Peter Morici
Treasury's Flawed Plan for Citigroup

Uri Avnery
10 Ways to Kill Fatah

Michael Donnelly
Resistance to the War on the Wild

Fred Gardner
The Judge Who Ruled Marijuana is Medicine

Sonia Nettnin
Middle East Medical Mission Heroes

Andrew Lehman
A New Deal for the Web

Website of the Day
Pentagon Papers II?

Eric Holder and the Whitewashing of Racism

Tom Barry
Napolitano's Hard Line

Harvey Wasserman
Obama's Excellent Atomic Omission

Adam Turl
The Enemies of Unions and the Lies They Tell

David Macaray
When People are Fired Illegally

James McEnteer
Rush to the Rescue: Limbaugh's Secret Plan to Save the Economy

Website of the Day
The Carbon Casino

Weekend Edition
March 27-29, 2009

Pulse of the Planet

Water Culture Wars

By BARBARA ROSE JOHNSTON

The 5th World Water Forum is over and here I sit at the departure gate at Ataturk International airport. It has been a busy week of intense activity, much of it frustrating, and I am still trying to come to terms with all that went on in the main corridors of water power, and in the margins, outside the police lines, where the real world lives.

I am an environmental anthropologist who traveled to Istanbul as part of a group of people invited to speak on water and cultural diversity in sessions that took place late in the week, on Friday and Saturday. These were the only sessions in the entire forum that, in their original inception, allowed an explicit focus on the relationship between the development and management of water and the status and conditions of culturally diverse people. A threatening topic in a country where critics protest, and a former Turkish President proudly acknowledged, water development is used as a means to diffuse potential conflict by displacing cultural minorities and drowning contested territory. 

I arrived here on a Monday to the news that two friends from International Rivers were arrested at the opening session of the Forum. They unfurled a protest banner inside the conference that said “No risky dams” and chanted this slogan five times, a protest that involved all of a minute before they were pulled out, and arrested. The next day they were given the option of a minimum one-year sentence in prison or deportation. Their crime? Attempting to influence public option.

A few days later, at a meeting of environmental and human rights activists, I met one of the 25 people arrested in the public protest of the opening ceremonies outside the forum, a Turkish citizen who was hit with tear gas and water cannons and now faces prosecution on two counts. His crime? Unlawful public protest and failure to comply with orders from a police officer.

I must confess I was kind of scared to go to the dam fighters meeting. The police presence in the streets was intense, especially outside the meeting entrance where to enter you must pass a gauntlet of cars with flashing lights and uniformed officers. Men in suits lounged about in strategic places surrounding the meeting entrance. I walked by the entrance a few times before I drummed up the courage to enter the building and go into the meeting area. Entering a small room filled to overflow, I encountered a wide array of people who had run the same gauntlet in the street below. We introduced ourselves and described our common environment, human rights, and social justice struggles.

As it turned out this meeting was the high point of my week. It was an invigorating occasion, this global gathering of people who critically challenge and protest a water development agenda that threatens to wipe out much of the worlds remaining biocultural diversity. And it was obvious from conversations with Turkish activists that our international presence and shared common concerns created a bit of rights-protective space that night, with the police outside the door, and testimony inside about the many ways water development -- ongoing and planned -- violates fundamental human rights. Such meetings are not easily held in a country where influencing public opinion is a crime.

Talking with a couple of activists from Italy on my way back to my hotel, I shared my plans to speak at the World Water Forum later in the week, and the regret that I cannot attend the alternative forum events. I briefly outlined my talk -- a presentation on the legacy of fifty years of large dams and water diversions with global data demonstrating how large infrastructure water development has led to the displacement and widespread impoverishment of the world’s most vulnerable people, especially indigenous groups and ethnic minorities. Drawing upon findings from my research on dam-displaced communities I illustrate how water development has caused ecocide, ethnocide, incidents of ethnic cleansing and, in a few instances, genocide.

I was told to take care. The police were everywhere, with undercover and uniformed security in every corridor and at every session. Using water, dams, and genocide in the same sentence, in public, was not tolerated here in Turkey, where dam development on the Euphrates and Tigris river basin will drown ancient cities, flood the biblical Garden of Eden, and forcibly displace tens of thousands of Kurds without compensation from the heart of a contested Kurdistan. I appreciated the caution, and noted that, truth be told, such intolerance was not unique to Turkey.

I had some sense of the heightened political tensions here in the weeks and months before coming to Turkey. The press regularly reported increased geopolitical tension over water and energy development in the region, including the loss of European Union support for Turkish Ilisu Dam, part of a broader development effort that critics say constitute state-sponsored violence against a cilvian Kurdish population. In the volatile politics of war, water, energy and economic stability, the background currents influencing political tension included an off and on-again bilateral deal to build a water pipeline between Turkey and Israel, and a recently confirmed bilateral energy cooperation deal between Turkey and Russia.

Political tensions were felt even in the seemingly apolitical realm of archaeology, anthropology, cultural education and it’s intersects with the World Water Forum. As made clear from the email I received from forum organizers, the topic of water and cultural diversity sat in an uncomfortable and precarious perch in the Water Forum platform.

As I understand it, for Turkish organizers, the topic evidently needed aggressive restructuring from original session proposals submitted that emphasized water and cultural diversity and thus, allowed consideration of the social, economic, and political dimensions of water development and management, including diverse and inequitable conditions, to an exclusive exploration of water cultures, an apolitical historically-situated view that embraced the intellectual, spiritual, and material ways humans interact with water and rejected broader sociopolitical discussion of past and current water development. Topic sponsors and international conveners objected to a restructuring that excluded broader framing. Thus, it was unclear before coming to Istanbul which papers would finally be included in which sessions, how those sessions would be titled, who would run those sessions, and who controlled how the session outcomes are reported and worked into the parallel process of shaping a political outcome for the 5th World Water Forum.  

As it turned out, UNESCO withdrew from their sponsorship of “water and cultural diversity” sessions. Their March 16 press release, posted on UNESCO’s website, noted UNESCO’s continued support for the World Water Forum and its events, but with regard to water and culture, the Organization “would not continue its role as co-coordinator as there was divergence of views on scientific and organizational grounds.”

In its stead, UNESCO’s international hydrological programme hosted side events on water and cultural diversity exploring, among other things, “water cultures” as well as the role of culture in shaping conflict and consensus in understanding, valuing, using, and managing water. The originally scheduled two days of “water and cultural diversity” sessions were reframed as “water and culture” sessions: with two sessions shaped and controlled by Turkish organizers, and two sessions organized by the international community with the participation of a Turkish-appointed co-convener. A final “wrap-up” session was also held, where primary findings from the four sessions were reported, and overall conclusions were published for the broader forum and world community.

The session I participated in, session 6.5.3, was featured in Friday’s World Water Forum Bulletin, a newsletter distributed to the press and all attendees. Coverage included mention of my main point: Research on the human and environmental impact of large dams has caused the displacement of some 250 million people in the past fifty years, many of whom are indigenous peoples or ethnic minorities, and this development-induced displacement is a major cause of global poverty.  The article also mentioned my recommendations that water infrastructure projects should comply with national and international law; recognize “off-the-map” protected areas; respect the human right to water; implement indigenous peoples’ rights to free, prior, informed consent; and ensure the right for all affected people to access information about projects to allow meaningful participation in decision making, and to share the benefits of development. And, the article reported on the concluding policy recommendations prepared by session conveners to be forwarded to the Secretariat of the 5th World Water Forum calling for water to be viewed as a human as well as a cultural right. 

What the news report omitted was the problematic nature of the session discussion. The first comment on the presentation and our collective recommendations came from a Turkish sociologist, who announced that he was one of the architects involved in efforts to reshape the forum to focus on “water cultures” and he expressed his strong opposition to the views raised in this session. Immediately after voicing his objections, he left the hall. Every other subsequent commentator from the audience endorsed the session recommendations, and several spoke in response to the angry comments offered at the start of discussion, noting that culture is, indeed, learned and lived. It is expressed in religious texts, behavior, and material culture. But, it is also expressed in broader social relationships: in power and politics, and vulnerability and equity.

After the session concluded, I learned that following the first and only critical comment someone ordered the translators to cease their English-Turkish translations, effectively censoring (for Turkish speakers) the remaining 20 minutes of discussion, and distorting the official record of the event.

In the wrap-up session to the water and culture theme (session 6.5.5), our angry colleague played a further role, this time co-chairing the discussion with a representative of UNESCO-IHP. While this final discussion included audience comment on the problems associated with past and current water infrastructure development, no such mention is found in the published proceedings where the primary findings on water and culture emerging from two days of presentations are summarized as: “Participants noted that educators must also be educated and that preconceptions must be deconstructed. Some stressed the need to learn lessons from elders and emphasized that there are as many similarities as there are differences in culture.” 

What was censored here? The primary message from the water and cultural diversity sessions organized by the international community was: Water is a fundamental human right and a core element that sustains cultural ways of life and the environments on which we all depend. This message, while dominant in presentations and discussion was not included in the thematic report. Thus, the impression is given that the scientific contributions to the World Water Forum support the final political statement emerging from the 5th World Water Forum with its’ calls for action that recognize water as an essential human need, rather than water as a fundamental human right. 

Ok. Well, water is an essential human need, so, as my kids say, what’s the big deal?

Acknowledging that “water is a fundamental human right” means that there are limitations to sovereign rights: That water is not only an essential human need, it is an essential element that sustains life and cultural ways of life.

 “Water as an essential human need” means that states, in their obligation to provide for the basic needs of their citizens (including the economic needs of the varied industries that support the nation), have the sovereign power and authority to take action that overrides the individual rights of their citizens. Including actions that violate international human rights law.

Such definitions are tools that echo or amplify agendas.

As I contemplate the outcomes of this 5th World Water Forum, it is clear to me that the overriding agenda involves an overt effort to manufacture fear of looming water scarcity and, thus, generate support for a massive expansion of large-scale water development by private industry and government. Unlike efforts in decades past, this development push encourages both the commodification and privatisation of water: Meaning, that water is defined as an economic good, not a universal life-supporting element; and, that the solutions to global environmental needs are best secured by transforming public utilities (hydroelectric dams and water supply systems) to private ownership. The end result is a transfer of the rights of access to and use of water from a commons right, monitored or regulated by the state, to a privately-owned exclusionary right that is managed with economic profit, rather than human and environmental sustainability, being the bottom line. 

Large-scale intensive development of the worlds’ rivers and watersheds is most certainly the agenda here at the World Water Forum. And when the human and environmental costs are fully calculated, this agenda will most assuredly threaten or destroy much of the worlds remaining biocultural diversity.

This is not simply a matter of lifestyle and cultural entitlement. This is a matter of war and peace, of food security, economic health, and the viability of families, communities, society, and governments. In the event that proposals to dam and divert most of the world’s rivers are actually funded and built, what will happen to the hundreds of millions displaced or impoverished by such development? Where will these people go? How will they survive? What consequences will we see in global loss of food security and health, and the escalation in poverty, misery, and violence?

A recent study published in Conservation Biology (Hanson et al, February 2009) noted that biodiversity hotspots support the majority of the world’s poorest people, indigenous peoples and other traditional groups, who rely on natural resources for daily survival. This study found that over 90% of the major armed conflicts between 1950 and 2000 occurred within countries containing biodiversity hotspots, and more than 80% took place directly within hotspot areas. 

The power struggles over words in last week’s World Water Forum are definitive, and left unchallenged, suggest a world of trouble, in the years to come. 

Barbara Rose Johnston is an anthropologist and senior research fellow at the Center for Political Ecology. She is the co-author of The Consequential Dangers of Nuclear War: the Rongelap Report. Look for her latest book from Left Coast Press, Life and Death Matters: Human Rights, Environment, and Social Justice, to be released in July 2009.  She can be reached at: bjohnston@igc.org.

Sources:

Hanson et al. Warfare in Biodiversity Hotspots. Conservation Biology, 2009.

IISD Reporting Services, World Water Forum Bulletin, Volume 82, Number 20, Fifth World Water Forum Highlights, Friday 20 March 2009.

UNESCO Press Release. Paris, 16 March 2009. "UNESCO Confirms its unwavering commitment to 5th World Water Forum in Istanbul"

Now Available from CounterPunch Books!

Spell Albuquerque:
Memoir of a
"Difficult Student"
By Tennessee Reed

Waiting for Lightning
to Strike:
The Fundamentals
of Black Politics
Kevin Alexander Gray

Click Here to Buy!

Click Here to Buy!

The Inside Story of the Shannon Five's Smashing Victory Over the
Bush War Machine
By Harry Browne

Born Under a Bad Sky:
Notes from the Dark Side
of the Earth
By Jeffrey St. Clair

Buy End Times Now!

Click Here to Buy!

Click Here to Order!

Humanitarian Imperialism
By Jean Bricmont