Most of us take it for granted that when we turn on a tap we have access to
safe and clean water to drink, to cook and to wash. However, 20% of the world's
population, over a billion people, lack access to safe drinking water and about
2.6 billion people – 40% – have no access to basic sanitation.
The issue of water is one of the largest public health issues but access to
water is primarily a class issue. Without question, the world water crisis
condemns billions of people to a perpetual struggle to survive at the
subsistence level – millions are living on less than $1 a day. A third of the
world's population lives in "water stressed" countries (i.e. where
water is scarce or of poor quality) and that number is expected to rise
dramatically over the next two decades.
Some countries have additional problems, including high levels of arsenic and
fluoride in drinking water. Many women and young girls in rural areas around
world must walk as much as six miles everyday to fetch water for their
families. Due to this manual labour, women and children are prevented from
pursuing an education or earning an income.
Yet lack of access to water and sanitation is not just a rural issue. In
2007, for the first time in history, the majority of people will live in urban
areas. Even the UN admits this will result in larger slum populations in
sub-Saharan Africa and Asia and these new city residents face overcrowding,
inadequate housing, and a lack of water and sanitation.
Not being able to access sanitation and safe water contributes to increased
poverty, poorer health and high levels of child deaths. In 2004, 2.2 million
people died from drinking unsafe water, of which about 90% were children under
the age of 5 (UNICEF/WHO 2005). Unsafe water is estimated to kill 4,500
children per day, mostly a result of diarrhoeal diseases – far more than are
killed by Malaria and AIDS combined. It is equivalent to 25 fully loaded jumbo
jets crashing every day!
Preventable deaths
These deaths are easily preventable. Under capitalism, however, water is
only an issue when it can guarantee large profits. Look no further than the
privatisation of water in the UK
where last year a host of private water companies declared massive increases in
profits. Thames Water had a 31% increase in profits despite admitting that it
had missed its leak reduction target for a third successive year (The Daily
Telegraph, 22.6.06) and Severn Trent announced a 30% rise in profits to
£400m despite being under criminal investigations by the Serious Fraud Office
over false reporting – this figure would have been higher but for the £10.6m it
was ordered to pay back to customers. Other profit increases reported included
United Utilities who had a 21% rise in profits to £481m; Pennon saw profits
rise by 25% to £111m and Anglian Water owner AWG announced that annual profits
had trebled to £109m. (BBC 7.6.06) These massive profits even led the British
TV programme Panorama to ask whether the water industry should be
renationalised.
The world's financial markets are in no doubt about the benefits to big
business of water privatisation, prompting one money magazine to run a feature
on, How to profit from the world's water crisis. It boasts:
"Overall, the ‘scramble for water assets' has now seen bidders put
almost £12bn on the table, says The Daily Telegraph. But the buying frenzy
isn't over yet. The losers in these auctions may well be tempted to bid for one
of the several other UK
water companies, which are ‘ripe for takeover'. United Utilities, Severn Trent,
Northumbrian Water, Kelda – the former Yorkshire Water – and Pennon, the owner
of South West Water, are all seen as potential targets. As a result, their
shares have soared by up to 50% over the past year." (Money Week,
19.10.06)
They continue, "So what makes utilities look so good to bidders? The
reliability of the returns they offer. The system of economic regulation
imposed by Ofwat offers known rates of return over five-year pricing cycles,
which is attractive to private equity and infrastructure funds…. The problem
here is that this is just about the only thing that makes the water utilities
attractive and bidding presupposes that Ofwat keeps playing along… there are
still plenty of opportunities for investors. The profits will come from
companies that help nations improve the water that they already have." (Money
Week, 19.10.06)
Some years ago vice-president of the World Bank, Ismail Serageldin, said
that the wars of the 21st century would be about water. Soon after this, the
World Bank adopted a policy of water privatisation and full-cost water pricing.
This certainly caused a war – a class war – in Bolivia's
third largest city, Cochabamba.
Their struggle proved that the privatisation of water can be fought.
Cochabamba
In the late 1990s the World Bank refused to guarantee a US$25million loan to
refinance water services in Cochabamba
unless the government sold the public water system to the private sector and
passed the costs on to consumers. Only one bid was considered and the utility
was turned over to a subsidiary of a conglomerate led by Bechtel, the giant
engineering company implicated in the infamous Three Gorges Dam in China (which
has caused the forced relocation of 1.3 million people). Interestingly at that
time, a World Bank official attended Bolivian government cabinet meetings as a
full participant.
In January 2000, the private company announced the doubling of water prices.
In a country where the minimum wage was less than US$70 per month, many people
were hit with monthly water bills of $20 or more. For most Bolivians, this
meant that water would now cost more than food; for those on a minimum wage or
unemployed, water bills suddenly accounted for close to half their monthly
budgets. To turn the screw even further, the World Bank granted monopolies to
private water concessions, announced its support for full-cost water pricing
and pegged the cost of water to the American dollar. It also declared that none
of its loan could be used to subsidise water services for those living in
poverty.
Permits to access
All water, even from community wells, required permits to access, and
peasants and small farmers even had to buy permits to gather rainwater on their
property. This followed similar attacks in La Paz
(the capital of Bolivia)
and El Alto when the World Bank made privatisation of water a condition of a
loan to the Bolivian government. The private consortium that took control of
the water, Aguas del Illimani, was owned jointly by the French water giant, Suez, and a set of
shareholders that included an arm of the World Bank.
The population of Cochabamba
responded with a general strike which shut down their city for four days. This
was led by workers, peasants and community leaders. The government, led by
President Banzar (a dictator for most of the 1970s), was forced to the
negotiating table with the promise of a reduction in the price and an agreement
to work out the details in two weeks. The general strike was halted but a month
later still no agreement had been agreed. On 4 February 2004 thousands
attempted to march in Cochabamba
but the President turned once again to the use of violent repression. He called
out the police, who engulfed marchers for two days, leaving six people dead and
175 injured, including two children blinded.
But the workers and peasants of Cochabamba
did not back down. In a survey of more than 60,000 residents in March, 90% said
that private company must leave and the water system returned to public
ownership. They pointed to the privatisation of water in Buenos Aires where 7,500 workers were fired
and prices rose, as an example of why they felt privatisation had to be
opposed.
Demonstrations
Another general strike was called on 4 April, again closing down the city.
Blockades cut off the main highway and protestors occupied the city centre.
Four days into the demonstrations, the government declared martial law. Police arrested
the strike leaders, taking them from their beds in the middle of the night and
charging them with sedition, shutting down radio stations in mid-broadcast.
This attempt at repression simply served to spur the movement to new heights.
The strike leaders were released after four hours and the daily strike
meetings in the central plaza more than doubled to 40,000. The water company
officials tried to claim that the protests were riots sponsored by cocaine
producers against a crackdown on coca production. However, the might of Cochabamba finally forced
the government to concede on 10 April – signing an agreement that agreed to all
the demonstrators' demands.
Cochabamba's water supply is now run by a local water board with
workers' participation as a minority on this board. Marxists are critical about
many aspects of the campaign by the Coordinadora (the Coalition in Defence of
Water and Life) such as why the movement was not generalised and linked up with
other struggles nationally, and settling for workers' participation rather than
workers' management of the local water board. However, there are many positive
lessons, notably the ability and willingness of the Coordinadora to lead a
city-wide insurrection to halt privatisation. This will have a lasting effect,
not only in preventing Bechtel from getting their greedy hands on Cochabamba's
water supply, but crucially in giving confidence to workers and peasants in
Cochabamba in their own strength.
