“We have no other alternative but to save our earth, to save our
environment
and to save our water”, remarked Jaime from the Movimiento sin Tierra
(MST)
in Brazil, referring furthermore to capitalism as a “historical
predator on
the earths natural resources”.

During the Sixth World Social Forum in Venezuela, panelists from
Bolivia,
Uruguay, Venezuela and Brazil addressed key issues such as the
privatization
of water, the problems posed by nanotechnology, the patenting of the
human
genome project and the unsustainability of the current agricultural
model.

Oscar Oliviera from the Coalicion Coordinadora por e Agua y la Vida
(Coalition for Water and Life), in Bolivia, spoke of two precedent
setting
victories in his country. “In 1999, for the first time in the world,
indigenous groups in Bolivia united and expulsed a North American Trans
National Corporation that was attempting to privatize our water. They
then
succeeded in establishing in congress, a law guaranteeing water as a
collective right”. More recently, a second victory was won. According
to
Oliviera, Bechtel, the Spanish Corporation forced out in 1999, and
Edison,
the Italian corporation, who bought half of one of Bechtels U.S.
holdings
(International Water Ltd.), took their case to a secret tribunal and
tried
to extract 25 million dollars from the people of Cochabamba, as
compensation
for lost capital in the years they were expulsed. Oliviera noted, “It
was
the social organizations and the lips of people like you who
transmitted the
audaciousness of these transnational corporations, who were trying to
extract money from such an impoverished people l like ourselves.

Thanks
to
the social movements, last week these two corporations signed an
agreement
stating that they would not go forward with the law suit. And this is
the
first time in the world that Transnational Corporations have been
stopped
from proceeding with a court case”.

The privatization of water remains a pressing issue in other parts of
Bolivia and around the world. In El Alto, Bolivia for example, water
was
privatized in 1997 when the World Bank made this a condition for a loan
to
the Bolivian Government. Groups claim that Suez, the French owned water
company in El Alto has raised prices by 35% and the price for new
families
to hook up to water is now 445$, which represents more than 6 months
income
at the national minimum wage. Furthermore water advocates, and the
government of Bolivia confirm that Suez, whose minority shareholders
include
an arm of the World Bank, has left more than 200,000 people without
possibility of access to water.

While many water victories remain to be won, others are keeping a close
watch on the impacts of corporations growing investments in
technologies
that are changing the fundamental nature of life. For Silvia Ribeiro, a
researcher with the Action Group on Erosion, Technology and
Concentration
(Grupo ETC) from Uruguay, nanotechnology, the process which changes
life
forms at the atomic level, “poses more extensive scientific problems
than
genetically modified crops”. She emphasized that “these products can
enter
organisms, without being detected by the immune system. There are
currently
over 700 such products on the market with atomically modified
particles.
These particles have never before been in our environment, they have
never
been in our bodies, and they are being produced for pharmaceutical
companies
and for agro industries without adequate regulation”. Her organization
is
also keeping a close watch on the human genome project, and reported
that
the US department of patents has already received over 3 million
requests
and estimates that within a few months 20% of the human genome project
will
have been patented. “Its ridiculous” stated Ribeiro, “each day more and
more
sectors are privatized; not only water and seeds but genes as well”.

The comodification of life concentrates lands and wealth, dominates
local
agrarian processes, replacing them with unsustainable, destructive
models,
and compromises the sovereignty of nations, affirmed Jaime from the
Movimiento Sin Tierra. “We understand that the fight for the earth, the
fight for water, the fight for life, must go hand in hand with the
struggle
for an agrarian model that guarantees sovereignty in food production,
as
well as the sovereignty of nations. It is for local people to decide
what to
produce, how to produce and why to produce”. He concluded with a
sentiment
shared by all the panelists and which resonated with the audience.

“When we
stand together against life destroying forces, when we globalize the
struggle and when we globalize hope, then we will build a world for
all”.