AGUA RÍOS Y PUEBLOS

Human Rights, Violence and Water

HUMAN RIGHTS, VIOLENCE AND WATERWater control is often used as a tool of power. Water, linked to emotional and territorial values, is easily manipulated both in political confrontations and in justifications for war. Such is the case in the Middle East, where control over water forms part of a military strategy that represses the Palestinian people, imposing inhumane living conditions like a water supply of only 107 m3/person/ year compared to 2,300 m3/person/ year for the Israeli population. In Turkish Kurdistan, the massive displacement of the Kurds to build 22 large dams, as part of the Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP), is part of a military strategy to weaken the social support on the ground for the guerrillas of the PKK. The most brutal violation of human rights during water conflicts occurs in the context of undeclared wars. The slaughter of more than four hundred people at the hands of the Guatemalan military, mostly women and children who resisted being moved to build the Chixoy Dam, is one of the most shocking cases. The assassination of leaders of the Embera-Katío, such as Kimy Pernia, who refused to leave their lands in Upper Sinú (Colombia) as a result of the Urrá II dams, is another example. Undeclared wars are used to trample human rights with impunity, and indigenous and peasant communities suffer for the benefit of businesses and landowners.

“BLESSED AND CURSED RIVER”

Israel has control over the headwaters of the Jordan River and holds the rights to use the groundwater in the Jordan River Basin, 80% of which is under Israel-controlled territory. The transfer of the Jordan to the Negev Desert to supply crops for export has ended up ruining the Middle Jordan River, which now runs dry and salty, and which has led to irreparable damages to the Dead Sea. The Palestinian population has no access to the Jordan and are prohibited from drilling new wells in the aquifers. While every Israeli has 304 cubic meters of water per year, the Palestinians have less than 80, which has led to serious health and subsistence problems

“THE MASSACRE OF RÍO NEGRO”

One of the greatest atrocities ever committed against residents evicted by the construction of a dam was the massacre of 450 people living on the Río Negro. The Chixoy Dam was built on the lands of Guatemala’s indigenous Maya Achí people in the midst of the country’s brutal civil war. Faced with the population’s refusal to abandon their lands, the authorities began a campaign of terror that ended with their death and torture. The survivors now live in new relocated communities that lack adequate livelihoods.

Over the past decade, the communities have struggled to recover the bodies of their loved ones and to pressure the Guatemalan government and the dam’s funders to provide reparations for the damages they have suffered.

“DO WÂBURA, GOODBYE RIVER”

The Urrá I hydroelectric dam on the Sinu River flooded 7,400 hectares and displaced tens of thousands of people, including the Embera-Katío indigenous communities. The dam has reduced the fishing potential of the country from 6,000 to 1,700 tons per year, which threatens the survival of tens of thousands of people.

Several indigenous leaders who fought against the project have been assassinated or forced into internal exile. At present, the Sinu River and the Embera-Katío are being threatened by the construction of the Urrá II project, a new hydroelectric project that is ten times higher that Urrá I. The good news, however, is that its license was recently rejected.