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Specter of Water War Looms Over Guaraní Aquifer |
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By Marcela Valente*
NGOs
denounce an alleged Washington conspiracy to take over South America's
Guaraní Aquifer. Officials and experts alike say it is a crazy notion.
BUENOS AIRES - The placid waters of the Guaraní
Aquifer, an enormous underground reservoir beneath 1.2 million square
km of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, is at the center
of a contentious debate.
A conservation project for the aquifer, which began to be implemented
in 2003, triggered a volley of accusations between those entrusted
with carrying the initiative forward and the civil society groups
that warn of a supposed U.S.-led conspiracy to take control of this
important source of freshwater.
Over the past three years, scientists, environmentalists and governments
drew up the Project for the Environmental Protection and Sustainable
Development of the Guaraní Aquifer System, with the aim of establishing
its potential and the dangers it faces in order to set up joint
management among the four countries that share the reservoir.
The aquifer beneath the Mercosur (Southern Common Market) countries
holds an estimated 37,000 cubic km of water, though just 40 to 80
cubic km can be accessed in the areas where the reservoir is recharged.
A pro-democracy group of Argentine members of the military, CEMIDA,
issued a statement earlier this year that the alleged activity of
terrorist groups in the tri-border region of Argentina, Brazil and
Paraguay (where Iguazu Falls is located) was a pretext by Washington
to try to beef up its own military presence there "and silently
take over the Guaraní Aquifer" through the conservation project.
Founded in the 1980s, CEMIDA is a non-governmental organization
(NGO) dedicated to protecting human rights, and tends to take positions
towards the left of the political scale. It is made up of both retired
military personnel and civilians.
"The United States set up a system to determine the size of the
aquifer, ensure its sustainable use and prevent any kind of contamination,
(and) for this effort it put at the head of the research the World
Bank, the Organization of American States (OAS) and other bodies
that are under its control," states the CEMIDA report, written by
history professor Elsa Buzzone.
Washington created a budget of 26 million dollars "and suggested
the ways that indigenous communities and civil society would participate
in order to maintain control (over the aquifer) until it is considered
convenient," says the text.
This thesis is shared by the organizing groups of the Tri-Border
Social Forum, which is to take place Jun. 25-27 in the northeastern
Argentine city of Puerto Iguazú.
But the secretary-general of the Guaraní Aquifer Project, Brazil's
Luiz Amore, told Tierramérica that such charges "don't make sense."
The project emerged as an initiative of the four countries that
share the aquifer, and it was they who asked for financial assistance
from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), created with contributions
from various countries and under the financial management of the
World Bank, he explained.
During the past four years, civil society organizations have participated
in different facets of the program, said Amore.
"From Brazil, which has 71 percent of the aquifer in its territory,
176 institutions participated, including national and state bodies,
universities and NGOs," said the project head.
The project's national divisions, comprising officials from each
country, chose the OAS as the executor agency of the initiative,
which is financed by 13.4 million dollars from GEF and 12 million
from the four governments, and the rest from other donors for a
total of 26.7 million dollars, Amore said.
A Brazilian water rights network of some 60 organizations, also
questions the Guaraní Aquifer Project.
"There is no transparency" in the project's contracts, nor is there
access to its technical data, such that "Amore is negotiating our
sovereignty and we can't know to whom he is passing the information
he receives," while he exercises a "dictatorial power" to decide
who will participate in the process, says network leader Leonardo
Moreli.
The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and GEF should audit
the project, Moreli said in a Tierramérica interview.
Furthermore, "it is not normal that there are Green Berets (a special
division of the U.S. army) in Entre Ríos and Misiones (northeastern
Argentine provinces) engaged in exercises against dengue," said
Moreli with a note of irony, in reference to the CEMIDA report.
According to Amore, Moreli's accusations are an attempt to gain
better footing for carrying out aquifer-related projects for citizen
awareness and education, which are to be financed through the Citizen
Fund, which has a budget of 240,000 dollars.
"It is a disgrace. Once the four countries agree on a project to
establish preventative actions and not just to remedy the situation,
there are suspicions and fears," said Amore.
If the governments wanted to privatize the aquifer, he said, "It
would be under the authority of the countries, not the project."
But the secretary-general clarified his position in the matter:
"Water is a social good that has an economic value, but that does
not mean a sales value. This is about a resource to be protected
from contamination and for the use of all."
Uruguayan geology expert Danilo Antón, who specializes in underground
water resources, agrees that the accusations that Washington is
trying to gain control of the Guaraní Aquifer "are outside of reality".
"There could be strategists who fantasize about it, but it is not
sustainable under any logic," he said.
The water from the aquifer can only be used locally, in hundreds
of communities, but exploiting its deeper reaches "is difficult
and very expensive," said Antón.
"To empty the aquifer, most of which is more than 1,000 meters below
ground, would require a pumping effort that is not economical and
is technically impossible."
"Another thing is the fear that they will privatize the wells or
the distribution systems, but that depends on the governments,"
Antón said.
It was the Uruguayan geologist who in 1996 proposed the name "Guaraní"
for the aquifer, which previously went by different names in each
of the four countries. The new name pays tribute to the indigenous
nation that historically lived in the region encompassed by the
underground reservoir.
* Marcela Valente is an IPS correspondent.
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