El Salvador: Right blocks reform to make water and food human rights
El Salvador: Right blocks reform to make water and food human rights
Saturday, May 2, 2015
During the final session of El Salvador's outgoing parliament on April 29, right-wing parties blocked a vote to ratify a constitutional reform that would have enshrined water and food as human rights.
In doing so, the bloc of Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), National Conciliation (PCN), and Christian Democrat (PDC) parties demonstrated their support for elite business interests over the health and wellbeing of the Salvadoran people.
Salvadorans face rising food prices caused by free trade policies that have destroyed local agricultural production and repeated attempts to privatise the country’s scarce water resources. In response, tens of thousands of environmental, religious, labour, community and youth activists have spent the past six years campaigning to get the proposed reform to Article 69 of the constitution approved.
The reform would require the state enact laws and policies to ensure people’s right to clean and sufficient water and adequate, nutritious food. It faces strong opposition from El Salvador's economic elite and transnational corporations.
More:
https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/58914