Turning On & Off Our Water - for real

[donsu]

http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=344375&group=webcast

South Africa: Privatization

Phiri is becoming South Africa's Cochabamba. It is here, in a section of Soweto, that the battle against 'prepaid' water meters is being waged in earnest. 'Prepaid' meters are devices which stop all water supplies unless water is paid for in advance. Under the name 'Operation Gcin'amazni', the Johannesburg Water Company (JOWCO) has been installing these in Phiri.

The response has been anger, and the destruction of the newly laid infrastructure. JOWCO is effectively controlled and run by French multinational Suez Lyonnaisse des Eaux, and forms part of the strategy of privatisation and corporatisation of basic services, which was adopted by the ANC-led South African government since 1996. At the forefront of the struggle against privatisation have been the poor of the townships - the pensioners, unemployed youth - those who simply have no money to pay for water, those with no voice in the boardrooms of government and business.

In the last week, that struggle has heated up, as activists from the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee (SECC) and Gauteng Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF) mobilised the Phiri committee to resist 'prepaid' water. The response from the state was to send in the notorious 'Red Ants' (Wozani Security) to defend the 'prepaid' meters, to arrest five members of the SECC / Gauteng APF, and to interdict both organisations and their supporters from opposing JOWCO. On Monday, September 8, the battle continued as SECC / Gauteng APFjoined with Phiri residents to continue that resistance, interdict or no interdict. Seven more people were arrested, but the struggle continues.
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Note the word privatisation

think that can't happen here? americans didn't use to walk around holding plastic bottles of paid for water. nor did we buy plastic gallon jugs for home use because our paid for city water is toxic. we really pay twice for a drink of water. and the price keeps going up.

and we keep polluting clean water sources.

and we keep letting the bloody hands bushgang buy up water rights in america and the world over.

[Minstrel Boy]

1. cholera and death is the result

of this policy.

This is an important story. We're well on the way to the commodification of fresh water, and the day when it will be traded like oil.

Canadians abhor the thought of bulk water exports. Our laws prohibit it. Yet Bush said before the Genoa summit in 2001 that he views Canada's fresh water as an extension of our energy reserves, to be shared by pipeline in the near future. Like hell. Since Canada's the Saudi Arabia of fresh water, I fear for our future.

[maxanne]

2. yep

Fear not, Minstrel Boy - Canada will be in line for a regime change, when we decide our water got into your lakes and aquifers somehow.
:eyes:

Water privatization is already a terrible thing - and it's only going to get worse. I wish we were more concerned about it.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

3. Disgusting! No more privatization

Privatization needs to stop right now. Corporations don't make enough money, too bad! People before profits. If they tried that here, we'd rip the meters out of the wall, have no doubt.

[Nevernose]

4. No they wouldn't

At least not enough to make a difference. Those that do will quickly be labeled "thieves" and "opportunists" who don't want to pay for their water the way the rest of us do, pay now or pay later what's the big deal, hey pumping this water costs a lot of money who's going to pay for it, the duty of a company is to increase its' profits no matter what, yadda, yadda, yadda.

And the sheeple will listen to the talking heads, and anyone who doesn't want pre-paid water meters will be labeled and sidelined as leftist malcontents.

Or maybe I'm just a cynic.