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DAM-L Kasrils in China/LS (fwd)

----- Forwarded message from Lori Pottinger -----

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Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 11:12:02 -0700
To: irn-safrica@netvista.net
From: Lori Pottinger <lori@irn.org>
Subject: Kasrils in China/LS
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 From South Africa....

PRESS RELEASE -- 23 MAY 2001

ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT CENTRE
JOHANNESBURG/CAPE TOWN ooo http://aidc.org.za

WAR ON WATER APARTHEID DECLARED BY CIVIL SOCIETY

Resistance to Heighten Against
Bureaucrats, Privatisers and Neoliberals

	contacts: Trevor Ngwane (083-293-7691), Patrick Bond (083-633-5548)

Today we launch our War Against Water Apartheid. We aim to end the 
seige being experienced amongst low-income communities, women, 
organised labour, the environment and all other vulnerable sectors of 
society and nature.

We join with allied groups -- the Rural Development Services Network, 
SA Municipal Workers Union, the green and women's movements -- to 
make the following demands:

	o water must be provided in adequate amounts to all people 
who are without access, immediately, in order to stop the spread of 
cholera and other water-related diseases, by tanker truck if 
necessary;

	o an end to cutoffs of water supply, consistent with the Constitution;

	o verifiable plans to supply all people with at least 50 
litres per person per day be developed for implementation within two 
years;

	o a dramatic increase in water and sanitation funding from 
the Department of Finance, with severe penalties to bureaucrats who 
are unable to spend the resources;

	o higher standards in the Municipal Infrastructure Investment 
Framework;

	o the incorporation of social, environmental, health, gender, 
desegregation and other values in water pricing;

	o a dramatic increase in water prices to large-scale 
commercial agriculture, and subsidised irrigation to emergent farmers;

	o intervention by the Minister when municipalities fail to 
establish socially-just water systems;

	o the end of World Bank missions in relation to water policy, 
programmes and projects;

	o a moratorium on the Lesotho dams, including a halt to 
construction of Mohale, reparations for Katse socio-environmental and 
economic mismanagement, and the termination of Phase 2, while 
dramatic Demand Side Management measures are taken in Gauteng;

	o a halt to all water privatisation, so as to ensure the 
remunicipalisation of water supplies; and

	o a fundamental rethink and rewrite of the draft Free Basic 
Water Policy so as to conform to social-justice principles.

If these demands are not met immediately, we will insist that 
bureaucrats responsible for failed water policy, programmes and 
projects resign. If they do not resign, and are liable for deaths due 
to further spread of cholera, diarrhoea or other fatal diseases, we 
will engage in citizens' arrests of officials so as to have them 
charged with culpable homicide. If we are not successful, the War 
Against Water Apartheid will continue indefinitely. We see a major 
battle looming, in the form of the UN Rio+10 conference in 
Johannesburg in September 2002, which our allies may disrupt in the 
event that thousands of people continue dying in South Africa due to 
incompetent, neoliberal water policy.
-- 
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
       Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
         and Editor, World Rivers Review
            International Rivers Network   <'})))>><
               1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
                   Tel. (510) 848 1155   Fax (510) 848 1008
	   http://www.irn.org
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

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----- End of forwarded message from Lori Pottinger -----