Two months ago, the II International Conference of People Affected by Dams and their Allies was held in the community of Rasi Salai, Thailand.  More than 300 people from 62 countries from all of the world’s continents met to share experiences and to analyse the effects of dams and strategies to fight them.  The Meso-American Delegation that was selected during the Second Meso-American Conference Against Dams in La Esperanza, Honduras last July, was present at this conference.  Fronts and organizations from Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico attended this conference.  Indigenous and campesino (small-scale farmer) groups among others from Mexico, attended, as representatives of the Chiapas Front Against Dams and of the fronts against dams in the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca.

Among the countries present at the Second Conference were:  Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Senegal, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Togo, Zimbabwe, China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Latvia, Laos, Holland, Norway, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, England, Ireland, Belize, Costa Rica, Mexico, Honduras, the United States, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Australia, New Zealand, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Greece and Colombia. 

The theme is relevant now that the construction of hydroelectric dams in the region of Plan Puebla-Panama (PPP) is strengthening even as the resistance struggles intensify.  Today in Mexico, struggles against the Arcediano dam in Jalisco are being held while in Guerrero campesinos and indigenous peoples are opposing being displaced by the La Parota dam project.  In Oaxaca, campesinos that were displaced by the construction of the Benito Juarez dam years ago are again being threatened by its expansion and by the construction of a new highway under the PPP framework.

More than 45 000 large dams have been constructed throughout the world representing more than half the rivers of the planet; rivers that have been left fragmented.  More than 80 million people have been displaced from their lands.  In China, it is calculated that large dams have displaced 27% of all the people displaced by development projects which include bridges, highways, urban expansion, etc..  In India, the statistic is 77%.  Among the projects financed by the World Bank (WB) and which have resulted in the displacement of peoples from their place of origin, dams were the cause of 65% of these displacements according to the World Dams Commission (WDC).  This statistic does not include people displaced by other aspects of the projects such as the building of canals, electricity plants, project infrastructure and associated compensatory measures such as biological reserves.

Lands, jungles and forests have been left under water and with them, many plant and animal species have disappeared.  This is the cost of so-called development.  Accompanying this is the theft through privatization of the hydroelectric dams, water sources, rivers and distribution and commercialization infrastructure.  The companies, Vivendi and Suez, already control the water and its price that is consumed by 100 million people around the world.  But Tractebel and Coca-Cola have their eyes on this vital liquid.  For their part, the transnationals, Endesa, Fenosa Union and Iberdrola, have monopolized the privatizations of electrical energy and the distribution networks in the PPP region.  Nonetheless, people continue to not have light, electrical energy and are more and more impoverished.

According to the World Rainforest Movement with headquarters in Uruguay, dams, “have flooded millions of hectares of forests – especially in tropical zones – and in many cases the trees were not even cut beforehand but were left to their slow decomposition.  The reservoirs also provoke deforestation in other places, given that farmers displaced by dams have had to cut forests in other zones in order to set-up their crops and build their homes.  Moreover, dams imply the construction of roads, allowing in this way, loggers and “development agents” access to previously remote areas thus generating ulterior deforestation processes.”  It adds:  “In Brazil alone, large dams have had a direct impact on approximately one million people who have seen their lands and the lifestyles destroyed.  Hundreds of indigenous communities from Chile to Mexico have been forcibly expelled from their ancestral and sacred lands.  The people who are at the point of losing everything due to these projects should have the fundamental right to say “NO” to the proponents of dams, the power to veto inappropriate projects, and the power to insist on development alternatives that do not increase human suffering.”

This year the anti-dam movement is intensifying.  In Jalisco, Oaxaca, Guerrero and Chiapas, there will be conferences, marches and mobilizations against dams.  Specifically in Chiapas, there will be the Third Chiapas Conference on Neoliberalism from March 18^th-20^th in the community of Huitiupan where for years the people have been resisting the construction of the Itzantun dam which would flood more than 11 000 hectares of campesino lands.  Organizations that are fighting against dams in other parts of the country will attend the conference.  Elsewhere, in Oaxaca the First National Conference Against Dams will be inaugurated in 2004 just as the Third Meso-American Conference is being prepared in El Salvador.

As we can see, this is not just a local problem with the dam projects of Usumacinta and Boca del Cerro in the Lacandon jungle or that of Cajon in Nayarit; or the “El Tigre” dam in San Salvador or in Boruca, Costa Rica, among the dozens and dozens of hydroelectric projects in the PPP region.  This is a global problem.  Even considering that the millions of people that have been affected throughout the world can’t be wrong, there are still those who defend this model of development.  The electrical energy that some of us enjoy has been at the cost of the lives and tragedy for millions of people, millions of flooded hectares and the many climatic impacts that we experience today.  This energy, that yesterday was constructed at the cost of millions of dollars of debt carried on the backs of the people and enriching many companies with corruption, now has been privatized for greater wealth.  Now many Central American families live with the consequences of electrical privatization:  the high cost of energy, poor services, poor quality, continuous power cuts and blackouts.

For these reasons, participants from all of the continents in Rasi Salai are preparing for a world-wide mobilization on March 14^th, the International Day Against Dams.  Last year in Chiapas, there were protests against dams in commemoration of the day which, year after year, has been celebrated since 1997.  Here we present the text of the Rasi Salai Declaration.

THE RASI SALAI DECLARATION

Passed at the Second International Conference of People Affected by Dams and their Allies (Rasi Salai, Thailand, November 28^th to December 4^th, 2003).

THE INSPIRATIONS OF RASI SALAI

We, the more than 300 people of 62 countries of the large and widespread world, people affected by and struggling against destructive dams and activists for the sustainable use of water and a fair use of energy, have gathered in Rasi Salai.  We have met in lands that are being restored to life after having been flooded by dams.  The floodgates of this dam are open today and the river is flowing once again.  The crops have matured, the fish have returned and the life of the community is flourishing once again.  The people of Thailand affected by dams offer us and all the world a great example of determination and struggle to preserve rivers, identity, culture and territory.

Waters for life, not for death! The call made at the First International Conference for People Affected by Dams, carried out in Curitiba, Brazil in 1997, has been achieved in Rasi Salai, Thailand.

OUR ACHIEVEMENTS

Since Curitiba, we have progressed significantly in our struggles.  In the valleys, the movements and direct action of the affected people have challenged the dam industry, governments and financial institutions.  The international movement against dams has demonstrated its ability to challenge them on technical, political and moral aspects.  We have stopped dam construction and dismantled some dams.  In some areas we have achieved the recognition of the right to fair reparation.

We, the allies and the people affected by dams, have insisted on our right to make decisions and to be active players in our own history.

With success, community management of water that is socially and environmentally just is being carried out.  We welcome the rapid advances of new renewable energy technologies and the methods of management on behalf of demand.

The impressive growth of our struggle has been possible due to the articulation, each time stronger, among indigenous peoples, base movements and NGOs (non-governmental organizations), and between civil society of the North and the South.  We have also united in solidarity in the fight against global neoliberalism and for a better world.

The process of the World Dams Commission is a key achievement of the last six years.  The Commission’s report is a sharp critique of large dams, and its recommendations constitute an adequate framework for the processes of making democratic, transparent and accountable decisions.

OUR CHALLENGES

In the past we were told that large dams would bring development.  Now they maintain the lie that large dams are indispensable for the “alleviation” of poverty and to close the gap between the North and the South.  However, the past 50 years have demonstrated that all of this is a big fraud, the global era of the large dams has been characterized by increasing and unacceptable inequality between the rich and the poor and between the North and the South.

We denounce the fallacy that hydroelectric energy and large dams are essential for stopping global warming and for adapting the planet to its impacts.

Indigenous peoples have been disproportionately plundered and affected by the savage exploitation of their territories, lands and resources.  The use of violence, including militarization, to implement these projects constitutes a flagrant assault on human rights and a threat to their survival.

Privatization continues to grow, despite more than a decade of spectacular failures at global levels.  We strongly oppose privatization because this system subordinates rivers and water, givers of life, to corporate interests and market logic.

The diversion of watersheds, interconnections of rivers and other water mega-projects, demonstrates the incapacity of dam promoters to learn from the impacts and failures of these monumental Pharoah-like projects.

The transfer of electro-intensive industries, such as the aluminium industry, from the North to the South, from central to peripheral countries, imposes on the latter, high economic costs, growing external debt and the severe impacts of mega-projects.

OUR DEMANDS

The shared experiences of these five days of rich exchange allows us to agree that:

·         We reaffirm the principles and demands of the Curitiba Declaration of 1997.

·         We oppose the construction of all socially and environmentally destructive dams.  We oppose the construction of any dam that has not been approved by the affected peoples after a duly informed and participative process, and which does not satisfy the basic needs that have been prioritized by these same communities. 

·         We demand full respect of indigenous knowledge and traditional management of resources and their collective rights to self-determination and liberty, and their prior and informed consent in the planning and decisions regarding water and energy.

·         Gender equity should be respected in all policies, programs and projects regarding water and energy.

·         We demand the end to all forms of violence and intimidation against people threatened and affected by dams and the organizations that oppose said dams.

·         Compensation should be given and negotiated with the millions of people that have suffered due to the dams, including provisions for land, housing and adequate social infrastructure.  The builders and proponents of the dams are the ones who should pay for the compensation.

·         Actions should be taken, including the dismantling of dams, to restore ecosystems and lifestyles that have been damaged by dams.

·         We reject the privatization of the energy and water sectors.  We demand effective and democratic public control and regulation of electricity and water services.

·         Governments, financial institutions, exportation credit agencies and corporations should meet the recommendations of the World Dams Commission, in particular those that refer to public acceptance and informed consent, compensation and the comprehensive evaluation of needs and options.  It is indispensable that the recommendations be incorporated into national policies and legislation.

·         Governments and businesses should strongly invest in research and the application of energy technologies and sustainable water management.  Governments should implement policies that discourage waste and over-consumption and they should guarantee equal distribution of wealth.

·         We demand that the construction of water diversion projects in watersheds and other hydrological mega-projects be stopped.

·         The international carbon market should be ended.

·         Navigation routes should follow the principle of “adapting the boats to the river and not the river to the boats.”

We Commit Ourselves to:

·         Intensifying our fights and campaigns against dams and for the reparation and restoration of watersheds.

·         Working to implement water and energy management methods at a global level such as the collection of rainwater and community renewable energy models.

·         Continuous renewal of diverse traditions and knowledge regarding water, and practical learning, especially for our children and youth.

·         Strengthening exchanges between activists and movements that work on dams, water and energy, including reciprocal visits and exchanges with people affected by dams in different countries

·         Fortifying our movements and unifying them with others that struggle against the neoliberal development model and for global, ecological and social justice.

·        Celebrating the International Day of Action Against Dams and for Rivers, Water and Life (March 14^th) each year.  We call upon movements of the people affected by dams and their allies, and other social movements and NGOs, to co-ordinate  common actions on March 14^th, 2004, the day of protest against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in solidarity with the protests against said institution on its sixtieth anniversary.

Our fight against destructive dams and the existing model of water and energy management is also a struggle against a social order dominated by the imperative to maximize profits and it is a struggle for a society based on equality and solidarity.

Another model of energy and water management is possible!
Water for life, not for death!

Here ends the Rasi Salai Declaration.  The World Dams Commission (WDC) documented that in the 17^th century, irritated fishermen attempted to destroy a dam that had been recently built.  In 1910, John Muir tried, without success, to swing public opinion into opposing the construction of the dam in California, United States.  After the fifties, opposition to dams spread out to the world with greater organization.  In this decade they managed to stop two dams in the Grand Canyon and the Echo Park dam on the Colorado River that would have been 173 meters high, similar to the height of the El Cajon dam begun in the states of Nayarit and Jalisco and that will be the great work of president Vicente Fox.  But the force of reason and society have managed in all of history to stop dam constructions, dismantle others and leave open the floodgates.  Just as they have achieved compensation for those affected by the dams. 

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