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Specialists
say that no large center in the Northeast needs the waters of
the São Francisco to supply its population. This is only the
pretext. What is certain is that 70% of the water to be
diverted will go for irrigation, industry, and shrimp farming.
In any event, let’s say that the project will supply twelve
million people in the urban environment. This would be the
noble motivation. What the men behind the diversion don’t
talk about is that in Northeastern Brazil there are 2.2
million families spread throughout the barren lands—the
so-called diffuse population—which means approximately 12
million people. This is the population that lives with
constant insecurity with regard to water, both from the
quantitative and qualitative points of view, as well as in
terms of regularity of access to water.
Diversion
vs. the Human Right to Water
Roberto
Malvezzi (Gogo)*
1 –
The Question
The diversion of the São Francisco is the type of
cadaver that, no matter how many times it’s buried, it is
resuscitated an equal number of times, even if it has the face
of a mummy. The last person to raise it from the tomb was the
Lula government. This time, with an imperial decision to do
so, running like a bullet train over whomever might be on the
tracks. Once started, it isn’t certain if the work will be
completed. If
completed, it isn’t known how long it will last. What is
certain is that it will use up a great deal of public funds
and sow discord in the relations between the northeastern
states. The government doesn’t seem to be aware of the
damage it’s causing.
On
TV the project looks like the redemption of the Northeast. One
PT spot even said that the transfer will “end Northeastern
drought.” This would be laughable if it wasn’t hilarious;
tragic if it wasn’t a disaster. How one party, built on the
blood and sweat of so many poor and dreaming Brazilians could
come to this, only history can attempt to explain. Freud and
Marx certainly can’t explain it.
Well,
one of the promises made for diversion is the human supply of
sedentary populations in the semi-arid zone. The text of the
project itself is contradictory, at times speaking of 12
million persons, at others 8 million, and so on. This would be
for supply of the large urban centers of the Septentrional
Northeast, including Fortaleza. Specialists say that no large
center in the Northeast needs the waters of the São Francisco
to supply its population. This is only the pretext. What is
certain is that 70% of the water to be diverted will go for
irrigation, industry, and shrimp farming. In any event,
let’s say that the project will supply twelve million people
in the urban environment. This would be the noble motivation.
2 –
What the defenders of Diversion don’t say
What the men behind the diversion don’t talk about is
that in Northeastern Brazil there are 2.2 million families
spread throughout the barren lands—the so-called diffuse
population—which means approximately 12 million people. This
is the population that lives with constant insecurity with
regard to water, both from the quantitative and qualitative
points of view, as well as in terms of regularity of access to
water. I have said this before, but this is the migrant
population, the population which figures in the music of Luis
Gonzaga, the paintings of Portinari, the novels of Graciliano
Ramos, the poems of João Cabral de Mello Neto. This
population lives in this state because it doesn’t have the
minimum infrastructure needed to capture water in rainy
seasons and store it for normally rainless seasons. Thus it is
exposed to any variation in nature. In short, this population
has its human right to water permanently, systematically,
massively violated.
Ignoring
this population is the historical and systematic attitude of
all development projects ever proposed for the Northeast.
Insecurity with regard to water cannot be explained without
the “drought industry.” Although widely cited in the
social literature of the Northeast, it doesn’t always
provide an exact picture of what this means. First, it means
the enrichment of a restricted elite with the goods meant to
ameliorate the problems of the poorest sector in times of
drought. But the drought only exists because the population
doesn’t have adequate infrastructure to deal with variations
in a climate such as a semi-arid one. Therefore, the drought
industry signifies the perpetuation of the people’s misery,
principally their need for water and food, in order to sustain
the power of an oligarchy that lives at the expense of popular
misery. Therefore, we are not only facing expertise on
self-enrichment based on the suffering of others, but also a
power-project that sustains itself on thirst and hunger.
3 –
Why, then, don’t the men behind the diversion talk about
this diffuse population?
Precisely because the situation of this population will
not be changed by the Diversion, simply because it is outside
the scope of the project. As we already have said, we will
never really see the transferred water. Thus, what we mean to
say is that drought, carro-pipa,
the migrations, hunger, thirst, all of this will continue as
before in the Colonels’ sertão. When asked, the men behind
the diversion say: “we are going to provide cisterns and
drill deep wells for this population.” The truth is that
this is a verbal concession to justify the diversion, without
any practical consequence. Who really has to deal with
living with the semi-arid conditions, and the supply of water
for human consumption for these populations, is civil society.
From here on, perhaps for many years to come, all federal
resources invested in the Northeast will go to the diversion,
should it go ahead. It won’t only eat up public funds, but
will also block the massive investment required in what would
be necessary. The key problem is that, if the Lula government
doesn’t have a plan for Brazil, much less does it have one
for the semi-arid region. Then it furnishes its
ineffectiveness with a mega-work such as this.
4 –
The priority is the thirsty human being and the watering of
animals
The priority of “human consumption and watering of
animals” is written into our Hydric Resources law no. 9433
of 1997. This is a law based on the economic value of water,
not its biological, environmental, and social value. However,
although restricting human priority for situations of
scarcity, it does give priority to humans and animals.
Legally, therefore, the priority of any governmental action in
the semi-arid region with regard to water, should be to
prioritize those who don’t have even a cup of clean water to
drink. However, contrary to the gist of the law, and to common
sense as well, the government is giving priority to a work
that will carry water to irrigate fruit and grow shrimp.
Without a doubt, this is proof of the government’s attitude
toward human rights in its policies.
This
legal priority is absolutely obvious, as without water no
being can remain alive. It is a natural right. But the water
merchants, both at the national and international levels,
differentiate between natural right and positive right,
recognizing water only as a human need, not a human right.
Astonishingly, they differentiated between need and right. For
the classic right, need was a natural right, without requiring
positive recognition.
5 –
The fight is a global one
Today, recognizing water as a human right is a
globalized battle. However, its recognition suffers resistance
from governments, transnational water enterprises, and
multilateral organisms. They prefer water to be only a need.
Their wisdom is impressive! But it is a way to “draw the
chestnut out of the fire with a cat’s paw”. Not
recognizing water as a human right frees governments from
international monitoring, from being judicially actionable at
the national level, and water enterprises are free to charge
whatever price they want and cut off water supply to whoever
can’t pay for it. In short, everything just the way the
devil likes it, including the globalized devils. Thus, it
isn’t surprising that the Brazilian government is also
attempting to block recognizing water as a human right. This
debate is shown in the changes in water legislation proposed
by the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil. The word from
the central government is: “water as a human right written
in law, no.”
It
must be noted that the Diversion, grounded in the philosophy
that sustains it, fits into today’s globalized mercantile
logic regarding water. What can be called a hydrobusiness.
Thus, we repeat that the Diversion is “the last drought
industry work and the first hydrobusiness work.” Now even
CHESF talks about creating “water auctions,” i.e., it’s
no longer looking to use water for irrigation or shrimp
farming, but to sell it like any other merchandise, as if in
Brazil someone were the owner of our water.
In
this sense, we are no longer confronting simply the Colonels
of the sertão, but powerful interests of the entire world and
the globalized Brazilian elite. When the men behind the
Diversion go unquestioned, they say clearly that the Diversion
will enable fruit production and shrimp farming at more
competitive prices, since production will be much closer to
ports –say, Pecem in Ceará—facilitating access to markets
throughout the world. At this moment, human priority is simply
ignored. When challenged, they raise the flag of the twelve
million people in the urban centers. However, even
economically, this water will be so expensive that, if not
subsidized, it wouldn’t be economically competitive at all.
Today, on the banks of the São Francisco, several Codevasi
settlements are unsuccessful precisely because they can’t
manage to pay the price for water and maintenance of
irrigation infrastructure. In short, the pretext is the
people, the objective is the market.
However,
marrying practice and theory, diversion and water as a human
right, we are in the early stages, as always. Even this time
around we won’t have a serious development project for the
Brazilian in the semi-arid region. As for those who live in a
state of hydric insecurity in our region, they are still going
to be very thirsty. Those who defend water as a human right
are still nothing more than a drop of fresh water in a salt
water ocean.
*
Roberto Malvezzi is a member of the National Coordinating
(Committee) of the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT).
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