WATER ABLAZE - Patagonia Sin Represas

conceals the fact that it is subsidised by water companies. WaterAid
was founded in 1981 by the English water industry and continues to
receive financial support from the industry as well as from the British
government and the EU.
WaterAid has also been active in other ways within the framework
of the MSR. In 2004, an initial interim report was sent out via various
international distributors. I found the appendix particularly fascinating
because it gave a list of MSR members, including Maude Barlow from
Canada, one of the world’s most famous water warriors and recipient
of the Alternative Nobel Prize. Shortly afterwards, she told me that
she was not a member at all but had merely given them her email
address in order to receive further information. The interim report had
transformed this into a “membership”, which, in the light of Maude
Barlow’s international reputation, lends a huge amount of credibility
to the study.
There are grounds for the assumption that the real aim of the
MSR is to integrate water activists from all over the globe in order to
influence the mainstream and gather information and addresses.
In January 2004, at the World Social Forum (WSF) in Mumbai, India,
civil society and politics amalgamated in yet another way. The WSF is
currently the world’s largest conference of civil society organisations,
with over 100,000 participants. According to the WSF’s Charter of
Principles, politicians are only allowed to attend as private individuals.
At a workshop held by Diverse Women for Diversity, an internationallyorganised
women’s network, Kerstin Müller (Alliance 90/The Green
Party) – at the time state minister in the Foreign Office of the Red-
Green German government – addressed a few unscheduled but
friendly words of greeting to those present. The initial reaction was one
of astonishment. This later turned to anger when, on Müller’s return
to Germany, newspapers announced that she had attended the WSF as
the German government’s official representative. She cunningly knew
how to capitalise on her public appearance in Mumbai. In an interview
with the Stuttgarter Zeitung, she at first reiterated the theories of the
opponents of globalisation, but then twisted these arguments to mean
just the opposite by stating that it was crucial that the WTO conferences
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