WATER ABLAZE - Patagonia Sin Represas

passed by 189 heads of state and government at the UN Millennium
Summit in New York in the year 2000. These goals are to be achieved by
2015 and contribute towards a more just world and an improvement in
living conditions for all people. Millennium goal No. 7 refers directly to
water: the number of people who have no sustainable access to healthy
drinking water is to be cut by half. What sounds reasonable enough at
first is nothing other than the promotion of trade and commerce under
the guise of humanitarian aid at the taxpayer’s expense. On closer
examination, it turns out to be one of the greatest cover-up campaigns
of the present day, intended to pave the way for multinational giants to
get their hands on water supplies in the Third World. 64
Even after the end of the Red-Green coalition government, the raid
on water supplies continued unabated. On June 13, 2006, Michael Glos
(CSU), Minister of Economics, spoke at the main conference of the
National Association of the German Gas and Water Industry and the
National Union of German Gas and Water Experts in Dresden, and
emphasised “Germany’s responsibility for solving the global water
crisis and our role in the international water market”. At the same
time, he argued that the current small-scale subdivisions within the
German water industry would have to be overcome, since this petty
way of thinking was no longer able to meet today’s demands for
efficiency and competitiveness. Something would have to be done at
last about relaxing the domestic principle, which ties local authority
enterprises to their existing locations. A renunciation of the rigid
domestic principle would allow these businesses to become more
involved at international level.
Glos also commented on the sewage disposal sector, which big
companies have been longing to get their hands on for some time
now: the time had come to amend the laws of the individual states
to authorise the legal transfer of the sewage disposal branch from
local authority control to private third parties. Regarding the existing
exemption of the sewage disposal sector from sales tax, Glos stated:
“This tax discrimination between the drinking water and sewage
disposal sectors 65 will not be able to withstand the critical gaze of
the EU guardians of competition and those private companies keen to
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