WATER ABLAZE - Patagonia Sin Represas

not been delivered. In practice, however, this regulation is ineffective
because authorities are unwilling to endorse it.
As things stand, the process of water privatisation will continue in
Indonesia. In November 2004, the so-called Law No. 7 was brought
into force. Drawn up under pressure from the World Bank, the law
permits water privatisation at national level and even contains details
about influencing the weather. Article 38 states that foreign investors
can propose and, if necessary, implement a change in weather. What at
first sounds like a big joke might possibly prove highly interesting for
agriculture, for example, because clouds could be directed to wherever
rain was needed.
Citizens’ action groups and NGOs in Indonesia are fighting against
privatisation projects, but are very understandably allowing themselves
to be intimidated. Time and time again, there are reports of people
going missing or civil rights campaigners being tortured. The most
prominent victim in recent times was the human rights lawyer and
recipient of the Alternative Nobel Prize, Munir Said Thalib, who was
poisoned by a dose of arsenic on a flight from Jakarta to Amsterdam on
September 7, 2004. The culprit, Polycarpus Priyanto, was a pilot with
the state airline Garuda Indonesia and an employee of the national
secret service at the same time. He was said to have acted “singlehandedly”
and sent to prison for 14 years. In October 2006, however,
the verdict was repealed and the sentence commuted to a shorter term
of only two years.
All the facts indicate that Priyanto received his orders from certain
circles. Munir’s work focused on investigating killings carried out by
special army units belonging to the Suharto regime. The lawyer had
also collaborated with Kontras, a commission representing missing
people and victims of violence. Those close to former dictator Suharto
might well be the very ones interested in preventing the past being
unravelled and brought to light.
Munir’s opponents acted in a heavy-handed way even before his
murder. In 2001, a parcel bomb was sent to his parents’ home; in 2002,
a gang of thugs demolished his office; and in 2003, a parcel bomb
exploded outside the family’s front door. Friends and other human
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