Hydraulic ram pumps and Sling Pumps

War and waterAbout the ICRC | ICRC activities | The ICRC worldwide | Focus | Humanitarian law | Info resources | NewsFrançais Español PortuguêsHome > NewsPrint this page25-03-1999 ICRC News 99/12War and waterAdvanced SearchContacts | Site map | IndexWar and water have always been inextricably linked. The logic is clear: destroy youropponents' access to water and you reduce their ability to fight. In the arid Middle East,many analysts believe that one of the region's more intractable, underlying disputes is overthe control of water courses. Yitzhak Rabin, the former Israeli Prime Minister, once saidthat "if we solve every other problem in the Middle East, but do not satisfactorily resolvethe water problem, our region will explode". The poor state of Afghan agriculture - and hencethe poverty of the bulk of the population - is in no small measure due to the destruction ofthe centuries old irrigation canals following the Soviet invasion in 1979.“For the last thousand years, every Thursday at noon seven men in solemn black have takentheir places on high thrones before one of the side doors of the Cathedral of Valencia,Spain”, writes Liesl Graz in the ICRC's latest publication, War and Water. These men, thejudges of the "Water Tribunal", are elected to preside over the water channels that bringlife to the city and richness to the surrounding countryside, which would otherwise be abarren plain. It is said to be the oldest judicial institution still functioning in Europe,if not in the world.In parched areas, control over water means power.Disagreements between States on how to share water from the rivers Jordan, Tigris andEuphrates have compounded broader political differences. Questions of access to water fromthe Ganges, Mekong and Nile have the potential to increase tension between upstream anddownstream States.However, predictions that future wars will be fought over water, rather than, for instance,oil, have fallen short of the mark. This despite, as the World Bank points out, the fact thatabout 40% of the world’s population lives in the 250 river basins shared by more than onecountry.The truth appears, as ever, more complex. While possession of water represents power, itsscarcity can foreshadow deeper, societal problems. “Shortages reduce food production,aggravate poverty and disease, spur large migrations and undermine a State’s moral authorityand capacity to govern. Over time, these stresses can tear apart a poor society’s socialfabric, causing chronic popular unrest and violence”, writes Thomas Homer-Dixon, of theUniversity of Toronto.“Scarcity of water will not so much be the source of conflict as will be the inability ofgovernments to reconcile contending interests”, writes Randolph Kent, a policy adviser onhumanitarian matters. “There is a growing concern that more and more States no longer havethe capacity to resolve the contending interests that have emerged in modern, complexsocieties”, he adds.Water is synonymous with life. Even during war and its aftermath water and access to watermust be treated with at least a modicum of respect.War and Water is the first issue of an annual ICRC publication called Forum. The articles,http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/iwpList74/451C87A1F12EDC2CC1256B66005C9DF2 (1 of 2) [1/13/2005 12:44:59 PM]