BECHTEL AND BLOOD FOR WATER IN IRAQ

The introduction into Iraq of Bechtel, a company which has a history of aggravating water conflict, is a recipe for disaster and long-lasting water wars, writes Vandana Shiva, author, international campaigner for women and the environment, and recipient of the Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize) in 1993. Its 680-million-dollar contract for rebuilding Iraq includes but is not limited to \'\'municipal water systems and sewage systems, major irrigation structures, and the dredging, repair and upgrading of the Umm Qasr seaport\'\'. In this article for IPS, the author writes that if we go by the record of the company\'s water privatisation experience in Bolivia, Bechtel will try to control the water resources, not just the water works of Iraq, claiming ownership of the Tigris and Euphrates. The executives at Bechtel have thirsted for control over Iraq for over 20 years. In 1983 Donald Rumsfeld, Reagan administration \'\'special Middle East envoy\'\', met with Hussein to discuss a massive pipeline project proposed by Bechtel. Hussein eventually rejected the Bechtel proposal. Now again Donald Rumsfeld has \'\'taken care of business\'\' for Bechtel. As secretary of defence, he has overseen the war to remove the obstacle and Bechtel is rolling in.

US-CENTRAL AMERICAN TRADE PACT: NEW BANANA REPUBLICANISM

United States banana republicanism is alive and well, and coming back to Guatemala, the US\'s first banana republic, writes Raj Patel, Policy Analyst at Food First/The Institute for Food and Development Policy, based in Oakland, California. From May 12-15, United States Trade Representative Robert Zoellick will be negotiating a new deal with Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua known as the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). In this analysis for IPS, the author writes that farmers in the region vehemently oppose the agreement. They recognize that they stand little chance of being able to compete against the massively -subsidized US agribusiness machine. The 2002 US Farm Bill apportioned USD 180 billion in new subsidies over ten years; the total GDP for all five countries last year was just under USD 140 billion. The loudest cries of protest have come from the agricultural sectors in these economies. But the luxury of dissent isn\'t one afforded to the five CAFTA countries: if they agree to CAFTA by the end of the year they will simultaneously commit themselves to the FTAA. At a time when criticism of US foreign policy is deemed \'\'giving comfort to the enemy\'\', the grievances of the least powerful are likely to be swept under the rug. Protests by farmers in Central America continue to be censored, ignored, or met with retribution.

PEACE BREAKS OUT IN SOUTH ASIA

Suddenly, after years of hostility and mistrust, peace seems to be breaking out all over the South East Asian subcontinent, writes Kunda Dixit, editor and publisher of the Nepali Times newspaper in Kathmandu. In this analysis the author writes that India and Pakistan are, once more, trying to make up, a fragile ceasefire in Sri Lanka has now held for more than a year, and in Nepal the government and Maoist rebels are trying to find a negotiated settlement. The olive branch appears to have come from Indian prime minister Vajpayee\'s effort to go down in history as a man of peace and not someone who oversaw a wasteful nuclear arms race with Pakistan and the rise of Hindu revivalists. When he dramatically announced in parliament last month that he was willing to give peace \'\'a third and last try\'\', the offer was immediately seized upon by the Pakistani side.

ATTENTION EDITORS AND CORRESPONDENTS: WE ARE DISTRIBUTING BELOW A NEW COLUMN BY VANDANA SHIVA ON IRAQ AND THE TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATION BECHTEL. THE FIRST COLUMN WAS DISTRIBUTED ON 21.05.03.: WAR AS GLOBALISATION BY OTHER MEANS

Little more than two months from the start of the war against Iraq, the real victor is emerging: Bechtel, with its 680-million- dollar contract for \'\'rebuilding\'\' Iraq, writes Vandana Shiva, author, international campaigner for women and the environment, and recipient of the Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize) in 1993. In a period of declining economic growth and a slowing of the globalisation juggernaut, war has become a convenient excuse for enlarging corporate rule, Shiva writes in this article. In essence, Bechtel was given a license to make money in a closed-door process restricted to a handful of politically-connected US companies. The Bechtel contract and the Iraq war which created the opportunity for \'\'reconstruction\'\' profits highlight the lack of democracy, transparency, and accountability in the way economic and political decisions are made by a US administration which has become indistinguishable from US corporations. A regime in which government becomes the instrument of corporate interests is no longer a democracy.

PROFITS OF DOOM: TO THE DESPOILERS GO THE SPOILS

If anyone outside the US harboured lingering doubts about the motives behind the invasion of Iraq, they were surely put to rest recently by the shameless profiteering of Bush administration officials and their extended financial family in both the destruction and reconstruction of Iraq, writes Mark Sommer, internationally-syndicated columnist and radio host who directs the Mainstream Media Project, a US-based effort to bring new voices and innovative ideas to the broadcast media. In this article for IPS, the author writes that the double burden of bearing massive reconstruction costs for Iraq while enduring the deconstruction of their own schools, hospitals, roads, police and fire protection can\'t help but produce severe cognitive dissonance even in the sleepwalking centre of American politics. The United States is rich, but not so rich that it can sustain both an empire and a democracy. Facing such public pressures, and never much interested in reconstructing anything Iraqi other than its oil fields, the Bush team may quietly abandon the effort altogether. We need only consider its last conquest, Afghanistan, to see a nation \'\'seduced and abandoned\'\' by an empire too busy making new messes to clean up its old.

‘ROAD MAP’ TO PEACE — OR TO ENDLESS STRIFE?

The formation of a new Palestinian government complies with one of the conditions imposed by President Bush for presenting his \'\'road map\'\' for peace in the Middle East envisaging a separate Palestinian state by 2005, writes Kaare Willoch, former Prime Minister of Norway. But even this plan cannot produce lasting results if it breaks earlier promises to the weaker party, the author writes in this article for IPS. There is reason to fear that the \'\'road map\'\' in the first round will call only for the removal of settlements established after March 2001 and an end to all further expansion within the occupied territories. But keeping the earlier Israeli settlements will make it impossible to establish a Palestinian state within borders that could render it viable. Accommodating Israel on this point is a certain path to lasting conflict. Under such circumstances, demands to make all further advances conditional on a complete cessation of violence will give the extremist groups veto power over peace. The Americans do not seem to realise that such demands represent a flight from reality.

IRAQ, THE DOLLAR AND THE EURO

In even the best-laid human plans, events rarely unfold as predicted, even by experts. One surprise scenario is rooted in the close relationship between oil, dollars, gold, and the euro, writes Hazel Henderson, author of \'\'Beyond Globalisation\'\', \'\'Building a Win-Win World\'\', and other books. In this article, the author writes that countries that formerly held mostly US dollars in their currency reserves have begun to diversify into euros, where they perceive less risky fundamentals. What happens if global investors continue pulling out of the US and the dollar keeps falling? What if OPEC decides to officially re-denominate their oil in euros, since most of the their customers are in Europe anyway? The US, heavily dependent on imported oil, benefits considerably from OPEC\'s US dollar pricing.

GLOBAL DISSENT CONTINUES TO GROW

Media around the world have shown the pictures of peaceful American protesters in Oakland, California, fired on by the local police with wooden dowels, bean bags, and concussion and \'\'sting grenades\'\' -- more evidence of the hypocrisy of America\'s claim to be a democracy, champion of human rights, and a nation of civil liberties, writes Anuradha Mittal, Co-Director of Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy, Oakland, California. In this analysis for IPS, the author writes that dissent is growing to new levels as national leaders abdicate their responsibility as elected officials and turn into warmongers. Tens of thousands of American citizens have turned in petitions calling for the impeachment of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Attorney General John Ashcroft for committing war crimes and failing to uphold the American Constitution. The global movement for peace will keep growing until there is an end to this illegitimate war, until Bush, Blair, and Howard are tried for crimes against humanity. It will make the US a true member of the global community that abides by human rights conventions, disarmament agreements, International Criminal Court rules, and the Kyoto protocol.

WILL UNILATERALISM DESTROY THE UN?

Closely following world events, I fear that unilateralism may destroy the United Nations, writes Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1991-1995. To a certain extent, the UN plays the role of scapegoat, the author writes. The real problem is that the UN is not able to speak up. How can it defend itself by saying that a given dispute is due to Member State A when Member State A is its boss? If it were to use diplomatic weapons, it would have to say Country A is responsible. But Country A could then retaliate by stoping paying its dues and thus marginalising the whole UN machinery. The fact that we are confronted by new problems means there is a need for a drastic change in the UN. We must prepare ourselves for the third generation of international organisations, to succeed the UN as it succeeded the League of Nations. The third generation will not come about by changing the composition of the Security Council or by revolutionising the operation of the General Assembly by through drastic change in the overall concept. The change needed is to obtain the participation of non-State actors in international affairs. We will not be able to solve certain problems without the participation of, let us say, big cities, or non-governmental organisations, or multinational corporations.

THE USA/UK-IRAQ WAR: HOW ABOUT PEACE JOURNALISM?

There is a Latin proverb that reads, \'\'audiatur et altera pars\'\' -- listen to the other side too, write Johan Galtung, professor of Peace Studies and director of TRANSCEND, a peace and development network, and Dietrich Fischer, professor at Pace University and Co-director of TRANSCEND. The failure to do so was the fundamental mistake of the US and UK and lead to their misjudging the likely course of their war against Iraq. They became victims of their own propaganda, the authors write in this article. Peace journalism starts with two questions: what is the underlying conflict about? And are there any possible peaceful solutions to that conflict? Could a solution be a Kurdistan based on a confederation of autonomies in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey? With double citizenship and passports for Kurds? How about giving more reality to the ten nation Economic Cooperation Organization, extending from Turkey to Afghanistan, 12 million square kilometres, maybe 400 million inhabitants, with enormous potential?

US WAR A GREAT STEP BACKWARDS FOR HUMANITY

The war US President Bush is waging against Iraq is the most senseless and illegitimate war in recent history, not only because none of the arguments presented as justification are valid but also because it is a violation of the law and of the consensus of the majority of the peoples and governments of the world, writes Rigoberta Menchu, 1992 Nobel Peace Prize recipient and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. The offensive now destroying Iraq places the United States, its top government officials, and their allies in the dock for violation of international law. The United Nations should defend not only its code of law, tainted by the capriciousness and arrogance of the US; it must also take concrete steps to translate the universal condemnation into an exemplary moral and political sanction. With the world dominated by the hegemonic muscle-flexing of a government that has proclaimed itself the sole Global Power, it is necessary that people unify and mobilise to oppose the New Imperial Disorder with a new order of harmony, understanding, and intercultural respect. And we must hope that the world\'s democratic governments restore the validity and authority of the multilateral institutions, which have been gravely damaged by the unilateral declaration of war by the Bush administration.

INTERVIEW WITH FERNANDO SAVATER: ‘BUSH IS NOT ON THE SIDE OF CIVILISATION’

The current war is not a response to either an invasion or to a United Nations decision but rather a long-term geopolitical strategy of the United States, states the writer and philosophy professor Fernando Savater, a leader of the Basta Ya movement, which represents the victims of terrorism in the Basque Country. In this interview for IPS, Savater argues, \'\'the rule of international law, however precarious, must be respected for political, not ethical, reasons. The war against Iraq has nothing to do with terrorism. No one could believe such an improbable and unsubstantiated linkage.\'\' \'\'The major political challenge of the 21st century is to establish international organisations for governance, education, justice, cooperation, etc., on a planetary scale. Today the dividing line between civilisation and technologised barbarism lies in this effort. I fear that Bush, disgracefully, is not on the side of civilisation.\'\'

WANTED: THREE MILLION PEOPLE ALIVE

World Water Day -- celebrated each year on 22 March -- provides us with an opportunity to recognise the centrality of water to our daily lives, to poverty reduction, to our environment, and to the sustainable development of nations, writes Sir Richard Jolly, chair of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC). In this article for IPS, Jolly writes that top-down, supply-driven approaches to provide water and sanitation services have not worked, while treating water as a free good to be delivered weakens good water management including cost recovery and water conservation. Present levels of international aid going to water, sanitation, and hygiene are estimated at about five billion dollars per year. Yet Third World governments are spending roughly the same again. The author calls for a doubling of this level of investment and raising the share of national and international resources going to services in slums and urban shanty-towns and in rural areas. Better water, sanitation, and hygiene were and are the basis of better health in the industrialised nations. Without them, no amount of drugs, doctors, or hospitals will lift public health onto an equivalent level in the developing world.

A DARK MOMENT

It is difficult not to feel despair and powerlessness at this awful juncture, write Archbishop Desmond Tutu, recipient of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, and Ian Urbina, associate editor at the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP) in Washington DC. In this article for IPS, the authors write that millions in the world fought with all their hearts and minds to avoid the violence ensuing in Iraq. Never in history has there been such an outpouring of resistance before a war had even begun. This doctrine of moral and popular preemption must be sustained. This is the beginning not the end of heightened vigilance. With war, domestic civil liberties face their greatest threat. We must not squelch the right to protest under the pressures of patriotism. World attention has for the last months fixated on the desire for a diplomatic and United Nations solution. If we want lasting peace and security in the Middle East, if we want international law to hold any meaning, we must begin to require that UN resoltions are applied uniformly across all countries. In Iraq, we must watch to see that the promises for a truly functioning democracy are honoured, that the long-term commitment for rebuilding is provided.

BRAZIL CAN WIN THE WAR AGAINST HUNGER

Brazil has set itself the goal of eliminating hunger within four years and, in President Lula\'s first week in office, decided to postpone the 700-plus million-dollar purchase of jet fighters to help pay for it, writes Jacques Diouf, director-general of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). In this article for IPS, Diouf writes that Brazil\'s greatest enemies are the poverty and hunger within its borders, not military threats from its neighbours. It is in everyone\'s interest, rich and poor, to eliminate hunger. In the view of the FAO, hunger is as much a cause as an effect of poverty. As long as large numbers of the population are hungry -- and thus unable to study or work properly and likely to die young -- it is fanciful to assume that it will reach its full potential for economic growth. Getting rid of hunger is not simply a moral obligation but also an investment that is bound to generate very high returns on the relatively modest sums involved. In the global war against hunger, everyone will be a winner. Brazil is now showing the world that if you are really determined to eliminate hunger, it is both possible and not excessively costly.

THE KOREAN PENINSULA: A TRANSCEND PERSPECTIVE

(By Johan Galtung and Dietrich Fischer) German poet Goethe once said: \'\'People behave the way you treat them.\'\' To a large extent, this applies also in international relations, write Johan Galtung, Professor of Peace Studies and Director of TRANSCEND, a peace and development network, and Dietrich Fischer, Professor at Pace University and Co-director of TRANSCEND. In this article for IPS, the authors write that Bush\'s inclusion of North Korea with Iraq and Iran in the \'\'axis of evil\'\' made North Korea more belligerent, as even the US government now seems to recognise. The hawk/dove balance in North Korea can be tilted by the hawk/dove balance exerted by the US, South Korea, Japan and China, and to some extent by Russia. Fischer and Galtung recommend five steps to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula: Continuation of Sunshine Policy; Regime change in North Korea, like in China, heading for more democracy and human rights; a One nation/two states Confederation on the Korean Peninsula; a Conference for Security and Cooperation in Northeast Asia; foreign troop withdrawl from the Korean Peninsula. What helped end the cold war in Europe was a gradual mutual opening to the flow of ideas, goods and people. The same policy can work in Korea.

PROTECTIONISM – BAD MEDICINE, WRONG DIAGNOSIS

A phantom is stalking the globalised world and threatening to turn back history: protectionism, which made a big comeback in 2002, writes Benedetto della Vedova, a deputy in the European Parliament for the Transnational Radical Party. US president George W. Bush was the first to try this dance, beginning with tariffs on steel and then gigantic subsidies for agriculture. But the protectionist wind is blowing in Europe too (and not only in agriculture) where the economic crisis is provoking calls for state intervention and trade protectionism. Given that the transferral of traditional industries and production of intermediate goods to countries with lower production costs have benefitted, not harmed, the industrialised countries, Vedova argues that their invocation of protectionist policy is indefensible. The author agues that the industrialised countries should accept, whatever the consequences, the challenge of achieving production excellence in keeping with the new international division of labour. To do so it is necessary to renew systems that have aged to the verge of paralysis and make major investments in research and development. Financing for these changes could come in part from agricultural subsidies, which devour over 40 percent of the EU budget and force European consumers to spend far more one food than they would in a free market.

LEGAL ACTION THREATENED TO BLOCK IRAQ WAR

While the Bush administration was boasting recently that other countries will join a war against Iraq, fast increasing majorities in Britain and much of the rest of the world were telling their governments not to do so, writes Fredrik S. Heffermehl, Norwegian lawyer, International Peace Bureau consultant, and author of \'\'Peace is Possible\'\'. In this article for IPS, the author writes that several governments have even been threatened with legal action to stop them from taking any part in the US war. Notice of legal action was served upon the prime ministers of Britain and Canada last week, warning government officials to respect the 1998 Rome Treaty or face prosecution before the new International Criminal Court. Bush may face his toughest challenge at home if anyone in Congress accepts an offer from international law professor Francis Boyle to assist in impeaching the president for unlawful threats. \'\'The Bush doctrine of pre-emptive warfare or pre-emptive attack in alleged self-defence was rejected soundly in 1945 in the Nuremberg Judgment, \'\' Boyle says. The strong prohibition against power between nations has taken centuries to establish. The purpose of the UN is to avoid wars and the power to veto military action is an intentional component of its design. No state can claim a right to attack because it finds that the Security Council has proved unable to act, Heffermehl writes.

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS: LEADERS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

Progress depends on more than high-level cooperation among global decision-takers, writes Klaus Schwab, founder and president of the World Economic Forum. It also requires a different kind of leader, Schwab writes in this article for IPS -- one that has contributed to social transformation by applying entrepreneurial skills to address a wide array of social challenges at the local level. These leaders are called social entrepreneurs. Social entrepreneurs enter the scene precisely where markets have failed to deliver critical public goods and services, particularly to those who cannot pay. Without market assistance, social entrepreneurs create the social value underpinning the productive healthy societies upon which sustainable development depends. The World Economic Forum uses its leverage such that the scalable solutions of social entrepreneurs can be replicated, improved, and expanded, so that their practical insights can be incorporated into government policy and business initiatives, Schwab writes.

THE DELIBERATE GLOBALISATION OF DEBT AND ITS DIVIDEND OF RUIN

The central component of what has been widely defined as \'\'globalisation\'\' is the transformation of the global economy into one of unsustainable debts in which the finance sector plays a dominant role, writes Anne Pettifor, director of The Jubilee Research programme and former director of Jubilee 2000 Coalition UK. In this article for IPS, the author argues that this transformation was the intended result of government action. The US trade deficit had to be financed, and the US was determined to finance it without lowering living standards or ceding its policy autonomy to foreign creditors. Capital controls had to be lifted so the US could access foreign capital markets. The City of London, backed by the UK government, was only too happy to broker financing for the US deficit, first through the \'\'stateless\'\' Eurodollar market based in London. We should be prepared for the economic, environmental, and social degradation associated with destruction of the \'\'credit bubble\'\', in particular widespread depression and deflation. However, we cannot do so if our analysis of the forces at play in the global economy is wrong, or if we play into the hands of the finance sector by ignoring it. Above all we should be prepared to shape the alternative: a world in which the finance sector and markets in general are once again subordinated to environmental, social, and political priorities, determined locally and democratically.

THE OFFENSIVE OF THE EMPIRE AND THE REACTION OF THE PEOPLES

The upcoming Third World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, will take place in a world marked by growing militarisation, a military-economic offensive by the US, and servility on the part of the international organisations. The consequences of this for all humanity are tragic, writes Joao Pedro Stedile, leader of the Movement of the Landless (MST) and Via Campesina-Brazil and Member of the organising committee of the World Social Forum. In this article for IPS, Stedile writes that the objectives of the US and its business class are clear: to maintain their imperial power at any cost. They want to find a way out of the capitalist crisis, shifting its costs onto the peoples of the Third World,and monopolize access to energy sources and restore profit levels. The US also wants to push through a Free Trade Area of the Americas, with which they could obtain comparative advantages that would help them emerge faster from the current crisis and be better positioned to face their competitors in Europe and Asia. Fortunately the people are waking up. A powerful and unified continent-wide movement against the FTAA is gathering strength. Recent elections in the region have gone decidedly against liberalism and US proposals. This was the case in Ecuador,Brazil,and Bolivia and will be so in Argentina and Uruguay this year.