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Rivers for Life! The Rasi Salai
Declaration
คำประกาศราษีไศล
: แม่น้ำเพื่อชีวิต (in
Thai)
Endorsed at the Second International Meeting of Dam Affected
People and their Allies, Rasi Salai, Thailand, 28 November - 4 December
2003
THE INSPIRATION OF RASI SALAI
We, more than 300 people from 62 countries throughout the world, peoples
affected by dams, fighters against destructive dams, and activists
for sustainable and equitable water and energy management, have met in
Rasi Salai. We have met on land that is being restored to life after being
flooded by a dam. The gates of the dam are now open, the river flows,
the crops have ripened, the fish are starting to return, community life
is becoming vibrant once more. The dam-affected people of Thailand offer
to us and to all peoples an example of determination and struggle to preserve
lives, rivers, territories, culture, and identities.
Water for life, not for death! The call made at the First International
Meeting of People Affected by Dams, held in Curitiba, Brazil, 1997, has
been realised in Rasi Salai, Thailand.
OUR ACHIEVEMENTS
Since Curitiba, we have made significant progress in our struggles. In
the valleys, mobilisation and direct action of affected peoples has challenged
the dam industry, governments, and financial institutions. The international
movement against destructive dams has shown its ability to challenge the
industry in the technical, political and moral spheres. We have stopped
and ecommissioned some dams. In some areas we have achieved recognition
of the right to just reparation.
Affected and threatened peoples and allies have exercised decisive participation
in decision-making processes, and in determining our own futures.
We are successfully implementing socially and environmentally just and
effective community-based water management. We support the rapid advances
in new renewable energy technologies and methods of demand-side management.
This extraordinary growth in our struggle is also made possible by ever
stronger ties between indigenous peoples, grassroots movements and NGOs,
and between Southern and Northern civil society. We have also joined in
solidarity with the global struggle against neoliberalism and for a just
and equitable world.
The World Commission on Dams process is a key achievement of the last
six years. The WCD report is strongly critical of large dams. While their
report does not question the fundamental flaws of the neo-liberal development
model, the WCD's recommendations constitute a framework for democratic,
transparent and accountable decision-making processes.
OUR CHALLENGES
In the past, we were told that large dams bring development. Now the dam
lobby claims that large dams are essential to "alleviate" poverty
and close the gap between South and North. The last 50 years has shown
this to be a fraud. The global large dam era has been marked by a sharply
growing and unacceptable inequality between South and North, and between
rich and poor.
We denounce the fallacy that hydropower and large dams are essential to
slow global warming and adapt to its impacts.
Indigenous peoples have been disproportionately harmed by the targeting
of
their territories, lands, and resources. The use of violence, including
by the military, to implement these projects violates their human rights
and threatens their survival.
Privatisation continues to spread, despite more than a decade of spectacular
failures worldwide. We strongly oppose privatisation which subordinates
life-giving water and rivers to corporate interests and the logic of the
market.
The proposed interlinking of rivers, inter-basin transfers and transnational
infrastructure initiatives based on water megaprojects show the incapacity
of dam promoters to learn from the impacts and failures of these grandiose
schemes.
The transfer of energy-intensive industries such as aluminium from North
to South, from the central to peripheral countries, imposes on the latter
high economic costs, the growth of external debt, and the huge impacts
of megadams.
OUR DEMANDS
Our shared experiences and our five days of rich exchanges have led us
to agree:
We affirm the principles and demands of the Curitiba Declaration of 1997;
* We oppose the construction of all socially and environmentally destructive
dams. We oppose the construction of any dam which has not been approved
by the affected peoples after an informed and participatory decision-making
process, and that does not meet community-prioritized needs;
* We demand full respect for indigenous peoples' knowledge, customary
resource management and territories and their collective rights to self-determination
and free, prior and informed consent in water and energy planning and
decision-making;
* Gender equity must be upheld in all water and energy policies, programmes
and projects;
* There must be a halt to the use of all forms of violence, intimidation
and military intervention against peoples affected and threatened by dams
and organisations opposing dams;
* Reparations must be made through negotiations to the millions who have
suffered because of dams, including through the provision of funds, adequate
land, housing and social infrastructure. Dam funders and developers and
those who profit from dams should bear the cost of reparations;
* Actions, including decommissioning, must be taken to restore ecosystems
and livelihoods damaged by dams and to safeguard riverine ecological diversity;
* We reject privatisation of the power and water sectors. We demand democratic,
accountable and effective public control and appropriate regulation of
electricity and water utilities;
* Governments, funding institutions, export credit agencies and corporations
must comply with the recommendations of the WCD, in particular those on
public acceptance and informed consent, reparations and existing dams,
ecosystems and needs and options assessments. These recommendations should
be incorporated into national policies and laws and regional initiatives;
* Governments must ensure investments in research and application of just
and sustainable energy technologies and water management. Governments
must
implement policies which discourage waste and over consumption and guarantee
equitable distribution of wealth;
* The construction of interbasin transfer schemes, river inter-linking
and other water megaprojects must halt;
* The international carbon market must be eliminated;
* Waterways for navigation should follow the principle "adapt the
boat to the river, not the river to the boat."
We commit ourselves to:
* Intensifying our struggles and campaigns against destructive dams and
for reparations and river and watershed restoration;
* Working to implement worldwide sustainable and appropriate methods of
water and energy management such as rainwater harvesting and community-managed
renewable energy schemes;
* Continuous renewal and vitalization of diverse water knowledge and traditions
through practical learning especially for our children and youth;
* Intensifying exchanges between activists and movements working on dams,
water and energy, including through reciprocal visits of affected peoples
from different countries;
* Strengthening our movements by joining with others struggling against
the neo-liberal development model and for global social and ecological
justice;
* Celebrate each year the International Day of Action Against Dams and
for
Rivers, Water and Life (March 14).
We call upon the dam-affected peoples' movements and their allies and
other social movements and NGOs to coordinate common actions on March
14, 2004, which protest the World Bank, in solidarity with the protests
against the World Bank and IMF on their 60th anniversary.
Our struggle against destructive dams and the current model of water and
energy management is also a struggle against a social order dominated
by
the imperative to maximize profits, and is a struggle based on equity
and
solidarity.
Another model of energy and water management is possible!
WATER FOR LIFE, NOT FOR DEATH!
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