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Vandana
Shiva on War as an Extension of Corporate Globalization
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May 13, 2003
Vandana Shiva is a world renowned author and activist
based in India--best
know for her critiques of genetic engineering, industrial
agriculture, and
globalization.
BECHTEL
AND BLOOD FOR WATER
VANDANA SHIVA, ZMAGAZINE: Within a month of the start
of the war against
Iraq, the real victor is emerging. Bechtel has got
a $680 million contract
for "rebuilding" Iraq.
The
U.S. led war first bombed out Iraq's hospitals, bridges,
water works,and
now U.S. corporations are harvesting profits from
"reconstructing" asociety
after its deliberate destruction. Blood was not just
shed for oil,but also
for control over water and other vital services. In
a period of declining
economic growth and a slowing down of the globalization
juggernaut, war has
become a convenient excuse for enlarging corporate
rule. If W.T.O. is not enough, use war.
This
seems to be the underlying economic and political
philosophy of the
neo-conservatives ruling the U.S. and trying to rule
the world.
What the past month has revealed is the total and
rotten corruption on which
the new world order is based. As Bob Herbert states
in "Ask Bechtel what war is good for" (International
Herald Tribune, April 22, 2003 p6) "Somewhere
George Shultz is smiling "Shultz, whose photo
could appropriately appear next to any definition
of the military-industrial complex, was secretary
of state under President Ronald Reagan and has been
a perennial heavyweight with the powerful Bechtel
Group of San Francisco, where he previously reigned
as president and is now a board member and senior
counselor.
"Unlike
the anti-war soul singer Edwin Starr --- who, in an
ironic bit of timing, went to his eternal reward this
month just as U.S. ground forces were sweeping toward
Baghdad --- Shultz knows what war is good for.
And
he wanted this war with Iraq. Oh, how he wanted this
war. Shultz was
chairman of the fiercely pro-war Committee for the
Liberation of Iraq, which
was committed to moving beyond the political liberation
of the oil-rich country to the conveniently profitable
`reconstruction of its economy.' "Under the headline
`Act Now; The Danger Is Immediate,' Shultz, in an
op-ed article in The Washington Post last September,
wrote: `A strong foundation exists for immediate military
action against Hussein and for a multilateral effort
to rebuild Iraq after he is gone.'
"Gee,
I wonder which company he thought might lead that
effort. "Last week Shultz's Bechtel Group was
able to demonstrate exactly what wars are good for.
The Bush administration gave it the first big Iraqi
reconstruction contract, a prized $680 million deal
over 18 months that puts Bechtel in the driver's seat
for the long-term reconstruction of the country, which
could cost $100 billion or more.
"Bechtel
essentially was given a license to make money. And
that license was
granted in a closed-door process that was restricted
to a handful of
politically connected U.S. companies. "Saddam's
dictatorship is being replaced by U.S. corporate dictatorship
--- with little distinction left between those who
sit in board rooms and those who sit in White House,
Pentagon and other institutions of government."
Non-transparency
and corruption
China's non-transparency has been highlighted in the
case of SARS. Bechtel
getting the first contract for Iraq's reconstruction
is a glaring example of
the non-transparency, secrecy and corruption through
which corporate rule
is established.
Whether it is water privatization contracts in Bolivia
or India, or "reconstruction" contracts
for Iraq, secrecy and lack of democracy and
transparency characterizes the methods for gaining
markets and profits.
"Free trade" is clearly totally unfree.
It is coercive, corrupt, deceitful and violent. Corporate
rule is not an alternative to Saddam style dictatorship.
It is replacing one dictatorship with another ---
the dictatorship of corporations which have hijacked
state power and use military might to grab markets.
The
intrinsic dishonesty and deceit of corporate dictatorship
seems to not
be apparent to those who impose it in the name of
"operation Iraqi freedom"..
This seems to arise from a fundamental confusion about
freedom and creation..
When the 7000 year history of Mesopotamia was destroyed
in the presence of
U.S. military, Ronald Rumsfeld's naïve and irresponsible
comment was:
"Free people are free to make mistakes and commit
crimes and do bad things."
On this logic, the terrorists who crashed planes into
the World Trade Centre
towers were exercising a legitimate freedom to "commit
crimes and do bad
things". And on the same logic that made the
U.S. military presence a mute
spectator allowing Baghdad and its historical treasures
to be looted, the
U.S. had no right to start a war against terror after
9/11.
Just
as there is confusion about what human freedom entails
among those
trying to create "freedom" for others through
war, there is confusion about
reconstruction and "destruction". What happened
in Iraq was destruction. It
is being referred to as reconstruction. Innocent people
were killed, thousands of years of civilisational
history was destroyed and erased. Yet, Jay Garner
- the retired U.S. General appointed unilaterally
as head of office for Reconstruction
and Humanitarian Assistance, talked about "giving
birth to a new system in
Iraq".
Bombs
do not give "birth" to society. They annihilate
life. New societies
are not "born" by destroying the historical
and cultural legacy of ancient
civilizations. May be the choice to allow destruction
of Iraq's historical legacy was a pre-requisite for
this illusion of giving "birth" to a new
society. May be the rulers in U.S. do not perceive
these violations because their own society was built
on the genocide of native Americans. Annihilation
of the "other" seems to be taken as "natural"
by those controlling power in the world's lone super
power. May be the perception of the deliberatedestruction
of a civilization and thousands of innocent lives
as a"birthing" process is an expression
of the western patriarchy's "illusion ofcreation"
which confuses destruction with creation and annihilation
with birthing.
The
"illusion of creation" identifies capital
and machines, including war
machines as sources of "creation" and nature
and human societies, especially
non-western societies as either dead, inert, passive,
or dangerous and cannibalistic. This worldview creates
the "whit man's burden" for liberating nature
and our societies even with violence, and seeing it
as the"birth" of freedom. Whatever the deeper
roots of establishing an economy of loot and violence
in Iraq in the name of "re-construction",
the profiteering from war by
corporations like Bechtel confirms that war is globalisation
by other means.
For people worldwide the challenge is to converge
the energies of the anti-globalisation movement, the
peace movement and movements for real democracy.
Our challenge is to reclaim the real meaning of freedom,
rescuing it from
the degradations it has been subjected to by the doublespeak
of "free
trade" and the doublespeak of "operation
Iraqi Freedom". The "freedom" being
sought through free trade treaties and rules of W.T.O.
and the "freedom"
resulting from the Iraq war is freedom of corporations
to profit. This
freedom is a license to loot. And corporate loot and
corporate freedom is
destroying democracy and freedom for people and societies.
The
new freedom people seek worldwide is freedom from
corporate dictatorship
facilitated and enabled by militarism and war. This
is as important for citizens of Iraq and other countries
invaded byglobal corporations under the protection
of military or "free trade" treaties, as
it is for the citizens of the U.S. The Bechtel contract,
and the Iraq war which created the opportunity for
profits in "reconstruction" have thrown
up issues of lack of democracy transparency and accountability
in the way economic and political decisions are made
by a U.S. administration which has become indistinguishable
from U.S. corporations. A regime in which governments
became instruments of corporate interest is no longer
a democracy. Instead of governance being "of
the people, by the people, for the people", governance
becomes "of the corporations, by the corporations,
for the corporations".
For
democracy to thrive a "regime change" is
urgently needed, in the U.S.,
in Iraq, and in every country where corporate dictatorship
is getting
entrenched.
Bechtel
in Bolivia
The most famous tale of Bechtel's corporate greed
over water is the story of
Cochabamba, Bolivia. In the semi-desert region, water
is scarce and precious. In 1999, the World Bank recommended
privatisation of Cochabamba's municipal water supply
company (SEMAPA) through a concession to International
water, a subsidiary of Bechtel. On October 1999, the
Drinking Water and Sanitation Law was passed, ending
government subsidies and allowing privatization. In
a city where the minimum wage is less than $100 a
month, water bills reached $20 a month, nearly the
cost of feeding a family of five for two weeks. In
January 2000, a citizen's alliance called "La
Coordinara" de Defense del Aqua y de la Vida
(The Coalition in Defense of Water and Life) was formed
and it shut down the city for four days through mass
mobilisation. Between January and February 2000, millions
of Bolivians marched to Cochabamba, had a general
strike and stopped all transportation].
The
government promised to reverse the price hike but
never did. In February
2000, La Coordinara organised a peaceful march demanding
the repeal of the
Drinking Water and Sanitation Law, the annulment of
ordinances allowing
privatization, the termination of the water contract,
and the participation
of citizens in drafting a water resource law. The
citizens' demands, which
drove a stake at corporate interests, were violently
repressed. Coordinora's
fundamental critique was directed at the negation
of water as a community
property. Protesters used slogans like "Water
is God's gift and not a
merchandise" and "Water is life".
In
April, 2000 the government tried to silence the water
protests through
market law. Activists were arrested, protestors were
killed, and media was
censored. Finally on April 10, 2000, the people won.
Aquas del Tunari and
Bechtel left Bolivia. The government was forced to
revoke its hated water
privatisation legislation. The water company Servico
Municipal del Aqua
Potable y Alcantarillado (SEMAPO) was handed over
to the workers and the
people, along with the debts. In summer 2000, La Coordinadora
organised
public hearings to establish democratic planning and
management. The people
have taken on the challenge to establish a water democracy,
but the water
dictators are trying their best to subvert the process.
Bechtel is suing
Bolivians and the Bolivian government, is harassing
and threatening
activists of La Coordinadora.
If
we go by the lessons from Bolivia, Bechtel will try
and control the water
resources, not just the water works of Iraq. If the
international community
and the Iraqis are not vigilant, Bechtel could try
and own the Tigris and
Eupharates, as it tried to "own" the wells
of Bolivia.
Bechtel
and India
Bechtel enterprises, a privately held firm, is the
world's largest
construction company, having been involved heavily
in the U.S.'s
construction boom in the post WWII period. They are
responsible for over
19,000 projects in 140 countries, with operations
on all continents (save
Antarctica). Bechtel is involved in over 200 water
and wastewater treatment
plants around the world, in large part through its
subsidiaries and joint
ventures such as International Water (which is partnership
of Bechtel,
Edison of Italy, and United Utilities in the UK).
In
India Bechtel was involved in the Dabhol plant with
Enron, and is now
involved in water privatisation of Coimbatore/Tirrupur
as part of a
consortium with Mahindra and Mahindra, United International
North West
Water. As with other water privatisation contracts,
the
contract has not been made public. Business that can
only be carried out
behind closed doors, under secrecy, does not promote
freedom. It
extinguishes both freedom and democracy.
From
Agribusiness Examiner #247 , By
<avkrebs@earthlink.net>
