As printed in
MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 7:14 PM ET Oct 5, 2007
San Salvador, Oct 5, 2007 (EFE via COMTEX) -- Some 25,000
Salvadorans marched in this capital Friday to demand an improvement
in water and sewer services in the Central American country.
Accompanying the activists from around 100 grassroots groups
were several foreign notables, including the former U.S. ambassador
to El Salvador, Robert White.
He told Efe he was "very impressed with the people's
capacity for organization" and that the "new role
of non-governmental organizations is the best guarantee of
a democratic future in this country."
White said he joined the march at the invitation of the organizers.
Angel Ibarra, head of the UNES environmental group, said that
El Salvador "vies with Haiti in the worst drinking-water
and sanitation services in the hemisphere."
In rural areas, he told Efe, "people walk three or four
hours every day to get water" for household needs, while
more than 40 percent of the country has no water service.
He said the aim of Friday's march, which concluded in front
of congress, was "to put in the forefront the social
struggle for the right to water" and "obliged the
government to have a public policy that guarantees this human
right."
Water "cannot be privatized, water cannot go on being
destroyed as is currently being done," Ibarra said.
"There is no democracy if the people don't have water,"
he said, noting that marchers presented lawmakers with a letter
asking them to pass a bill the march organizers put forward
in March 2006 establishing a right to clean water.
On July 2, police arrested 13 people in Suchitoto, north of
San Salvador, during clashes involving peasants and the police
that coincided with the arrival of rightist President Tony
Saca, who chose the city as the venue for a new "decentralization"
policy that activists suspect is aimed at privatization of
the water system.
Authorities subsequently charged all 13 detainees under a
new anti-terrorism law. If convicted, the Suchitoto defendants
could be sentenced to anywhere from 40 to 70 years in prison.
EFE
cp-chm/dr
Copyright (C) 2007. Agencia EFE S.A.
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