On the legislative end, the right wing political parties refused to discuss the ratification of the constitutional reform to recognize the right to food and water before the end of the 2015-2018 legislature, thus killing any possibility of constitutional recognition.
During its first sitting in May 2018, the ECCC moved to shelve all requests related to mining and ruled to reaffirm the mining prohibition. The move took many by surprise, but environmental organizations suspected this was not a simple gesture of good will but the beginning of a callous plan to further the neoliberal economic agenda.
Emboldened by the new balance of power, the ECCC moved to deny all public requests to submit information and discuss the water laws, including a joint request by the Catholic Church and Central American University that had submitted its own proposal for a water-managing institution. Furthermore, all 92 articles negotiated by previous legislatures were dismissed. When talks reinitiated, the private sector proposal was taken as a new basis for discussion: eight articles were initially approved, including Article 14, which provides implicit control of water resources to the private sector.
This new way of conducting legislative business, the loss of previously-made gains recognizing the right to water, and the imminent cession of control of water resources to the private sector have opened a new chapter of a battle that has been latent since 2005.
But the swift and unified rejection from the executive government, the Catholic Church, and the civil society organizations taking their battle to the streets suggests that privatization won’t be an easy task for ARENA.
The month of June has seen levels of public mobilization not seen in decades.
On June 7th, a march organized by environmental organizations to commemorate World Environment Day drew over 4000 people to the legislative assembly to demand that the environment commission allow public participation in the water discussions. The same day, about a thousand union members of the national water distribution system also marched to the assembly. A week later, on June 14th, about 4000 students and faculty of the National University marched to the legislature and also demanded to be part of the discussions. The rally turned violent when the legislature’s security forces pepper sprayed students trying to gain access to the building. And last Saturday, over 10,000 people marched through main streets of San Salvador in a self-organized march. Decentralized direct actions continue to occur across the country.
All of these actions have been coordinated through a newly-emerging coalition called the National Alliance against Water Privatization, composed of more than 70 social movement groups. The coalition brings together a range of environmental, students, unions, faith, farmers and women’s organizations who have vowed to continue fighting until the threat of privatization has ended.
Right wing politicians have responded to this public outcry with a high-profile public relations campaign promising not to privatize water resources. But in a new political climate where a strong and unified social movement has found common cause to defend the limited water resources of a country undergoing an ecological crisis, politicians will need more than simple promises to appease activists. They will need legislation that clearly protects water from private interests.