Gorbachev on Avoiding - Conflict Over Water

The Hague, March 2000-- In water-stressed regions of the world, water is more explosive than dynamite, says Mikhail Gorbachev, President of the Geneva-based non-governmental organization, Green Cross International.
"And like religion and ideology, water has the power to move millions of people," he adds.

"I recently (earlier this month) returned from a very encouraging trip to the Middle East, where I met King Abdullah II of Jordan, Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel, and Yasser Arafat, President of the Palestinian Authority, to talk about how to cope with the increasingly scarce water resources of the region. All three leaders are perfectly aware that in 10 to 20 years or less their region will face a dangerous crisis over water, even without taking into account the more and more frequent droughts. They also know that no one single country or nation can solve its water problems.
"What is needed is the region's commitment to sustainable and equitable water shortage solutions. With proof of this commitment will come regional stability, and with stability will come investments in long-term water projects. Investments are essential if the approximately 35 million people of Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Lebanon and Syria, who are expected to number 74 million in 2050, are all to have access to clean water. They are also needed to create jobs for the rapidly growing population.

"Green Cross, high-level representatives of the private water sector, and the other members of our delegation were very pleased when the King, the Prime Minister and the President all welcomed our proposal to create a committee of international personalities, private sector leaders, NGOs and country representatives to look into investment possibilities for easing water stress in the region."
The Middle East has no monopoly over scarce water problems. "There is a shortage of water in Africa, in south and central Asia, and in many other parts of the world," says Gorbachev, "and this ranks among the world's top problems. Unfortunately, water shortages are not yet one of the world's top priorities."

The former President of the Soviet Union will be talking about all these issues in The Hague, at the 17-22 March 2nd World Water Forum, on Monday, 20 March. This is the key day for Green Cross when it will organize two morning sessions on 'Water for Peace' in the Middle East and southern Africa. The Middle East session will be led by Mikhail Gorbachev, joined by the Water Ministers of Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Egypt. Their Syrian, Lebanese and Turkish counterparts have been invited to participate. Experts and top representatives of the private sector will also be attending.
In the afternoon Green Cross will present a report on "National Sovereignty and International Watercourses" at a session led by Mikhail Gorbachev. The signatories of the report, Sir Ketumile Masire, Fidel V. Ramos and Gorbachev, respectively, former presidents of Botswana, the Philippines and the Soviet Union, and Ingvar Gosta Carlsson, former Prime Minister of Sweden, along with Kader Asmal, former Minister of Water of South Africa, and Shimon Peres, Israeli Minister of Regional Cooperation, will discuss the report.

Mikhail Gorbachev will give a press conference at the Water Forum at around 12 noon on Monday, March 20.

Gorbachev was asked by delegates to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 to create and lead Green Cross International. In 1997 the environmental organization, which relies on 21 national organizations on every continent, launched its water programme with the aim of preventing conflicts in regions of water stress. Not that Gorbachev's interest in and knowledge of water problems dates back only three years. From 1978 to 1985 he was Minister of Agriculture in the USSR. During those years he witnessed firsthand the results of shortsighted water management in the dried-up Aral Sea Basin.
"There were serious problems of water allocation," he recalls. "Inevitably, uncontrollable, unpredictable incidents and conflicts occurred. At times people blocked river flows, and critical situations arose."
40% of the world's surface is covered by transboundary waters. Green Cross is striving to address the problems of these waters in the role of a "facilitator" bringing together the private and public sectors.

"With education, increased public awareness and political will, " says Gorbachev, "the perception of water as a commodity to be exploited, often at the expense of one's neighbours and the environment, and as a source of conflict, can be changed. Water should be seen as a shared and fragile resource to be used for the benefit of all peoples and as an avenue towards greater cooperation and mutual trust in the region.
"Admittedly, this will be difficult, but it is definitely not unrealistic or impossible. Higher walls have been dismantled."
To turn from the Middle East to southern Africa, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), with its 14 member states, has drawn up a Protocol on Shared Watercourse Systems to promote equitable sharing and conservation of the region's water. As national water sources dry up or are used up, international sources obviously become more important. That necessitates agreements to avoid conflicts. Fully 70% of southern Africa's surface water is shared by two or more countries, and it is very unevenly distributed. It is worth noting that the protocol calls for a SADC adjudication tribunal to settle disputes over water, and its decisions are final and binding.

Southern Africa has some of the most admired examples of regional water cooperation, but paradoxically it may soon face serious disputes as each nation's water situation worsens, and if the cooperation does not progress from the level of negotiation and principle to action and solid commitment. At the session on southern Africa the impressive achievements of SADC will be highlighted and practical solutions suggested for the regional water shortage."
At the same time, as the current disaster in Mozambique has tragically proved, there is still a great deal of room for more action in water management. As the countries of the region are now expressing solidarity for their neighbour during a crisis, the next step is to work together and cooperate in order to mitigate water-related crises in the future. The SADC protocol is currently being revised and will, it is hoped, lead to even stronger regional solidarity and basin cooperation, especially by showing more concern for the rights and needs of downstream states, such as Mozambique.

Gorbachev has high praise for the post-apartheid South African government's water policies: "In the middle of a very painful transition period South Africa has adopted sensible and far-sighted policies. Not only does the Constitution declare water a basic human right, but the new South African Water Law is possibly the only one in the world to allocate water by legal right to the environment. It says 'there shall be no ownership of water but only a right to its use...The water required to meet people's basic domestic needs and the needs of the environment should enjoy priority of use.'"
Simply put, these policies are described by South Africans as "some water, for all, forever."
In regard to the report on "National Sovereignty and International Watercourses", its objective is to examine and propose reasonable answers to these four questions:

1. What are the principles that should regulate the use of shared water?
2. Can such a set of principles be codified in a meaningful way?
3. Is there a need for international mechanisms for dealing with potential environmental conflicts?
4. How can we link these mechanisms with national sovereignty, the keystone of international legal agreements?

What is needed is a consensus on the delicate balance between national sovereignty and the management of nearly 300 basins in the world shared by two or more countries. Most of the world's largest and most vital freshwater sources are trans-boundary.

"The principle of national sovereignty should not dominate the use and management of international watercourses," asserts Gorbachev. "The sharing of water should be an element used to enhance the basic sovereign rights of people as well as states," Among the report's proposals is one that proposes making many international waterways 'sanctuaries' to protect them in war time. Another suggests creating a neutral, international consultative group that would identify, prevent, resolve and mediate potential and actual water disputes. The stress is on integrated basin management schemes with strong institutional underpinnings. This has often been attempted but never effectively implemented.
Summing up, the head of Green Cross expresses the hope that the Forum at The Hague will make millions of people who read and hear about it 'water-conscious.' "Instead of taking water for granted because it pours out of their faucets, they may come to realize that something must be done now to conserve this increasingly rare commodity and to make sure that in the next century we don't go to war for water."

[Note to journalists: for additional information or interviews please contact Bertrand Charrier, Executive Director, Green Cross International, Geneva, tel (41.22) 789.1662, fax (41.22) 789.1695, e-mail- , or Paul Ress, Green Cross press officer, same numbers, both until 16 March. Then Charrier and Ress can be reached at The Hague at the Park Hotel, tel (31.70) 362.4371, or at the Netherlands Congress Centre, tel. (31.70) 306.6366.]