On 16 March 2006, police in Mexico City stopped 10,000 protesters participating in a "March in Defense of Water" about a kilometre from the convention centre where the 4th World Water Forum (WWF) was being held. The largely peaceful protest was marred by a group of young demonstrators in ski masks who injured at least two journalists and battled with the police.

The civil society protesters, who were organising an alternative “International Forum in the Defense of Water”, complained that the official WWF did not represent them. "It's a forum where you have to pay to speak. It's a forum where the poor aren't included", said Audora Dominguez of COMDA, the Coalición de Organizaciones Mexicanas por el Derecho al Agua (Mexican Committee for the Defense of Water Rights), one of the principal organisers of the alternative forum. Many NGOs like COMDA see the WWF merely as "business dominated talk-shop," a cover for companies that want to privatise water services.

Among the protesters was Victoria Martinez Arriaga, a 33-year-old Mazahua Indian woman who led a militant protest in 2004 to demand safe drinking water for local families. The demonstration temporarily cut off part of Mexico City's water supply.

The 4th World Water Forum ends on 22 March 2006, World Water Day. Forum organisers, the World Water Council has announced that Istanbul has been conditionally selected to host the next Forum in March 2009.

More on the outcomes of both Fora will be published in the next issue of Source Weekly.

Web sites: 4th World Water Forum – http://www.worldwaterforum.org/ ; International Forum in the Defense of Water - http://www.comda.org.mx/

Contact: Stephanie Porro World Water Council, France, s.porro@worldwatercouncil.org ; Claudia Campero Arena, COMDA, Mexico, comdainfo@hotmail.com

Source: Mark Stevenson, AP / Washington Post - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/17/AR2006031700187.html, 17 Mar 2006 ; Stefania Bianchi, IPS - http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32477, 13 Mar 2006

Tags: financing, information and communication, policies & legislation