Quito, March 22 (EFE).- The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie), the largest indigenous organization in the country, took its own proposal for a water resources law to the National Assembly (Parliament) on Tuesday, the same day that the Government for its part initiated a participatory process to draft the text.
The particular initiative of the Confederation, which represents the 14 nationalities and 18 indigenous peoples of Ecuador, takes place within the framework of World Water Day and after the Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional in January the Organic Law of Water Resources and its regulations. .
The ruling agreed with a 2015 lawsuit filed by Conaie itself, which alleged that the native peoples and communities had not been duly consulted about the implications of the standard.
In its ruling, the court gave the Executive a one-year term to send to Parliament a new draft Law on Water Resources, which must be previously consulted with the indigenous communities and have their approval.
INDIGENOUS PROPOSAL
However, Conaie has preferred not to wait and, given the suspicions it has of the Government, has put forward its own proposal with a focus on “ensuring proper public or community management of water, democratizing social and territorial management” and guaranteeing “the full validity of the collective rights of communes, communities, peoples and nationalities”.
In a ritual act carried out in the El Arbolito park in Quito, on the occasion of the Andean celebration of the Mushuk Nina (Feast of the New Fire, in Kichwa), which commemorates the spring equinox, the president of the Conaie, Leonidas Iza, expressed that the proposal is addressed to all those who “love life, defend life, water, fire, air and mother earth”.
The leader asked the leaders of the indigenous communities of the 24 provinces of the country to participate in the formulation of the proposal so that, within three to four months, a consensus and consolidated text has been prepared.
FEAR OF PRIVATIZATION
Among the main points that the proposed legislation will include, Iza remarked “first, that water cannot be privatized,” recalling that “what the Constitution says must be fulfilled: public and community management of water.”
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In this sense, he defended that this management of the precious liquid should not only be communal, but also territorialized, according to the different indigenous territories that are part of the country.
Iza also expressed her misgivings about the Executive’s promise that the resource will not be privatized, assuring that the Investment Law that Parliament is analyzing this week incorporates the delegated management of the country’s strategic sectors, which would open the way to the water privatizations, according to the indigenous leader.
“Water is not for sale, water defends itself,” chanted some of those gathered in the park, before proceeding in a march to the National Assembly, where a document containing the general lines of what will be the proposal of the indigenous movement.
DISTRUST TOWARDS THE GOVERNMENT
Assembly member Salvador Quishpe, of the multinational Pachakutik movement, criticized the decision of the Constitutional Court to entrust the Executive to draft this law and argued that “legislation is the exclusive power of the National Assembly.”
The parliamentarian clarified that the indigenous proposal on the water law is a project that is carried out in coordination with different organizations, irrigation boards, Conaie and assembly members.
Among other principles, it asks that the collective rights of nationalities and those of nature be recognized, strengthen community management, establish a National Water Fund, create a section on Irrigation, as well as measures to prevent and control water pollution.
In compliance with the mandate of the Constitutional Court, the Government of Ecuador began this Tuesday in the central and Andean province of Cotopaxi a participatory process with communities to collect their contributions to agree on this new bill.
President Guillermo Lasso participated in this act, who promised to “respect the constitutional mandate on this wonderful resource, which belongs to all Ecuadorians.”
Earlier, the president had already “categorically” denied that he intends to privatize water.
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“The National Government has not presented to the Assembly any bill aimed at privatizing water,” he assured and clarified that, together with the Ministry of the Environment, he is carrying out contacts with the communities to learn first-hand about their concerns in order to be able to develop said legislation.
(c) EFE Agency