A tale of two dams

P ro fil del ’ i n t e r n a u t een rupturede To i l e

Le nucléaire,p a ra d eà l’effetde serre ?

I t s u k u s h i m aet son temple:le tempsre t ro u v é

Afrique CFA:1000 F.CFA,Antilles:18 FF, Belgique:160 FB, Canada:3,95$Can,Espagne:550 Ptas, USA:4,25 $US, Luxembourg:154 F.Lux, Portugal:700 Esc ,Suisse:6,20 FS , United Kingdom:2,5£,Maroc:20 DH.

October 2001

Canada:$4.65 Can,United Kingdom:£2.5,USA:$4.25

Striking peaceon troubled

waters

Striking peaceon troubled

watersSEPTEMBER 11, 2001

MAKING SENSE OF THE ATTACK

OCTOBER 2001C O N T E N T S

Signed articles express the opinions of the authors and do notnecessarily re p resent the opinions of UN E S C O or those of the

e d i t o rs of the UN E S C O C o u r i e r. Photo captions and headlines arewritten by the UN E S C O C o u r i e r s t a f f. The boundaries on maps donot imply official endorsement or acceptance by UN E S C O or the

United Nations of the countries and territories concerned.

I N T H I S I S S U E

◗ ShockwavesAfter the initial shock of the attackson September 11,three words havebeen repeated like a mantra:war, civilization and Islam.Suchreductionism more often than notprevents considered analysis ofthe context in which this abominableact was committed (p. 3). Severalarticles in this issue provide leadsfor undertaking such urgently neededreflection,though they were notplanned as reactions to the atrocitiesin New York and Washington.From Jerusalem,the Palestinianscholar Sari Nusseibeh dreamsthat his city, ravaged by violence,may fulfil its destiny and bring peaceto nations (pp. 4-9).Pierre Sané, asenior UNESCO official and formersecretary-general of AmnestyInternational,explains why Durbanwas a success in the fight againstracial discrimination, which lies at thesource of many current frustrations(pp. 10-12).Dirty money is a weaponof terrorism:the United Nationsis preparing a convention againstcorruption,a scourge fed byglobalization (pp. 39-41).“Digitalconvergence”unites all means ofcommunication onto a single medium.This technical revolution goes handin hand with increasing economicconcentration,undermining thecritical importance of pluralism(pp. 39-41).In an interview, Maliangriot Sotigui Kouyaté,one of PeterBrook’s longtime actors, shares a deepcommitment to cultural encounters(pp. 47-51).Such cultural mixing ishard to come by in contemporary art,despite its claims to being universal(pp. 42-43).And while education is akey to transmitting knowledge andfostering critical thought,its rolemay be increasingly endangeredby the ageing population of teachers(pp. 13-15).The dossier also brings a messageof hope. While many have predictedthat wars this century will be foughtover water, recent and distant historypoints to the contrary:this preciousresource nourishes dialogue ratherthan conflict (pp. 16-38).

◗ PEOPLE AND PLACES4 Jerusalem: childhood truths

A Palestinian scholar from one of Jerusalem’s oldest families dreams that his citymight one day outshine human differences.

Photos by a student collective from Al-Quds University, text by Sari Nusseibeh

◗ VIEWPOINT10 In defence of Durban

The Durban conference against racism was the target of much unfair criticism, argues PierreS a n é , who led UN E S C O’s delegation.

◗ EDUCATION13 A hard sell for teaching

In industrialized countries, teaching is a greying profession.Attracting a new generation startswith addressing some deep-set grieva n c e s. Cynthia Guttman

15 Chicago’s headhunting drive Julie Blair

◗ ETHICS39 On the tracks of a global vice

Fed by rapid globalization, the scourge of corruption has become top priorityfor the United Nations. Michel Bessières

◗ CULTURE42 Contemporary art: who calls the shots?

A handful of rich countries dominate the art scene,despite the appearanceof an increasingly internationalized marke t .

Interview with Alain Quémin

◗ MEDIA44 When the media meet as one

The era of digital convergence promises to be a giant upheaval in the wa ypeople communicate, relax and work. John Vince

46 All power to the barons? Interview with Robert McChesney

◗ TALKING TO…47 Sotigui Kouyaté: the wise man of the stage

His career spans many cultures, but Malian actor Sotigui Kouyaté is fir s tand foremost committed to sharing A f r i c a ’s living traditions.

Detailed table of contents on page 16

Fo c u s Striking peaceon troubled watersThe one re s o u rce we can’t live without isbecoming ever more scarc e. Will wars be foughtover water, as they have been over oil? The thesis is pro v o c a t i v e, but overlooks the factthat hostile countries have almost alwaysmanaged to strike deals on the rivers flo w i n ga c ross their bord e rs. F rom the Danube tot h e N i l e, this dossier highlights the waysi n which water is used to extinguish fires ra t h e rthan ignite them.

Erratum: the photo caption published on page 40 of our previous issue should have read as follows : “Street children,gathered voluntarily by Russian officers, take part in an informal rehabilitation programme which includes a militarytraining component.”

E D I T O R I A L ◗

C lose to 7,000 dead, nearly all of them missing.The world’s sole superpower struck at the heartof its economic life and defence system,something that no state at war with the U. S.had previously managed to achieve. A whole

new scale of destruction, marking the advent of “ h y p e r-t e r r o r i s m .”Suspects linked to obscure transnational networksbelieved to centre around a billionaire wa r l o r d , hidden in acountry that could not be more different from A m e r i c a .N oadmission of responsibility. The September 11 attacks wereu n t h i n k a b l e. For this very reason, the shockwaves thatensued have been unprecedented.

First thoughts went to the victims, their families andthe nation, in a spirit of unreserved solidarity. Then,oncerescue operations got underway and public securitymeasures were taken, came disbelief, rage and resolve,but also, on a more diffuse level, the time forintrospection and doubt.

American military forces are mobilizing andOperation “ I n finite Justice,” (renamed “ E n d u r i n gFreedom”) has been launched. But to deliver what kindof justice, within what legal constraints and againstwhom? Doing justice to the victims and preventing moreviolence by dismantling terrorism is a legitimate andimperative obligation. But the wall of an AmericanMuslim insitute bears an anonymous warning: “An ‘eyefor an eye’ leaves everyone blind.” Retaliation againstfanatics using force alone succumbs to their logic. Themilitary and security response can only be fair, and thuseffective, if it is part of a global answer to the keyquestion: how and why did we come to this?

So far, the words that are repeatedly cited— war,civilization and Islamism—stand in the way of profoundanalysis. The first word is inappropriate, since wars arefought between nation-states. The second has a painfulhistory that can be traced back to the Enlightenment,when humanity was divided into the “civilized” and“barbarians” in order to legitimize Western conquests.This war-cry of “civilization”came to paper over colonialexpansion. Today, use of this word in the singularsuggests that the world contains only one civilization,relegating all others to an inferior or even non-existentstatus. The third term, Islamism,describes a political andreligious movement advocating expansion of and respectfor Islam. The term is increasingly confused with itsviolent extremes, which are condemned by mostMuslims. To line up this skewed definition with the words“war” and “civilization” is to adopt exactly the sameway of thinking as that embraced by the alleged culprits.Actions that stem from such an interpretation inevitably

lead to a dead-end.Reactions to the attacks as gleaned from the

international press offer a starting point for reflection.They point to significant fault lines. The attacks wereclearly a trauma for Americans, as well as for manypeople, mostly living in developed countries. A very smallnumber of people openly displayed abominable joy. Alarger group, while empathizing with the victims, lookedupon these attacks as one more instance—albeit a moredramatic one—of a plague of violence affecting theentire planet. This time it had hit the U.S., as it hadalready struck many other countries. Yet perhaps thegreatest number of people around the world showed nomore than indifference, as if these events werehappening on another planet,or did not break with life’sdaily routine.

More than half a century ago in London, whenGerman bombs were still raining upon the city, diplomatsand an educated group of men and women gathered toreflect upon the unthinkable events of their time. Whyand how, in the heart of “Christian Europe,” in thecountry with the most educated population, c o u l dNazism surge and the Holocaust take place? What newworld order could prevent a return to barbarism? Theiranswers are cast in UNESCO’s Constitution. They foundthat a denial of reason unleashed a denial of humandignity. They attributed this to barriers erected betweenpeople, which gave rise to “mutual incomprehension.”Their answer lay in a voluntary mission that called for thedevelopment of the “free exchange of ideas andk n o w l e d g e ” for the “purposes of mutualunderstanding”—the “United Nations.” They sought togive meaning to a world that had gone adrift byrestoring “the moral and intellectual solidarity ofmankind.”

True, the historic context was starkly different fromtoday. True, the world has strayed from the path tracedby these visionaries. One probably explains the other. Butdo these differences invalidate the visionaries’conclusions and render their path impracticable?

THE UNESCO COURIERSeptember 25, 2001

September 11, 2001

Making senseof the attack

October 2001 - The UNESCO Courier 3

A new day begins in the Holy City.

Following André Chouraqui’s vision of Jerusalem in last month’sCourier, Al-Quds university president Sari Nusseibeh, whose familyholds the keys to the Holy Sepulchre, spins a childhood tale that haslost none of its profound resonance

PHOTOS BY A STUDENT COLLECTIVE,TEXT BY SARI NUSSEIBEH

THESE PHOTOSARE SELECTED FROM A PROJECTCONDUCTED BY STUDENTS FROM AL-QUDSUNIVERSITY IN JERUSALEM,OFWHICH SARI NUSSEIBEH ISTHE PRESIDENT

Sometimes when I am asked how my family—a Muslim familynamed after “Nussaibah,” a female warrior-companion of theProphet from Medina—ever came to hold the keys to one ofChristianity’s holiest sites in Jerusalem, the Holy Sepulchre, Ismile indulgently. Th e n , I begin by saying: “ We l l , there are af e w traditions in the family concerning this,but let me begin withthis tale…”.

The story I then spin out is an innocent mixture of fact andfiction,a mosaic of the subjective and the objective, which hasbeen imprinted in my sub-conscious ever since my early

c h i l d h o o d .For me, this is the essence of the identity of Je r u s a l e m—a beautiful mosaic of tales spun out from a misty past, r o o t e din events, whether real or presumed,and constituting the fibreof the hearts and souls of its inhabitants.

One such tale of which I am particularly fond, e n c a p s u l a t i n gas it does the magical relation between Man and the City, is thatof the Caliph Umar’s entry into Jerusalem in 638 A . D.It is a talethat seeped deeply into my consciousness during my childhood,resounding year after year in my ears and mind,but cumulativelygathering with it and impressing upon me a particular moral; o n e

P E O P L E A N D P L A C E S ◗

Je r u s a l e m :childhood truths

At rest in the garden of the Dome of the Rock.


w h i c h , because of its association with Islam’s origin in the City,is fundamental to my self-identity as a Muslim Jerusalemite.

The almighty Caliph of Islam, I have been led to believe,being totally overawed by the prospect of entering this sanctifie dC i t y,would only deign to arrive at its gates unarmed.Leaving hisfierce and victorious warriors behind,accompanied only by hisaide and one beast of burden,he approaches the City peacefullyand by foot,to be cordially received by its Christian Guardian,Bishop Sephronious. On his journey towards the City, the storygoes (and I take this also to be a fundamental part of the tale),the Caliph and his man-servant exchange places to ride theirsingle camel.

Much of history is made of what happens next.To me, the

Je r u s a l e m : childhood truths

Jerusalem can still outshine human differencesand reign supreme.

Sunlight and shadows over the eternal City. A window display on the Via Dolorosa.

During a course given by French photographer Luc Chéry*, s t u d e n t sin literature, architecture and archaeology from A l-Quds University

experimented for the first time with another form of “ w r i t i n g ” —p h o t o g r a p h y. Working on the theme “ J e r u s a l e m , my city,” t h e ymeandered down narrow lanes and into marke t s, equipped witht h r o wa way cameras, in search of subjective, timeless shots.The result,a collection of 35 photographs from which the present illustrations ares e l e c t e d , will go on show in Jerusalem, R a m a l l a h , Gaza and Nablus, a swell as in several capitals of the region. ■

IN SEARCH OF THE T I M E L E S S

◗ P E O P L E A N D P L A C E S

6 The UNESCO Courier - October 2001

* In partnership with the cultural service of the French General Consulate, the Al-Ma’mal Foundationfor Contemporary Art and the Centre for Studies on Jerusalem.

A monument to the dead in the Salah Eddin cemetery stands alongside a shopping district.


mystery of Jerusalem is already engraved in the above tale.L a i dout before me, I immediately see the moral contours of a cosmicd e s i g n ,mapping out and balancing the relation between the Manand the City, between Earth and Heaven.At one end of thedesign stands the Conqueror and First leader of Men.But hissize is diminutive. His submission is total. His humility andself-denial are complete.At the other end stands the Golden but“conquered” City. Its size is majestic. Its form is imperial. Its

heavenly walls totally impregnable,impervious but to the pious, who enter itsubmissively and with humility. It is notanother stone-habitation to be submittedand conquered by force. It is thepenultimate earthly stepping stone in thejourney of the humble and pious towardstheir Creator.

I look at this drawing in awe andwonder. Not here do I find the signs ofpomp and glory of earthly warriors. Norhere in the drawing do I see the details ofb l o o d , battle and plunder. There is apeaceful absence of human force andviolence. There is only the City’s divines u p r e m a cy, illuminating the path to God.

A jewel boxof moral tales

I take a look back to reevaluate orunderstand the approach of the Caliphand his man-servant. It takes but a secondfor me to realize the other signific a n tm e s s a g e, the other universal value in thischildhood tale: the equality andbrotherhood between men. R e g a r d l e s sof their respective earthly stations,C a l i p hand man-servant are equal before God.A n d , as equals, they naturally come toshare their earthly utilities.

This is certainly no Roman Emperorriding golden chariots surrounded andprotected by soldiers and servants, nor aCleopatra or Pharaoh carried regally onthe shoulders of beautiful Nubiansbelonging to a sub-race, in celebration ofM a n ’s mighty conquests: it is, r a t h e r, ahumble servant of God,piously seeking tobe received by Him. Je r u s a l e m — t h estones and the inhabitants—is a jewel-box of such moral tales. The mosaicintercrosses time and space, stone andsoul, reality and dreams. It is impossiblenot to hear the throbs of your heart, not topierce through present sounds and smellsto the point of contact with the images andsounds of the past,as you tread throughthe ancient cobbled streets of history.

You may see soldiers and guns parading through the streetsof the present.You may see anguish or pain or suffering. Youmay sense bigotry,or bias or misplaced self-righteousness. B u tsomehow, you manage to gaze right through these and otherimages of human contortions, from this period or from othergrim periods of Je r u s a l e m ’s history, to see Jerusalem as itsr e a l ,heavenly self, as a City of unity and piety.And as you gazeat this eternal Jerusalem with the eyes of faith, you manage

Je r u s a l e m : childhood truths

The Souq al Qattanin,or Cotton Merchants’ market.

◗ P E O P L E A N D P L A C E S


Returning from school through the market of the Damascus Gate.

somehow to imbibe differences and imbalances,distilling intoyour own identity other peoples’ pains, tales and histories.For, what is a Jerusalemite if not a complete human being, ahuman being stripped of earthly prejudices, of racism andbigotry, a human being sufficiently purified to be received byGod?

I would like to believe, in spite of the contortions of thepresent, that Jerusalem can still outshine human differencesand reign supreme; and that Je w s, Christians and Muslimscan still make Jerusalem fulfill its destiny of bringing peace untothe nations. I believe the secret to this dream lies in a childhoodt a l e. It is the tale of Umar: that men who would venturet o s t e p into the earthly Je r u s a l e m , in fulfillment of theb e c k o n i n g of God, should behave towards each other asequals, and be prepared to share their earthly means of entryto the divine world. ■

Jerusalem’s thousand and one spices.


SPIERRE SANÉ

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR-GENERAL FOR SOCIALAND HUMAN SCIENCESOF UNESCOAND FORMER SECRETARY-GENERAL OF AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

In defence of Durban:racism is back on the agenda“Total fiasco,” “a congregation of the converted,” “a lot of hot air”—the media’s verdict on the Durbanconference against racism was a harsh one. It was also unfair, says Pierre Sané, who led UNESCO’sdelegation

ince racial segregation ended in theUnited States and apartheid wasabolished in South A f r i c a , m a n ygovernments have denied the existenceof racism in the world,and particularly intheir own societies. Despite this, a worldconference against racism, r a c i a ldiscrimination,xenophobia and related

intolerance in Durban, South A f r i c a ,( Au g. 3 1 - S e p t . 7) managed to drawdelegations from 170 c o u n t r i e s. It wasan extraordinary admission by those whotook part that racism exists in all societies.

The job of the conference was topoint to new kinds of racism1 that todayaffect immigrant workers, a s y l u m -

s e e k e r s, r e f u g e e s, displaced people, t h o s ewith HIV/AIDS and others. It was alsointended to denounce moves towards“genetic discrimination,” for examplewhen a firm asks a future employee forhis or her genetic imprint with the excuseof looking for possible“abnormalities.”The Durban conference brought debate

A protest against racism and poverty held in Durban.

◗ V I E W P O I N T


up to date on all these points.These kinds of political gatherings

invariably give rise to trials of strength,and there are failings. The finaldocuments in Durban do not mentionthe biggest group of human beingsaffected by discrimination—SouthA s i a ’s 260 million d a l i t s, o ru n t o u c h a b l e s. Neither was theremention of black people living in Arabcountries, nor of the Palestinians.

Putting faceson the victims

But many “ i n v i s i b l e ” victims didshow their faces to the world at thec o n f e r e n c e. Seemingly trivial but reallyvery telling was a delegation of“ P y g m i e s,” who came to publicize forthe first time at a world conference thethreats to their society from war inCentral A f r i c a .Afro-Latins—people ofAfrican origin from Colombia andVenezuela—also spoke of theirsuffering.

The presence of delegations ofR o m s, G y p s i e s, Sindis and othertravelling people—all victims of aracism ignored by the internationalc o m m u n i t y—were able through theirlinks with NGOs to have their say in thec o n f e r e n c e ’s final declaration and actionplan. Many other victims were clearlyi d e n t i fie d . Now it is up to governmentsto do something about them.This was as i g n i ficant achievement for the con-ference.

Some critics have singled out the“catch-all”nature of the gathering andclaimed that it was submerged bydisputes of “questionable relevance”—arguments about whether reparationsshould be made for slavery, or whetherIsrael should be condemned on thegrounds that Zionism is racist.

The task of the conference was tolist the causes of racism, and slavery wasseen in this context.The slave trade andcolonialism were probably legitimizedby racism and in turn encouraged it.They were denounced in these terms.And for the first time, the internationalcommunity recognized that slavery andthe slave trade were “appalling tragediesin the history of humanity” and thatthey formed a “crime against humanity.”

All this is only a start. UNESCO, fore x a m p l e,argues that people have a dutyto remember the past and is calling forscholars to be allowed access to all

records so that the extent and effect ofthe slave trade can be conclusivelya s s e s s e d . It is also asking that schooltextbooks reflect the importance of thistragedy and its criminal nature.

Hidden guiltThe conference had no brief to work

out details relating to the controversialissue of compensation for slavery duringits 10-day session. But it carried out itsjob by making a declaration of principleover the “moral obligation” to payfinancial compensation for wrongscommitted,and for me that is strongerthan a “legal obligation.”

Giving the status of victims toAfricans, who were the objects of thist r a d e, finally enables their descendantsto lift their heads high, while allowingthe descendants of those whocommitted the crime to end theirs i l e n c e. I have always regardeddevelopment aid as the unhealthyproduct of a secret feeling of guilt.Wi t h

the crime recognized for what it is, s u c haid can be replaced by faircompensation that will put the partiesinvolved on an equal footing.

Some people think the Palestinianissue was intrusive, but it was inevitablygoing to come up in Durban at aconference organized by the UN HighCommissioner for Human Rights. Fordelegations from Arab and Muslimc o u n t r i e s, the issue is one of humanr i g h t s, discrimination (some Israeli lawsdiscriminate in this way), v i o l e n c eagainst a people and violation of theright to self-determination. It is in thenews and had to be raised,as apartheidwas in its day.

The United States and Israel, whowere against allowing the issue onto the

a g e n d a , withdrew from the conference.But the agenda was democraticallydrawn up by all the working groups. If atopic appeared relevant to the aim of thec o n f e r e n c e, they could decide to includeit for discussion. They did so, and thefinal conference declaration expressed“deep concern” over “the increase inanti-Semitism and Islamophobia invarious parts of the world,” w h i l eemphatically rejecting any equivalencebetween Zionism and racism.

A moralre-armament

Can we trust the countries thatpromised the conference they wouldfight racism? The first test will bewhether they come up with nationalplans to do so, along with a budget,identification of perpetrators andvictims, legislation and a timetable fora c t i o n .They have said they will.To helpt h e m , the conference has drawn up a listof “best practices,” such as banning allkinds of discrimination in the workplaceand in housing, devising ways tomeasure progress in education by themost disadvantaged groups, a n dassuring that those who file complaintsabout racism (especially concerning thepolice) are protected.

All this might seem wishful thinking.But all world conferences—Rio on theenvironment and Beijing on women’srights—have ended the same way,namely with a declaration and a plan of

TEN YEARS OFWORLD CONFERENCES

1992. UN Conference on Environment andDevelopment (Rio de Janeiro)

1993. World Conference on Human Rights(Vienna)

1994. International Conference on Po p u l a t i o nand Development (Cairo)

1995. World Summit for Social Development(Copenhagen)

1995. Fourth World Conference on Wo m e n(Beijing)

1996. Second UN Conference on HumanSettlements (Istanbul)

1996. World Food Summit (Rome)

2001. World Conference against Racism, RacialDiscrimination, Xenophobia and RelatedIntolerance (Durban) ■

For the first time,the international

community recognizedthat slavery andthe slave trade

formed a“crime against

humanity”


action that is not binding but which isbased on existing conventions and law.The aim of such gatherings is to getcountries to re-commit themselves—akind of moral re-armament—towards

working together to solve a problemthat depends on internationalc o o p e r a t i o n . Nobody forcesgovernments to take part in these events.But the fact that negotiations over the

final declaration were so tough showsexactly how important countries thoughtit was. By signing that declaration,theypledged their word and their credibility,and agreed to make regular reports onhow their promises were being put intoe f f e c t . Everything also depends on howfar civil society—the 1,000 NGOs whoattended the conference—get involved.When they get back home, they can sayto their government: “ Yo u ’ve signed.Where’s your action plan?”

Some people accused these NGOso f going to extremes in Durban, t ot h e point of stifling debate. But therewas plenty of impassioned argumenta t the conference. It was only naturalf o r associations supporting murderedvictims to lose patience with the“ r e a l i s m ” espoused by governments. S othe debates were very lively, but notviolent.

The conference put the fight againstracism on the agendas of all NGOs.Governments have made progress tooby joining a democratic debateultimately aimed at the sharedmanagement of global society. Durbanwas worth it. ■

1. See UN E S C O C o u r i e r, S e p t e m b e r

Durban gave the final proof: the gatherings of NGOs that are now partand parcel of all major UN conferences are turbulent affairs.To make

matters worse, they are often infiltrated by “false NGOs,” associations

created especially for the event by undemocratic states, political parties

or industrial lobbies. But even so, these assemblies are valuable hothouses

that have facilitated the gradual emergece of a “global civil society” i n t e n ton talking on equal terms with the powers that be.

D u r b a n , the first major conference of the 21st century, formed the

latest instalment of a series of similar events (see p. 11) over the last

decade, meetings that have heralded the ascent of non-governmental

representatives into the management of international affairs. They maybe accused of squandering funds (budgets vary from two to 10 million

dollars each),but today’s UN conferences are no longer mere stages for

states to lock horns. Aside from revealing the differences between

governments and other parts of society (such as NGOs, cities and

b u s i n e s s e s ) , the summits also vent the disputes within civil societyi t s e l f. The Rio Earth Summit in 1992 was the first occasion in which

N G O s, until then excluded from large global gatherings, played an

significant part in shaping debate—even if their representatives were

shunted several kilometres away from the official conference. But all thes a m e, they were there in force (over 2,500 of them), denouncing injustice,

blaming market economics for its undesirable effects and proposing

“alternatives.”

S o m e t i m e s, as in the 1993 Vienna conference on human rights,a c t i v i s t s

have been granted a presence on the official podium and a voice in thefinal decision-making process. In Beijing,in 1995,they made the front

p a g e, which is more than can be said of the official conference discussions

on women’s rights. For the very first time,Amnesty International’s then

secretary-general,Pierre Sané,held a press conference in China.

As the summits have continued, these NGO forums have grown inimportance and diversity, often with the approval of the UN. Termed the

“gringo forum” at Rio due to the preponderance of groups from the

northern hemisphere, these meetings have since welcomed a much greater

presence of delegates from the developing world, testimony to the upsurge

of southern NGOs. ■

A FORUM OF SOUND AND FURY

A mural in Namibia celebrates unity between people of different colour.

◗ V I E W P O I N T


LCYNTHIA GUTTMAN

UNESCO COURIER JOURNALIST

A hard sell for teachingIn the industrialized world, teaching is a greying profession and burnout rates run high.Attracting anew generation starts with tackling some deep-rooted grievances,which go well beyond better pay

ike religion,a calling often sets studentson the path to teaching, but today, t h efervour of times past is waning, leavingschools across the developed worldscurrying for teachers.

Countries are scouting far from hometo fill vacancies, turning the professioninto a global marketplace,with recruitinggrounds stretching from Russia to SouthAfrica and New Zealand. Some haveeven relaxed immigration rules to attractcandidates.

Governments have also taken toinvesting in television advertisingc a m p a i g n s, with such slogans as“Everybody remembers a good teacher”( E n g l a n d ) , “Be a teacher, be a hero”( U. S.) or the more cryptic “ Te a c h e r.Wh a tif the future was you?”(France).

Advertising may not suffice forraising the beleaguered status of teachers.Once they’ve scratched the surface, m a n ynovices put the key under the door. In theUnited States, up to 50 percent ofteachers leave the profession within thefirst three to five years, a trend echoed inseveral other industrialized countries.A tthe present rate, the gaping hole left by anageing population of teachers is unlikelyto be filled naturally. In most OECDc o u n t r i e s, the majority of primary andsecondary school teachers are above 40.The U.S. has to renew two-thirds of itsteaching force in the next decade. I nFr a n c e, also faced with a steadyretirement of staff,enrollment on t e a c h e rtraining courses is down20 percent.

Ageing aside, similar patterns prevailin most countries, with economic growthfuelling the “brain drain.” S c i e n t i f i cdisciplines are the hardest hit, a suniversity graduates are lured to privatebusiness by more attractive salaries. E v e nin the public sector, the OECD has foundthat other professions tend to be betteroff than primary school teachers. I nC a n a d a , the latter earn less than adraughtsman or social worker.

Rising expectationsWhile front-page stories about

children being sent home or schoolsswitching to four-day weeks are commonbecause of staff shortages, the real issue,says the OECD’s Paulo Santiago, is aboutdeclining quality. As he underlines,research shows that teachers are by farthe single most important influence onstudent achievement. If this is true, it doesnot augur well for many pupils,e s p e c i a l l ythose worst-off.


W O R L D O F L E A R N I N G ◗

The single most important influence on learning.

In the U.S.,up to 60 percent of teach-ers who work in poor neighbourhoods arenot certifie d .More than half the country’sphysics teachers don’t have a major orminor degree in the subject; for mathteachers the proportion is 33 percent.

In country after country, a paradox is inthe making.On the one hand,standards arebeing raised and new curricula introducedin the name of the knowledge economy.“ Things that you used to see in senior highschool now appear in younger classes,because we’re trying to cram in more andm o r e,” says the general secretary of theCanadian Teachers’ Federation.

On the other, teachers continue to befaced with large classes, m o u n t i n gexpectations and poor professionaltraining. “We frequently have to updateour knowledge, especially in the sciences,and this is not taken into account byi n s t i t u t i o n s,” says a representative of theFrench secondary teachers’ union( S N E S ) . In Britain, the governmentlowered national targets in math for 14-year-olds after schools complained thatthe demands were unrealistic.

Demands for agreater say

What tends to exasperate theprofession is that these targets oftenrhyme with stricter checks on teachers. I nthe UK, for example, teachers areexpected to prepare detailed lesson plansfor inspections and monitoring. “ Yo uhave to prove that you’re doing what thegovernment has set down,” says Je f fHolman of the British NationalAssociation of Head Teachers. “There isa sense that someone is always lookingover your shoulder.”

His concern is shared by his peers inother countries.“Leading politicians saywe should leave schools in the hands ofprofessionals, then they turn around thenext week and say that students needmore training in history or again in mathsbecause we’re lagging behind the rest ofE u r o p e,” says Alf Lindberg, of theSwedish Teachers’ Union. “ Th e r e ’s apalpable sense,” according to SNES’Denis Paget, that “governments no longerlook towards teachers as people who arec r e a t i v e, but as executors of aprogramme.”

For the OECD’s Santiago,“the mainproblem is that teachers don’t haveenough autonomy and decision-makingp o w e r. They don’t have much of a sayabout the curriculum and teaching

m e t h o d s. For any activity, the mostimportant thing is motivation, and thatcomes from incentives.”

I n c e n t i v e s,h o w e v e r, are an explosivei s s u e. So far, governments have mostlyopted for “soft”ones. Sweden is offeringtraining for unqualified teachers. B r i t a i nhas introduced bursaries for traineeteachers and offered to pay off theirstudent loans over their first ten years onthe job. In certain short-staffed subjects,potential candidates are lured by “ g o l d e nh e l l o s,” while affordable housing has also

been promised in the country’sprosperous southeast.

Incentives become a much thornierissue when sacrosanct salary structuresare touched. Teachers’ wages aretraditionally based on education leveland years of service.A r g u a b l y, the snail’space of pay rises adds to some of thep r o f e s s i o n ’s gripes. The alternative oftying wages to student achievement andteachers’ performance in the classroom ispolitical dynamite. Timid experimentswith performance pay are being carried

out in a handful of U.S. school districts,while in Saxony (Germany) the educationminister stepped down over an attempt tointroduce this system.

For now, there are less politically riskyo p t i o n s. “Strategies are really crucial,”says Mildred Hudson,head of RecruitingNew Te a c h e r s, a U. S. n o n - p r o f i to r g a n i z a t i o n . “ We ’ve known this wasgoing to be a problem, but we didn’t planp r o p e r l y.” Coaching for apprenticet e a c h e r s, scholarship support, fie l d i n gstudents at the high school level andscouting for talent in community collegeshave all enjoyed modest success. Many inthe profession also admit that it’s hightime to “recognize that adults can gothrough two, three or four careers in theirlifetime,” says Hudson “We don’t knowhow to bring those adults into theclassroom and there’s definitely a poolout there.”

Governments might have woken uplate to the crisis, but shortages are nowclimbing high up on the political agenda.Education was a bone of contention inrecent elections in Britain and the U.S.,while in Sweden, a country heading forthe polls, a recent Gallup survey revealedthat 78 percent of those interviewed puteducation ahead of health care andunemployment as a leading concern. InFrance, also gearing up for elections in2 0 0 2 , schools have so far not been cited asa hot campaign topic. “Public debate isvery weak,” laments Monique Vuaillat,the former head of SNES. Then again,the shadow of an economic slowdownmight lure some talents toward aprofession they’d once have shunned—atleast until the going gets better. ■


Lined with houses and gardens, the Dutch town of Almere hardly looks like a place whereteacher shortage might be an issue.And yet,it’s more acute here than anywhere else in

the country.“Between last Christmas and the summer, at any given time, three or four schoolswere forced to lock their doors for one or two days a week,” says Netty Tiemersma,headof the local education board.Almere has arisen in less than 25 years on the outskirts of A m s t e r d a m , growing rapidly intoa middle-class town of 160,000 people, with a majority of young families.Against the backdropof a national shortage, teachers have been hard to come by. Instead,Almere has come upwith other solutions, such as team teaching. Primary schools have hired assistants fromdifferent walks of life and bumped up class sizes to 40 or 50 pupils. Teachers divide theminto sub-groups and rely on their assistants for learning activities. In the longer run,assistants may receive teaching qualific a t i o n s.The strategy,now being tried out in other towns,is winning support, with retired teachers and part-time bankers knocking on A l m e r e ’sschool doors. The board stands ready to “interview anyone interested in working ineducation.” ■

Wybo Algra, journalist for the Dutch daily Trouw

COMMUNITY BUSINESS

“There’s a palpablesense that

governmentsno longer look towards

teachers as peoplewho are creative,but as programme

executors”

TJULIE BLAIR

REPORTER AT EDUCATION WEEK (U.S.)

C h i c a g o ’s headhunting driveThe “windy city” has embarked on an aggressive drive to court teachers, often weary of working in adistrict where a majority of students live in poverty

hree years ago, administrators in theChicago Public Schools did little more thanadvertise available teaching positions inlocal newspapers in an attempt to recruiteducators.

This academic year, t h e y ’ll spend morethan $2 million on the endeavour, d i s p a t c hheadhunters throughout the nation tolocate talent, and develop a partnershipwith the city to provide affordable housingfor those they hire.

“In a seller’s market,we have to go outthere and woo people,” said Carlos Ponce,chief human resources officer for the schoold i s t r i c t . C r i t i c s, h o w e v e r, warn thatambitious recruiting efforts must be coupledwith well-funded retention policies. “Youcan recruit all you want and have wonderfuli n c e n t i v e s, but if working conditions arenot palatable, teachers are going to leave,”said Barnett Berry of the NationalCommission on Teaching & A m e r i c a ’sF u t u r e, a panel of educators, public offic i a l s,business and community leaders chargedwith analyzing the national teachershortage.

Corporate tacticsLike many urban school districts in the

United States, the Chicago Public Schoolshas overhauled its approach to attract andretain teachers. Of the 26,000 educatorsnow on the payroll, 17 percent will beeligible to retire next year, Ponce said.A n dwhile the state of Illinois produces morethan enough teachers to meet demand,only a handful want to take on thechallenges of working in America’s third-largest school district, where 94 percent ofthe 432,000 students enrolled are believedto live in poverty, a figure based on thenumber of free lunches distributed.Manystudents are black or belong to Hispanicand other minority groups, a n dadministrators are desperate for educatorsto reflect this diversity, as well as for thosewho are bilingual, q u a l i fied to teach special

e d u c a t i o n , m a t h e m a t i c s, s c i e n c e, or arewilling to work in schools located within thepoorest neighbourhoods.

“In the past,we used to just sit back andwait until teachers came to us,”Ponce said.“What we did [during the 1998-99 schoolyear] was to institute a corporate-stylerecruiting programme.” That meantallocating significantly more dollars andmanpower to recruitment efforts andthinking creatively about meeting the needsof rookie educators. The recruitmentbudget was increased from $500,000 to $2.1million over the past three years, and 12recruitment officers now do the work onceassigned to two, Ponce said.This year, t h e y ’l ltravel to 60 colleges and universities aroundthe country to attend job fairs, a strategynever before implemented.

F u r t h e r m o r e, the headhunters areoffering competitive packages. Beginningteachers with bachelor’s degrees can earnbetween $35,521 and $39,365 their fir s tyear;those with master’s degrees can pullin between $37,981 and $41,825.E d u c a t o r salso have the choice of two types of medical

plans and may be eligible for a college debtcancellation programme offered by thefederal government, provided they chooseto work in a shortage area.To make the dealeven more attractive, the district hasinstituted a pilot programme to provideup to $5,000 in salary advances to be repaidover a teacher’s first few years of work.Future plans include embarking on apartnership with the city to provide housingassistance for teachers in a city where thecost of living is high.

To date, the strategies appear to beworking, Ponce said.“During the 1998-99school year, we brought in 1,900 teachers,”he said.“In 1999-2000, we did 2,200. Thisyear, we’re shooting for 3,000.”

Experts, however, point out that thereis no research available to determine whichstrategies are most cost-effective. “We’regetting a number of takers on these things,but we don’t know what the long termimpact will be,” said Susan Melnick ofMichigan State University.

Success depends on making lastingchanges within the system, she said, fromhigher wages and better training toeffectively manage the difficulties of themodern-day classroom.That will all comein good time, Ponce said.“None is happierthan me about the national teachershortage because it has allowed us to

A HARD SELL FOR T E AC H I N G

Looking for educators who are ready to work in the poorest neighbourhoods.

W O R L D O F L E A R N I N G ◗


ill wars be fought over wa t e r, as they have been over oil? Th efear has been expressed by high-ranking UN officials and statel e a d e r s. The short answer is that no military force in theworld has ever managed to “capture”a river basin and theonly full-fledged water war dates back over 4,500 years (pp.18-19).“Water by its very nature is used to extinguish fires,not to ignite them,” says Jordan’s Munther Haddadin, whonegotiated one of the most historic water agreements eversigned (p. 22).

In the Middle East, thirsty nations have no choice but to cooperate. Despite the bloodshedbetween Israelis and Pa l e s t i n i a n s, the two sides regularly meet to assure water supply in the We s tBank,while informal talks continue on a plan to share the region’s resources (pp. 22-25).From the Danube (pp. 26-27) to the Nile (pp. 3 0 - 3 1 ) , mighty rivers have been used as pawns in theCold Wa r. Yet today, as countries like Egypt, Ethiopia or the republics of Central Asia shake free from this legacy, they are learning to trust one another by trading in theeconomic benefits of wa t e r, l i ke hydroelectricity or irrigation supplies. Just by studying an aquiferor a river, states like Namibia andB o t s wana (pp. 3 4 - 3 6 ) , or India andBangladesh (pp. 3 2 - 3 3 ) , are sheddingt h e i r mutual suspicions. There are no magicformulas in hydrodiplomacy, but slowly,a new alliance is forming betweenl a w y e r s, technicians and the peopleclosest to the resource (pp. 3 7 - 3 8 ) .To g e t h e r, they are devising ways ofsharing the one natural resource thatwe cannot replace, or live without.

Dossier concept and coordination by A m yOtchet, UNESCO Courier journalist

WC o n t e n t s1 8 S a b re - rattling among thirsty nations

Interview with Aaron Wo l f

2 0 A thirsty world

2 2 A Jo rdanian fire extinguisherAmy Otchet

2 2 If common sense prevails Gershon Baskin and Nader El Khatib

2 6 A tale of two damsGyörgy Moldova

2 8 The tide turns in Central A s i aRené Cagnat

3 0 Taming the Nile’s serpentsKhaled Dawoud

3 2 South A s i a : sharing the giantsSanjoy Hazarika

3 4 The Kalahari’s underg round secre t sAmy Otchet

3 7 Negotiating with nature :the next ro u n dMichèle Ferenz and Lawrence E. S u s s k i n d

STRIKING on trou

F O C U S


There is no denying the potential violencesurrounding the current water crisis.About 40 percent of the world’spopulation live in river basins shared bytwo or more countries. These basinscomprise more then 50 percent of ourplanet’s landmass. Only a fool would besurprised to find competing claims overw a t e r.Yet this interdependence does notinevitably lead to war over water.

The “water war”thesis may actuallyhelp create the very conflicts it seeks toa v o i d . It is usually presented as a growingnumber of people vying for less and lesswater. However, the current crisis is notabout an absolute limit, but aboutd i s t r i b u t i o n . For water to reach people atthe right place and time, a governmentmust have access to technology,knowledge and money as well as theinstitutional capacity to distribute thisessential resource.

The wealthy North cannot approachthe South by saying, “Conserve water!D o n ’t develop the resource. D o n ’t usewater-saving technologies to grow food.And for God’s sake, reduce population!”This message may be based upon good

intentions but it reinforces a sense of panicand the notion of a zero-sum game, i nwhich one side must compete againstanother for water. It is a message to thebullies,“You better get yours first!”

By focusing on looming water wars,we fail to see water as a tool forpreventive diplomacy. For example, ariver basin forces us to rethink notions ofi n t e r -d e p e n d e n c e. Instead of fearing it asw e a k n e s s,we use it as a network to betterrespond to the tests of nature. B yexchanging information on events like aflood or drought, states can reduce thepotential danger.This flexibility addressesthe basic, almost primordial fear that hasdriven humans to become toolmakersand engineers: fear of uncertainty in aharsh environment. While oftenchallenging the engineering mentality,this same fear inspires environmentalc o n c e r n s. Somehow water forces us to god e e p e r, beyond adversarial relationships,to confront what we really share—aninstinct for life.

Water is one of our enduring humansymbols of life, regeneration,purity and

h o p e. It is one of our potent links with thes a c r e d , with nature and with our culturali n h e r i t a n c e. It offers a medium for aglobal project that unifies humanity in asingle cause for peace, stability andecological sustainability. The water warthesis takes us in the opposite direction.It denies the universal acceptance ofwater as a common good.

The water war thesis has raisedconsciousness of the resource. But weare in danger of crying wolf too often.This thesis plays to human fears—fears ofc h a n g e, fears of deprivation, fears ofl i m i t s, fears of violence and indeedprimordial fears of death. It is time tomove beyond fear to action. L e a d e r sneed to rediscover and harness water’scapacity to generate wealth, its potentialfor multiple uses and reuse, its greatconvening power, its ability to providethe learning ground for building civicculture.

Perhaps we need to “go back to thefuture”and look at how water has beenused in order to redefine the goals ofwater leadership. Water holds thepotential for both conflict andcooperation—the choice is ours. ■

DON’T CRY W O L FJEROME DELLI PRISCOLI

SENIOR POLICYANALYST AT THE INSTITUTE OF WATER RESOURCES, U.S. ARMY CORP OF ENGINEERS


PEAC Ebled waters

O P I N I O N


INTERVIEW BY AMY OTCHET


S a b re - ra t t l i n gamong thirsty nationsAaron Wolf*, an American geographer, dispels the scare-mongeringof a looming war over water by sifting through just about every relatedconflict and treaty in history

Just about every journalist writing about waterwill evoke the spectre of past and impendingw a rs over the re s o u rc e. You have searc h e dfor and analyzed every international watera g reement signed and “ i n c i d e n t ” re p o r t e d .

W h e nwas the last time two states formally went to war

over water? The only recorded incident of an outright war

over water was 4,500 years ago between twoMesopotamian city-states over the Ti g r i s - E u p h r a t e sin the region we now call southern Iraq. Since then,you find water exacerbating relations at theinternational scale. But you also regularly fin dhostile states—such as India and Pakistan or theIsraelis and Palestinians—resolving water confli c t seven while disputes rage over other issues.

We also analyzed everyreported water incidentbetween two states that wecould find anywhere in thew o r l d ’s 261 international riverbasins in the past 50 years.Tw o -thirds of a total of 1,800 e v e n t sinvolved cooperation, l i k econducting joint scientificinvestigations or signing over 150 water treaties.

Turning to the negative events, we found that8 0 percent consisted of verbal threats and posturingby state leaders, which was probably aimed at theirown internal constituents. In 1979, E g y p t i a npresident Anwar Sadat said:“The only matter thatcould take Egypt to war again is water,” in referenceto the Nile. King Hussein allegedly said the samething for Jordan in 1990.

Yet in the last 50 years, there have only been3 7 events in which people actually shot at eachother over water. Of those, 27 were between Israeland Syria over the Jordan and Yarmouk rivers.

But critics argue that you cannot look to history top redict the future because of unprecedented stress onincreasingly scarce water supplies.

I cannot think of a worse case than the Tigris-Euphrates or the Jordan River.All of these countries

have run out of water. They have the means todivert their neighbour’s water and the enmitybetween them couldn’t get much worse. Yet theyhave all come up with agreements.States have gone to war over oil,why not water?

S t r a t e g i c a l l y, water wars don’t make sense.Yo ucannot increase your water resources by going towar with a neighbour unless you are willing tocapture the entire watershed, depopulate it andnot expect a tremendous retaliation.

But water has been used as a weapon and target in war.Th a t ’s a totally different issue,which happens all

the time.During the Gulf Wa r, Iraq destroyed mostof Ku w a i t ’s desalination plants and the A l l i e dcoalition intentionally targeted Baghdad’s watersupply and sanitation system. Serbian engineersreportedly shut down Pristina’s water system inKosovo before NATO arrived in 1999.

Yet you must distinguish between water as asource of conflict, as a resource and as a weapon.We’ve gone to war over oil. Yet you wouldn’t put

that event in the same categoryas the military use of a flamethrower or even napalm.

So where does this water- w a rtalk come from?

A lot came from the post-Cold War period, when theWestern military asked,“what

do we do now?” That is when this wholeenvironmental security movement took off. B yaround 1992, a lot of political scientists began writingthat resource scarcity in general was going to lead tow a r f a r e. I t ’s very tempting to see water as a source ofc o n flict once you begin to understand what it meansto society and ecosystems. But in emphasizing thevalue of the resource, these analysts overlooked thesubtleties involved.

You argue that water by its very nature induces co-o p e ration between states. Can you give an example?

The Oslo Accord between Israelis and Palestiniansactually came out of backroom talks among waterpeople from the region who met in Zurich in 1990—I believe.The water people introduced their politicalcounterparts to one another and actually hatched outthe process, which led to the accord.

This kind of scenario happens regularly because

* Director of theT r a n s b o u n d a r yFreshwater DisputeDatabase project( h t t p : / / t e r r a . g e o. o r s t . e d u )and associate professor atOregon State University

You cannot increaseyour water resources

by going to warwith a neighbour


water naturally flows into other realms. States alongthe Nile began by talking about water and are nowworking towards an agreement that includes roads,electricity and other infrastructure (see pp. 30-31).

You maintain that the “red flag” for internationalwater is not water scarcity but one country’s attemptto dominate an international river. Most of thesec o n flicts usually revolve around plans to build amajor dam. But this kind of project generally re q u i re sassistance from organizations like the World Bank,which evaluate proposals according to enviro n m e n t a land ethical criteria. By pulling the purse strings, c a n ’ tthese organizations prevent water conflicts fro marising?

What you’re suggesting has been the case. Butas more private capital takes over investment inthese projects, the ethical and environmentalcriteria of the development banks is no longer ani s s u e. Tu r k e y, for example, is diverting privatea n d public capital to fund one of the most content-ious projects, known as GAP, which envisages theconstruction of 22 dams and 19 power plants onthe Tigris-Euphrates and its tributaries.The same istrue for the Narmada dam in India and China’sThree Gorges project.

The T i g r i s - E u p h rates is regularly cited as a fla s h p o i n tfor a possible war. How can anyone induce Turkey,probably the most powerful state in the region,notto pursue its own interests to the detriment of itsdownstream neighbours, Iraq and Syria?

Everybody keeps talking about the Ti g r i s -Euphrates as a potential fla s h p o i n t ,but what’s reallyinteresting is that in 1991, NATO actually askedTurkey to shut the flow of the Euphrates towardsI r a q . But the government refused and basicallys a i d ,“ You can use our air space and bases to bombIraq,but we won’t cut off their water.”

Since the 1970s, Tu r k e y, Syria and Iraq havehad an implicit agreement,which Turkey continuedto respect even while building the dams.And despitethe rhetoric, Syria and Iraq both recognize thatthey benefit from those dams because they even outthe river’s flow and extend their farmers’ growings e a s o n . Turkey wants to be seen as a fair, g o o dneighbour for several reasons, including NATO

pressure as an ally, internal politics and attempts tojoin the European Union. The difficulty lies inmaking the implicit agreements explicit.Water professionals maintain that you have tomanage a river basin as a whole. But multilatera lwater treaties must be a nightmare to negotiate.Which are more effective—multilateral or bilateralagreements?

The more people in the room, the more diffic u l tit is to reach an agreement, especially when youare dealing with a country’s sovereignty. Take theJordan River as an example:Syria and Jordan havean agreement, Jordan and Israel have an agreement,Israel and Palestinians have an agreement—severalsets of bilateral agreements for a multilateral basinwhich is managed fairly effic i e n t l y, although thePalestinians will eventually claim and probably getgreater water rights.

A new way of solving water confli c t s, some economistsargue, is to set up an international water market.Butthen again, we can look to the recent conflict in whichthe U.S. has argued that Canada must sell its waterre s o u rces under the terms of the North American Fre eTrade A g reement—a proposition that Canada re j e c t s.What is the value of treating water as an economicresource when trying to resolve a conflict?

Economists can highlight and quantify thebenefits flowing from water, like hydroelectricity,and help build what we call a “baskets of benefit s.”For example, the U. S. and Canada have anagreement in which the U. S. has flood control damswithin Canadian territory. The U. S. pays Canadafor that benefit . It is generally easier and moreequitable to allocate the benefits than the wateritself.

Economists also remind us of the need to recoverthe cost of water delivery, treatment,storage and soo n .But we’re often pushed to think in terms of watermarkets—buying and selling water as a commodityeven though this has never happened internationallyin a practical sense.As someone who is committed towater emotionally, aesthetically, religiously and forecosystems, I am reluctant to think of water as justanother economic good. ■

S T R I K I N G P E A C E O N T R O U B L E D W A T E R S

Let not a simpledrop of waterthat falls onthe land gointo the seawithout servingthe people.Parakkama-Bahu I,King of Sri Lanka(1153-1186)

A potential flashpoint? Turkey’s GAP dam project.

A thirsty worldThe population is not only growing but using more water, even thoughthe world’s total supply remains the same. This scarcity could put a majorbrake on the world’s development this century

T A K I N G S T O C K T O B E T T E R M O V E A H E A D

Nearly ten years have passed since the Rio Earth Summit of1992 alerted the world to the importance of “water”on the

international development agenda. Since then, assessments ofglobal water resources indicate that water scarcity will increasedramatically during the next decades, with a disproportionateeffect on developing countries. Demand is growing,and with it,competition among different users. Unless we change the way wethink about and manage our water resources, both people andplanet could suffer irreparable damage.A l r e a d y, the lives and well-being of millions of people are constrained by water.The World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP)—establishedin 2000 and endorsed by 23 United Nations agencies with a stakein water—is part of the global effort to seek integratedapproaches and sustainable solutions to human developmentproblems. Hosted at UNESCO, it responds to concerns expressed bythe international community at the World Water Forum in TheHague (2000), and builds on the challenges identified in theMinisterial Declaration that followed.A key component of the project will include the World WaterDevelopment Report, which will not only assess the state of theworld’s water resources but monitor the progress in meeting itsgrowing demand. The first edition of the report will be publishedin 2003.

Within the WWAP framework, a project has recently beenlaunched to help dispel the myth that increasing water stresswill inevitably lead to international conflicts or potential“ fla s h p o i n t s,” namely along the world’s261 international river basins “ s h a r e d ” by 145 countries.Although water offers potential for conflict,it also provides apowerful tool for cooperation. Hence the title of the new PPCPproject: From Potential Conflict to Cooperation Potential. Aseries of studies, publications and educational activities willfocus on the social,cultural,scientific and political complexitiesinvolved in transboundary water resources. ■

+ …http://www.unesco.org/water/wwapLinks to all UN partner agencies are found under “partners”onthe WWAP home page.A brochure about the Programme and the World WaterDevelopment Report is also available on-line in English, French,Spanish,Russian,Arabic and Chinese.

Physical scarcity

Economic scarcity

Little or no scarcity

Not estimated Indicates countries that will import morethan 10 percent of their cereal consumption in 2025

If states substantially invest in wa t e r-related infrastructureand management policies, we can expect the projections

presented below.Yet despite these efforts, many countries will still face“physical water scarcity in 2025:” their water needs will

outstrip supplies no matter what measures are take n .O t h e r swill be faced with “economic water scarcity:”they will lackthe financial and institutional capacity required to increasetheir water supplies by 25 percent.

La pénurie d’eau en 2025.Projected water scarcity in 2025.


http://www.unesco.org/water/wwap


Evolution de la consommation mondiale d’eau par secteur d’activité,en km3.Dynamics of water use by sector in km3.

6,000

5,000

4,000

3,000

2,000

1,000

0

1900 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 1995 2000 2010 2025

Total Agriculture Industry Municipal

Evolution du volume d’eau douce disponible par habitant et par an, en milliers de m3.Global water availability per person in million m3.

20

15

10

5

0

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 1995 2000 2010 2025

Répartition de la population mondiale, en 1995 et en 2025,selon les quantités annuellesd’eau douce renouvelable, disponibles par habitant,en m3.Global annual renewable water supply per person in 1995

and projections for 2025 in m3.

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

1995 2025

500 m3 500–1,000 m3 1,000–1,700 m3 1,700 m3 Unknown

Since 1900, w o r l dpopulation has doubled yet theamount of fresh water used hasincreased more than six-fold.Agriculture is by far the largestconsumer of wa t e r, m o s t l ybecause of the spread ofirrigation. Two-thirds of all thewater consumed in the worldgoes to farming, a shareexpected to shrink only slightlyby 2025. More effic i e n tirrigation techniques are clearlythe first and crucial step toreducing water use.

Today, there is about 6,800m3 of water available perperson on a yearly basis. I fcurrent trends continue, o n l y4,800 m3 will be available in2 0 2 5 . This is an optimisticcalculation because it is basedupon estimates of all the waterflowing in rivers aftere vaporation and infiltration intothe ground. It does not take intoaccount the minimum requiredto maintain river ecosystems,for example. Nor does it reflectthe difficulty in accessing all ofthis water or its extremelyunequal distribution.

When per capita wa t e rsupply is less than 1,700 m3 pery e a r, an area suffers from“water stress”and is subject tofrequent water shortages. I nmany of these areas today,water supply is actually lessthan 1,000 m3 per capita whichcauses serious problems forfood production and economicdevelopment. Today, 2.3 billionpeople live in wa t e r- s t r e s s e da r e a s. If current trends continue,water stress will affect 3.5billion—or 48 percent of theworld’s projected population—in 2025.


As the violence between Israelis andPalestinians spirals and cooperation isconsidered an act of treason, both sidescontinue to work together on a single issue:w a t e r. In Fe b r u a r y, six months after the

intifada erupted, Israel and the Palestinian Au t h o r i t y( PA) jointly called upon their people to keep waterand wastewater infrastructure out of the cycle ofd e s t r u c t i o n .The reason is simple:both of their systemsare intertwined.

The Israeli-Palestinian Joint Water Committee,set up under the Oslo A g r e e m e n t s, is probably theonly common framework to survive the past year.Despite sealed borders and gunfir e, the committeeregularly meets to deliver water in the West Bank,where many wells and springs have gone dry,e s p e c i a l l yas the current drought scorches a second year. Talksand action revolve around practical issues—repairingpipes or delivering chlorine. Yet plans to constructnew wells, which the Palestinians desperately need

GERSHON BASKIN AND NADER EL KHATIB

RESPECTIVELY CO-DIRECTOR OFTHE ISRAEL/PALESTINE CENTERFOR RESEARCHAND INFORMATIONAND DIRECTOR OFTHE BETHLEHEM-BASEDWATER ENVIRONMENT

DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION

If common sense p r e va i l sDespite sealed borders and gunfire, Israeli and Palestinian expertscontinue to meet on the sidelines in an attempt to hammer outa way of sharing their blue gold


AMY OTCHET


A Jordanianfire ex t i n g u i s h e rAn insider’s view on one of the most historic water agreements eversigned—the deal between Israel and Jordan

By parking his purple 1979 Caprice furtherupstream he diverted the attention of theIsraeli patrols on the opposite bank of theYa r m o u k . Slowly he made his way along theJordanian side of the river, until he reached

a large eucalyptus tree where a dozen men waited withr o p e s, axes and spades. Barely speaking, they loweredhim down the six metres to the water’s edge, b e f o r efollowing him, one by one. “Give me that axe,”he toldthe crew leader. “In the name of God, the Merciful andMost compassionate,” he said in a low voice, b e f o r estriking deep into the enemy—a sandbar over 20 metreswide which had been diverting part of Jo r d a n ’s watershare to Israel. It was 1984, ten years before the twostates would sign a peace treaty that included one of thew o r l d ’s most famous water-sharing agreements. Th eman who played a key role in masterminding it also ledthat expedition.

“ Whenever I think back on it, I choke,” s a y sMunther Haddadin, former water minister of Jo r d a n .

While clearly proud of his axe-wielding adventure,Haddadin doesn’t recommend it as a standardnegotiating technique. I n s t e a d , the civil engineer witha penchant for international law offers more subtle,y e tno less demanding lessons learned from hammeringout the historic water treaty with Israel.

“ The trick is to try to transform the entire show intoa positive sum game, so that both sides view themselvesas winners,” he says. For example,“a major concession

The Jordan River:breaking down defenses.



on our part was the recognition of Israel. I had tomake the Israelis feel secure but at the same time usethis weakness as a card in my sleeve.”

Tales of poisoningAs Haddadin explains, all of the states along the

Jordan River had agreed to their rightful share of waterin a plan drawn up with the assistance of an Americandiplomat in 1955. H o w e v e r, the technical resolutionw a s n ’t translated into a political accord because itwould entail tacit Arab recognition of the state ofI s r a e l . Once Egypt broke this taboo in 1979, I s r a e lwas anxious to continue the peace process and turnedto Jordan.To some extent,water served as a bridge inopening discussions between the two states:a drought-stricken Jordan was losing part of its rightful share ofthe Yarmouk River to Syria and Israel.

At fir s t , Haddadin kept contact to a minimum,only discussing immediate technical problems, l i k ethe famous sandbar, under the auspices of the UnitedNations Truce Supervision Organization.With militaryescorts looking on, Haddadin and his Israelicounterpart would meet midstream, standing in twofeet of the river’s water.S l o w l y, they got in the habit ofpulling up sandbags to talk at a makeshift picnic tablealong the Yarmouk.But it wasn’t until 1991 that theformal peace process began and Haddadin beganhammering out major water-sharing proposals.

Whether meeting in a hotel lobby in a foreigncapital or the garden of Jo r d a n ’s Crown Prince,“ a l w a y savoid a stand-off,”says Haddadin.When Israelis balkedat his demands for more water, he would “beat aroundthe bush”on economic grounds. “Let us see who canafford to increase their supply by pumping or

desalinating water,”he would ask in order to highlightthe gap in per capita income between the two countries.“Do you think you will live in peace when yourneighbour is starving?”

During the three years it took to forge a deal,Haddadin earned a reputation as a staunch negotiatorand a hothead capable of exploding unexpectedly,w h i c hhe laughs off as a “ s k i l l ” to destabilize his opponents.B u tas he notes, you cannot just seal a deal,you have to sellit. With kid gloves, he informed his fellow officials thatthey didn’t own the country’s namesake and would haveto share the water of the Jordan River Basin. Despitepersonal attacks (namely false rumours that hisAmerican wife was Je w i s h ) , Haddadin proudly watchedthe signing of the peace treaty with its water annex in1994 and later became minister of water and irrigation.

But Haddadin would pay for this glory in 1998,when residents of West Amman found cloudy waterrunning through their taps after a treatment plantfailed to handle high levels of algae.The water didn’tpose a serious health threat but it did spread a noxiousmix of nationalism and fear,as tales of Israeli poisoningspread through the media and ordinary grapevines.“The panic was orchestrated from within Jordan tobring down the government,” says Haddadin, w h odecided to resign as minister. Since then,he has goneon to set the record straight in his new book.* Whilehighlighting his own role, the real heroes are theYarmouk and Jordan Rivers. In the words of Haddadin:“ Water by its very nature, is used to extinguish fir e s, n o tto ignite them.” ■

*Diplomacy on the Jo rdan—International Conflict and Pe a c e f u lResolution (Kluwer Academic Publishers,O c t .2 0 0 1 )

and were promised in Oslo, have been abandoned.The violence of the past year has killed the formaldiscussions on redistributing water supplies andrecognizing Palestinian sovereign rights over naturalr e s o u r c e s.The Israeli government no longer considerswater to be a technical issue but a matter of nationals e c u r i t y.According to the hawks, I s r a e l ’s very existencedepends upon military and political control of thePalestinian Te r r i t o r i e s, especially the West Bank whichprovides for 25 percent of Israeli water needs.

Talking dollarsand cents

This obsession with security is certainly not new inI s r a e l . Even before the intifada, environmental issueswere cast as threats, sold to the public as “ w a t e rs e c u r i t y ” or “food security.” The Western press inparticular has towed this line, peddling stories aboutwater inevitably killing prospects for peace. Yet thetruth of the matter is that hydrologists and civilengineers on both sides have been steadily developing

possible long-term agreements. While formaldiscussions of these plans are now taboo, techniciansand government experts from across the region arecontinuing to meet quietly, beyond the reach of hawkson all sides. Here is an outline of a plan we have inmind.

First a bit of background.Palestinians each haveabout 85 cubic metres per year for all of their needs—d o m e s t i c, industry and agriculture.Average use amongIsraelis is 447 cubic metres per year. In the West Bank,about 25 percent of the population doesn’t haverunning water, even though this area is relatively richin groundwater thanks to the Mountain A q u i f e r, f r o mwhich Israel pumps about 85 percent of its yield. H e r elies the heart of the dispute.

The famous Mountain Aquifer actually consistsof three different ones—situated in the east, n o r t h w e s tand west of the mountain.The media tends to paint theEastern Aquifer as a political minefie l d ,yet the path toresolution is far from tortuous. The Palestinians canrightfully claim absolute sovereignty over the aquifer

JORDANLength: 322 kmSource: Mount HermonMouth: Dead SeaCountries: Israel,Jordan,Lebanon, PalestinianTerritories, Syria

YARMOUKLength: 80 kmSource: Jordan-Syria borderMouth: Confluence with theJordan RiverCountries: Israel,Jordan,Syria

RIVER FLOWS

I S R A E L

L E B A N O N

Y a r m o u k

J

J o rd a n

JERUSALEM AMMAN

DAMASCUS

D E A D S E A

W E S T

B A N K

M O U N T A I N A Q U I F E R


which lies entirely within their territory. Byinstallingpumps after 1967,Israel has apparently contravenedinternational rules concerning military occupation.The decision to give up this aquifer is not as painful asit might seem. It is the poorest of the three in terms ofwater quantity and quality.

The rest is not so clear- c u t , as seen with the We s t e r nAquifer, the largest of the three.About 80 percent ofthe recharge basin—the area in which rain and streamstrickle down into the aquifer—lies in Palestine.H o w e v e r, that water naturallyflows underground into Israel,where most of it is pumped.

Palestinians claim that theyown the water because itoriginates in their territory. A tthe same time,Israelis invoke thecardinal international right ofhistoric use—they were the firstto tap into and develop thissource about 80 years ago through an agreement withthe British Mandate (in a concession to a Je w i s hcontractor).

Debates over water rights generally turn in circles.While there is clearly a need to recognize both sides’sovereign rights to natural resources, i n t e r n a t i o n a llaw and common sense directs us to find a “ r e a s o n a b l eand equitable” use of the water.How do you determinea fair deal? You cannot quantify a right to water, butyou can calculate the need for it.

Everyone—Palestinians and Israelis—should beentitled to a minimum of 100 metres3 per year fordomestic and industrial use. To do this, Israel wouldhave to reallocate 100 to 200 more million metres3 o fwater each year to Palestinians. No state leader wants

to give up control over a resource, especially one soprecious and politically explosive as water. But thereis another way of evaluating the trade-off: in dollars andcents.

Water equals money. Each cubic metre of water inIsrael is worth an estimated $0.20/m3. So the water indispute amounts to between $20-40 million a year—orabout 0.05 percent of Israeli GDP. This isn’t worthfighting over. It is money well spent.

The economic value of water is obviously not newin the Middle East. For years,thirsty governments have beentrading in “virtual water”—economists actually calculate thewater it takes to grow fruit andv e g e t a b l e s. So by importingtomatoes and oranges, f o re x a m p l e, governments areactually buying cheap, b i o -degradable packets of water. I t ’s

a lot easier and cheaper to import a tonne of fruit andvegetables than the water it takes to grow it.

We want to expand this trade.To begin with, I s r a e l ifarmers can no longer earn a living by feeding theirc o u n t r y, which is accustomed to a costly We s t e r nl i f e s t y l e. Not so for the Palestinians. Both Israel and thePalestinian Authority currently allocate about 80percent of their respective water supplies toagriculture. In Israel, farmers make up about threepercent of the labour force and contribute threepercent of the GDP. In Gaza and the West Bank, athird of workers depend upon agriculture, w h i c haccounts for about a third of the GDP. So it is nosurprise to find that Israel buys the entire surplusfrom farms in the West Bank and Gaza, p r o v i d i n g

Can this trade expand? Farmers setting up irrigation for agriculture in Jiftlik Valley, near Nablus.

For years, thirsty governments

in the Middle Easthave been trading in

“virtual water”

If you listen towater, learn itslanguage, then

water will bringyou knowledge

of all beings andliving things.

Yves Thériault, Canadianwriter (1915-1983)


for one-twelfth of the country’s fresh fruit andvegetable needs. We suggest that they both use thistrend to their advantage and that of their neighbour,Jordan.

Over the next 10 to 15 years, all three partiesshould agree to increase the supply of irrigation waterin Palestine and Jordan.There are several options forfinding the extra water within the Jordan Va l l e y : aredistribution of supplies from the Mountain A q u i f e rand the Jordan River. R a i n - h a r v e s t i n g, t r e a t e dwastewater and improved infrastructure (40 percent ofwater is lost to leaky pipes in some Palestinianm u n i c i p a l i t i e s ) . New sources further afield might alsoopen up. For example, Lebanon might sell water fromthe Litani River which could be stored in Lake Ti b e r i a s.The new Unity Dam,under construction by Jordan andSyria,also holds potential.

Desalination: the saviour?No one loses in this proposal. Palestinians and

Jordanians see a steady increase in the number ofagricultural jobs at a time of staggering unemployment.They also gain a guaranteed market for crops and bycultivating more land, Palestinian farmers lay the seedsfor new settlements. We are not suggesting thatPalestine base its economy on agriculture in the long-term.No country in the Middle East can afford to doso financially or environmentally. But after decades ofoccupation,Palestinians cannot be expected to leap-frog economically.

Despite Israel’s cultural attachment “to making thedesert bloom,” the state will have to cut back on

f a r m i n g. By allocating more water to Palestinians andJo r d a n , it would not only gain a secure source of cheapfresh food, but the country’s hi-tech industry wouldgrow by selling irrigation technologies as well as high-profit seeds, fertilizers and pesticides.

Fi n a l l y, the international community could“ r e w a r d ” such a regional plan by setting up aninternational fund for research and development inwater desalination. For this is clearly our most likelyoption in the very near future.

In the next 20 to 30 years, the Israeli and Palestinianpopulations are expected to double as their respectivediasporas immigrate to the region, especially withformal recognition of a Palestinian state. Every dropof fresh water will be required to fulfill domestic needs.Desalination will be the saviour. Today the processcosts about $0.65/m3, which is still far too expensive,especially for agriculture. (In the Middle East, a cubicmetre used for irrigation brings an economic return ofjust $0.50 to $1.00).Yet it is still cheaper than importingfrom the region’s hydrological baron,Tu r k e y,which hasproposed constructing a “peace pipeline”to deliver andsell its blue gold at$0.95/m3.

This proposal may appear to be a naïve attempt todeny the escalating violence.Yet from where we stand,it would be absurd and even criminal to give up on ourwork.In the very near future, technicians from bothsides and beyond will be meeting outside the region tocontinue to informally discuss and refine this proposal.Contrary to popular belief,water in the Middle East isnot a source of war, but ingenuity. ■


Based upon a new report by B’Tselem—the Israeli Center for Human Rights inthe Occupied Territories—released in July 2001.

In the West Bank, 218 villages—home to about 200,000 people—are notconnected to a single water network. This is why just about every yard in the

area has a cistern where families store the rain water they have collected fromthe rooftops of their homes. However, they can usually only live from suppliesduring the rainy season between November and March.In the summer months and sometimes even the winter, most residents have nochoice but to buy water from vendors who own private tanke r s. Even villages withrunning water often rely on this commerce because of the irregular supplyduring dry months. The owners of the tankers buy most of the water fromPalestinian municipal water networks and the rest from Israeli settlements andPalestinian-owned private agricultural wells (which are not subject to anyquality control).This water market is completely unregulated—“market forces” alone set thep r i c e s.While a household connected to a water network will pay the equiva l e n tof about a dollar per metre3 , a vendor will charge between $3.50 and $9.50 forthe same amount.This financial burden is like a noose around the neck of manyf a m i l i e s, who have lost their primary source of income since the intifada.1

According to B’Tselem, some village residents can no longer purchase water fromthe tanke r s. In the summer, the women and children of these families cross militarycheckpoints and blocked roads to fill bottles and jerrycans with water from nearbysprings.

The West Bank contains 114 springs, most of which are primarily used forirrigation.The most bountiful springs lie in the Nablus and Jericho districts (52s p r i n g s ) .The others are generally quite poor, especially given the current drought.For example, the Auja spring,north of Jericho, has totally dried up over the lastthree years. Despite decreasing rainfall, an Israeli well continues to pump theaquifer that feeds the spring for the benefit of nearby Israeli settlements. Thesituation has devastated Palestinian agriculture in Al Auga,whose farmers usedto rely upon the spring for irrigation water.In general, the springs are not just poor in terms of quantity but also quality.Th ePalestinian Authority does not control the wa t e r, despite the high risk of pollutionby sewage from nearby towns and villages as well as from Israeli settlements andindustrial zones.The very source of a spring can be at risk as the pesticides andfertilizers used by local farmers seep into the ground. ■

1. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, in the first quarterof 2001, the median income of a household in the Occupied Territories fellby 48 percent, unemployment increased from 11 percent before the intifadato 38 percent, and the percentage of families living in poverty increased to64 percent, compared to 21 percent before the intifada.

THE DEHYDRATED WEST BA N K


GYÖRGY MOLDOVA

ONEOF HUNGARY’S BESTSELLING AUTHORS, WHOSE SERIOUSWORKSINCLUDE “THE DANUBE IS BURNING”

A tale of two damsAn author renowned for his sense of humour takes a grim viewof a political row between his native Hungary and Slovakia in whichthe Danube is held hostage

We may thank rivers for life: b r i n g i n gwater to drink, to nourish our fie l d sand to carry our boats. There is onlyone problem: they are exceptionallysuited to forming borders. Instead of

uniting people bound for a common destiny, s u s p i c i o u sn a t i o n s, often incited by clashing politics, glare at eachother like wolves from opposing shores. I have seensuch venom flowing along the Danube between Hungaryand Slovakia.

The Danube has always been a tempestuous force,bringing alternating waves of calamity.Either it was tooa b u n d a n t , forcing entire villages to seek higherground,or it was too feeble, leaving fields to witherand causing a sudden halt to navigation.

The Roman emperors Tiberius and Trajan werethe first to hire civil engineers to devise ways ofprotecting their banks from the fickle Danube. Manywould follow their example, but it was not before the20th century that the technicians would muster thepower and tools to tame the river.

By 1951, serious plans were underway to build aseries of dams along the Danube in Hungary andC z e c h o s l o v a k i a .The Soviet Union was anxious to alterthe river’s shallow reaches which were hampering theshipment of its goods in Eastern Europe.At that time,few questioned the wisdom of “correcting mothern a t u r e ”and it was considered a scientifically proven factthat a river the size of the Danube required not just onedam,but several.Otherwise, sediments would collect

and disrupt navigation and damage embankments,causing bridges to collapse. It would take another2 0 years to iron out the technical and financialarrangements but in September 1977,the Republic ofHungary and the Czechoslovak Socialist Republicsigned a now infamous treaty to build the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros dam system.

Grinding the axeof the opposition

The region was clearly suffering. Au t h o r i t i e srecorded more than 100 days of shallow waters a year,which damaged the wild flora and left several hundredships stranded along a 250-kilometre stretch of ther i v e r. While the project was originally intended toimprove navigation, it grew to include hydroelectricityas the oil shocks of the 1970s intensified.

A large reservoir would be built at Dunakiliti,which straddled both countries. From there, a 17-kmcanal would divert 90 to 95 percent of the Danube’s flo wto a hydroelectric dam and powerplant in Gabcikovoin Czechoslovakia. About 100 km downstream inHungary at Nagymaros, another power station anddam would even the river’s flow.

Construction began in 1978 based upon plans drawnup by world-famous Hungarian,Slovak and Austrianwater experts,against whom accusations of a technicalnature could hardly have been raised—not so againsttheir political inclinations, as it was later revealed.

By the end of the 1980s, the powers waiting torelieve the socialist system of Eastern Europe lurked inthe shadows. Yet they could hardly demand thedeparture of the occupying Soviet army, or indeed amulti-party system. I n s t e a d , they demonstrated onenvironmental grounds and found an obvious target inthe ongoing construction of the Gabcikovo-Nagymarosd a m s. It was like a chink in the system’s wall into whichthe opposition could wedge its demolition axe, held atthe ready.

Protestors marched en masse down the streets ofBudapest and along the banks beside Nagymaros.Anybody who had anything to do with the project wasdeclared a Stalinist, or worse, a traitor to his country.A spublic pressure intensifie d , the Hungarian governmentdecided to suspend the half-finished construction.Th eculmination came in 1990 when the right-winggovernment took power and unilaterally cancelled thetreaty.

S L O V A K I A

H U N G A R Y

BUDAPEST

BRATISLAVA

Dunakiliti dam

Gabcikovo barrageNagymaros barrage

D a n u b e

DANUBELength: 2,850 kmSource: Confluence of theBreg and Brigach rivers in theBlack ForestMouth: Black SeaCountries: Austria,Bulgaria,Croatia,Germany, Hungary,Romania,Slovakia,Ukraine,YugoslaviaPopulation around the riverbasin: 85 million

RIVER FLOWS

October 2001 -The UNESCO Courier 27

But the Czechoslovak side paid no heed to theHungarians and carried on with the work furtheru p s t r e a m .The authorities unilaterally decided to diverta 25-kilometre stretch of the Danube, which served aspart of the border between the two countries, into itsown territory,where another dam was built to replacethe one intended for Hungary.Gabcikovo would not beas powerful as planned,but it would be operational.

Fish in the mudProtest marches similar to those in

Hungary had no effect.History was noton the demonstrators’ side. A sCzechoslovakia divided into two parts,Slovakia came to see Gabcikovo as thesymbol of their independent state, born in1993.

By the end of October 1992, t h eDanube was diverted and the mainchannel stretching across Hungarianterritory suddenly lost 90 to 95 percent ofits water. Signs indicating the river’s waterlevel were left standing on dry land.Groundwater levels in surrounding areasdropped by two or three metres days afterthe Danube stopped feeding its streams.Fish were trapped in the old basin, left toasphyxiate in the mud.

The Hungarians could not believethe drama unfolding before them.Extremist elements spoke of blowing upthe obstructing dam. Fo r t u n a t e l y, t h i sthreat was soon replaced by negotiationsfostered by the European Community,which was already panicked bybloodshed in the Balkans. Both sides satdown to talk, yet the balance of power was skewed inS l o v a k i a ’s favour.With firm control of the lion’s shareof the river’s water supply and energy output, it tooklittle notice of Hungarian wishes. In April 1993, t h edispute was submitted to the International Court ofJustice in The Hague.

In 1994, the Socialists came back into power inHungary but could hardly back out of the court case,which was hailed as a landmark:for the first time, thecourt would rule over an environmental dispute. Butthis case was about politics, not water.And so the courthanded down an ambiguous decision in 1997, whichboth parties could interpret to their advantage. Th e1977 treaty was still valid,according to the ruling, buteach side was at fault for acting unilaterally—Hungaryfor pulling out and Slovakia for continuing with thec o n s t r u c t i o n . They were called upon to negotiate ingood faith. Even though the court had no way ofenforcing its ruling, both sides returned to thenegotiating table.Anxious to join the European Union,the two governments wanted to show their wealthyWestern neighbours that they could resolve theirdisputes in a civilized manner.The outline of a mutually

acceptable agreement was drawn up to finally completethe project and resolve key environmental concerns.

Once again, politics intervened. Hungary’s right-wing opposition joined forces with the “ s t o r m i n g ”Greens and together they organized massd e m o n s t r a t i o n s.For a second time in less than a decade,they managed to use the same weapons to force thegovernment to back down. Yet this time, the Socialistgovernment was keeling before the final deathblow of

parliamentary elections in 1998.

Weak resolveIn their manifesto, the right-wing elements at the

helm of the new government promised to remedy theDanube. Yet three and a half years later, not a singleworthy step has been taken. Hungary has however,been spending millions of dollars to take down thehalf-built dam and might be forced to spend millionsmore to compensate Slovakia for pulling out of thed e a l . There is talk of forming more committees orreturning to the International Court of Justice—a suresign that both countries are still not committed toresolving the situation.Their true colours will inevitablyshow soon—both will hold parliamentary elections in2002.

Take a stroll along the two banks of the Danubianbasin today and you will see that the Gabcikovo regionin Slovakia is thriving, while on the Hungarian side, t h eland which was supposed to store water has beenoverrun by weeds. And the Danube? The Danubecarries not water, it carries politics, dirty politics. ■

Hand in hand: protestors around the Gabcikovo dam region.


RENÉ CAGNAT

AUTHOR OF LE MILIEU DESEMPIRES (LAFFONT, PARIS, 1981), LA RUMEUR DESSTEPPES (PAYOT, PARIS, 1999)AND A BOOK OF PHOTOS, VISIONS D’UNFAMILIER DES STEPPES (TRANSBORÉAL, PARIS)

The tide turnsin Central A s i aGeography, the Soviet legacy and population growth are forcingthe five countries of Central Asia to cooperate closely in a region wherewater is still used as a weapon

Last winter, as usual, I found myselfwithout gas in my apartment in Bishkek,the capital of Kyrgyzstan, and I cursedneighbouring Uzbekistan for cutting itoff at the worst possible moment. Once

a g a i n , I was going to freeze for weeks on end.What I didn’t know was that this time, Ky r g y z s t a nwas readying to hit back by using “the weapon ofwater”as never before.

The Kirghiz simply opened the flood-gates oftheir dam at To k h t o g u l , which supplies water toboth Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan via the Syrdariar i v e r.Their excuse was that they had to feed theirhydro-electric power stations to make up for thegas that had been cut off. But the Kirghiz meantb u s i n e s s. The flood-waters swept away theembankments in Uzbekistan’s Ferghana valley,where people did not expect nearly so much waterin the winter. Further north the river was blocked

with ice, so the surge of water was diverted as it isevery winter towards the Aidarkul Basin.

This has been going on for three decades, w i t hmore water each year. Greater use of hydro-electricity in winter means the power stationsdischarge a lot of waste water downstream.As ar e s u l t , the basin, which was once a desert, h a sturned into a huge and useless lake that is2 0 0 kilometres long and 30 km wide, and whichcontains 16 k m3 of water that would otherwisehave flowed into the Aral Sea, where it is badlyn e e d e d .1

Trading offwater and gas

This year’s “ r e v e n g e ” flooding was the biggeste v e r. It lasted two weeks, yet drew only a fewcomplaints from the Uzbeks.The Kirghiz replied,tongue in cheek, that after releasing so muchwater they could no longer guarantee a supply inthe summer. The response from Ta s h k e n t , t h eUzbek capital, was swift. Five days later, the twocountries sat down to negotiate. Ten days aftert h a t , I had gas in my kitchen again.

The media was pessimistic about the talks.But on July 12, it was announced that “the waterproblem has been solved.” The deputy primeministers of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan andUzbekistan signed an agreement for the “ s e n s i b l euse of water and energy resources.” Even thoughthis “ u n d e r s t a n d i n g ” was limited to a year’sduration and was drawn up by purely technocraticm i n i s t r i e s, it opened the door to multilateralexchanges instead of the previously annualbilateral accords. In exchange for electricity andwater from Ky r g y z s t a n , the Kazakhs will provide400,000 tonnes of coal and the Uzbeks anundisclosed quantity of gas.

But the big event came a few days later.A lawpublished in Bishkek on July 29 about “the inter-governmental use of water resources, dams andother water-related installations” took the regioninto a whole new era. Modelled on the 1992 DublinD e c l a r a t i o n , the law stated that “water has aneconomic value in all its competing uses and should

In Kazakhstan, a ship stranded on the dying Aral Sea.


be recognized as an economic good.”From now on, so long as the Kirghiz can get

their neighbours to respect the agreement, t h eother countries will have to pay not just for thewater—making it a real commercial product—butalso for maintenance of installations and for thehydraulic technology. If the region’s economicpowers react intelligently, there will be acrackdown on wasting water—a major revolutionthat could put an end to the sort of Soviet-eravices that still taint the behaviour of ordinaryp e o p l e.

Absence of meters andavailability of free water forirrigation has led to enormouswastage in both town andc o u n t r y. General inertia andthe abundance of waterproduced by giant Sovietinstallations have killed offthe art of irrigation learntover centuries.When water isp r o v i d e d , it is done so only inhuge quantities that harmboth vegetation and people.Parched soil becomes marshland.Thirsty peopleare soon plagued by mosquitoes. But nobodycomplains or criticizes.

The same apathy mixed with irresponsibility—rooted in people’s attitudes for decades—hasproduced utterly inadequate installations fromone end of the water supply chain to the other.Water leaks from dams and canals. The much-vaunted Turkmen canal has no concretef o u n d a t i o n , and so loses as much water in theKarakum Desert it crosses as it provides for locali r r i g a t i o n . Excess irrigation water is never drained,so the landscape in Central Asia is dotted withstretches of waste water or marshland, while at alower altitude, the starved Aral Sea is slowlyd y i n g. But the new law could put an end to thisscandalous history of waste.

A historicw e a p o n

Will the people of Central Asia rally tosupport it? Individually yes, collectively onlym a y b e. But their rulers must realize the dangerand take action, or else water will become apowerful weapon in a region where cities wereonce swept away because an enemy—GenghisKhan—diverted rivers towards them, and oaseswere destroyed because an invader—Tamerlane—smashed irrigation canals.

After a centuries-long war between theUzbek emirates of Bukhara and Kokand forcontrol of the river Zeravshan, the Russians didnot manage to seize Bukhara until 1868, w h e n

they had cut off its water supply. The Sovietsmade things worse first by creating smallmountainous states such as Kyrgyzstan andTajikistan that had copious amounts of water,and states that were more powerful or wealthy—K a z a k h s t a n , Uzbekistan and Tu r k m e n i s t a n —but which had less water.A series of dams werethen built along the borders between the twogroups of states.

In 1911, about 15 million people lived inTu r k e s t a n , a region of central Asia that includes

Tu r k m e n i s t a n , U z b e k i s t a n ,Ta j i k i s t a n , Ky r g y z s t a n , t h esouthern part of Kazakhstanand Chinese Xinjiang. To d a ythere are 73 millioni n h a b i t a n t s, and the figurecould top 100 million by 2025,imposing an even greaterburden on the water supply.The Aral Sea is s t i l ldisappearing because of badw a t e r m a n a g e m e n t . O n ehopes the same thing will nothappen to several endangered

o a s e s, such as the one at Bukhara.The solution lies in closer cooperation

between the five Central Asian countries. O n l ythis can produce the mutual sacrifices needed ifthe water is to be shared. ■

1 . The Aral Sea was once fed by two rivers, t h eS y rdaria and the A m u d a r i a , until majorinstallations built under Soviet rule divertedthem to irrigate cotton plantations.To d ay the seais half its original size and contains only a thirdof the water it used to.

K A Z A K H S T A N

T A J I K I S T A N

K Y R G Y Z S T A N

ASHKABAD

ASTANA

DUSHANBE

TASHKENT

BISHKEK

BukharaFerghana

Almaty

Kokand

T U R K M E N I S T A N

A F G H A N I S T A N

I R A NC H I N A

S y r d a ri a

A m u d ar i a

Aral

Sea

X I N J I A N GKarakum Canal

La ke Ba lk as h

T O K H T O G U L B A R R AG E

A Ï DA R KO U L



General inertia andthe abundance of water

produced by giantSoviet installations

have killed off the artof irrigation learnt

over centuries

SYRDARIALength: 3,078 kmSource: Confluence of theNaryn and Karadaria rivers inthe Tian Shan MountainsMouth: Aral SeaCountries: Kazakhstan,Kyrgyzstan,Tajikistan,UzbekistanPopulation around the basin:13.4 million

AMUDARIALength: 2,620 kmSource: Confluence of theVakhsh and Pandj rivers in thePamir MountainsMouth: Aral SeaCountries: Afghanistan,Tajikistan, Turkmenistan,UzbekistanPopulation around the basin:15.5 million

RIVER FLOWS


KHALED DAWOUD

CORRESPONDENT FOR AL-AHRAM (CAIRO)

Ta m i n gthe Nile’s serp e n t sGuzzled by Egypt but generated in Ethiopia, the waters of the Blue Nilehave long been a source of sabre-rattling. A new plan might finally putan end to the spectre of a river war

Legend has it that at the time of the pharaohs,the people of Egypt sent gifts up the Nile tothe kingdom of Ethiopia to placate the Godsthat fed the river’s source. Egypt had, a n dremains to have, good reason to be grateful:

some 86 percent of the water that flows down the BlueNile to irrigate the arid North African country emanatesfrom floodplains on Ethiopian territory.

Yet the one-way river flow between Egypt andEthiopia—as might be expected between a country thatcraves water and a country that supplies it for free—hasnot always resulted in such harmonious exchanges ofg i f t s. In 1979, E g y p t ’s then president Anwar Sadat madethe Nile’s fate into an urgent issue of national security.“The only matter that could take Egypt to war again isw a t e r,” he said in reference to Ethiopia’s plans to tap intoits one precious natural asset.

The potential for conflict over the water isu n d e n i a b l e. Some 95 percent of the Egyptianpopulation is packed onto the fertile ribbon of landalong the banks of the Nile and its delta, the country’sonly water sources of note. Desperately poor andunderdeveloped Ethiopia, in contrast, has sufferedperiodic droughts since the 1970s, causing the loss ofmillions of lives.The Blue Nile1, emerging largely fromLake Tana in the Ethiopian highlands, has long beeneyed as a possible source for irrigation,h y d r o e l e c t r i c i t yand general economic growth in a country whosepopulation is set to boom. At present, E t h i o p i aconsumes a mere two percent of the water available toit.

Water distribution between the two A f r i c a nneighbours has always had a political edge, but by thetime of Sadat’s sabre-rattling remarks, a differentrivalry was poisoning relations. After flirting for adecade with the United States, Ethiopia found itselfruled in the 1970s by Colonel Mengistu Haile-Mariam’sMarxist regime. Soviet experts invited by the colonelbegan studying the feasibility of damming the Nile’stributaries and exploiting its water, provoking Egyptinto threatening that any dams built would bedestroyed by military force.

“Although such threats gave rise to the commonlyheld notion that future African wars would be overw a t e r, the fact is that these tensions were a spin-off ofthe Cold War,” argues Rushdie Saeed,one of Egypt’s

most prominent experts on water issues.Since the end of the Cold War, however, the Nile

waters have continued to prompt regular diplomatics p a t s. The early 1990s, for example, saw Sudan andEgypt at loggerheads following alleged efforts by theSudanese government to overthrow Egypt’s president,Hosni Mubarak.Sudan and Ethiopia formed a jointBlue Nile Valley Organization and pledged to studyseveral major infrastructure projects with or withoutEgypt’s approval. Once again, Mubarak resorted tothreats of military intervention.

Though a marked improvement in relationsbetween Cairo and Khartoum has since calmed nerves,diplomats and experts are convinced that only a lastingsettlement will bring peace to the Nile’s coveted waters.Until now, only one agreement has been signed byEgypt and its neighbours—the Nile Waters A g r e e m e n tof 1959 between Sudan and Egypt, itself based on adeal made by the region’s colonial powers in 1929.Ethiopia was not even mentioned in the accord.

Yet the case for some more equitable distributionof the river waters is mounting by the day. B e s i d e s

Lining up for water in Ethiopia,a nation

Water alwaysflows toward

the areasof least

resistance.Moses Isegawa,

Ugandan writer (1963-)


E t h i o p i a ’s traumatic droughts and destitution,s t u d i e spoint to a staggering rise in the country’s population:current data suggest that the population will increasefrom 61.4 million at present to 186 million in 2050.Given that only 1.7 percent of the country’s arableland is irrigated (compared to 100 percent of Egypt’s ) ,an exponential rise in demand for water is only to beexpected.

A durable solution might not be too far off. I nJuly of this year, and after five years of preliminaryt a l k s, the 10 states of the Nile basin—including Egypt,the Sudan and Ethiopia—announced that they hadsecured World Bank money for a series of programmesto explore how the river’s waters can best be shared.The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) has launched severalsuch studies, due to be followed by loans worth atleast three billion dollars.

Thrashing outdifferences

“ The River Nile still has a great potential which isnot yet exploited and which can be a great benefit tothe people of the Nile basin,” said Egypt’s minister ofpublic works, Mahmoud Abu Zied, in a recentinterview. “Each country is entitled to an equitableshare from the river without causing appreciable harmto the other riparian states.”

Underpinning the initiative is the experience ofstates surrounding the Mekong River in SoutheastA s i a . Since 1957, Vi e t n a m , L a o s, Cambodia andThailand have been members of a commission chargedwith economic development of the river basin. D e s p i t e

political differences between thenations and an absence of formalt r e a t i e s, the body has helpedconvert the Mekong into a sourceof regional integration instead ofr i v a l r y : the Nam Ngumhydropower plant,completed inLaos in 1971, provided electricityto the home country and covered80 percent of Th a i l a n d ’s needs,even during the violent conflictsthat followed inauguration.

With this precedent in mind,the World Bank hopes the Nile’swaters might usher in a similarspirit of co-operation. Which isnot to say that members of theprogramme have been pullingtheir punches. “ There arequestions such as how tocalculate future quotas. S h o u l dit be according to the size of theterritory or the size of thep o p u l a t i o n , or possibly theavailability of other waterr e s o u r c e s ? ,” wondered oneEgyptian official who took part ina recent NBI meeting in Geneva.“We all have different ideas foranswers and this remains to beresolved.”

Ethiopia has already startedbuilding a series of small damsto tap the Blue Nile water.According to officials involved in the projects, thesedams will benefit nations downstream by protectingSudan from over-flooding and reducing the siltaccumulation suffered by Lake Nasser dam in Egypt.But Egypt’s Saeed is unconvinced by their arguments.He insists that it is in fact more dangerous for the siltto be stopped than for it to flow with the water: s h o u l dthe former occur,he says, the river might gain in energyand cause havoc in the northern reaches of the Nile.

Saeed also takes issue with Ethiopia’s claims thatthe new dams will enable the government to sellelectricity to neighbouring countries.“ Which countriesEthiopian officials have had in mind is difficult tod e t e r m i n e, h o w e v e r,as none of Ethiopia’s neighboursare industrialized nations or great consumers ofelectricity,” he observes.

All parties now admit, h o w e v e r, that theirdifferences of opinion are better thrashed out at thenegotiating table than left to the generals. Wh a tpromised to be A f r i c a ’s next war might just havebecome Africa’s latest remedy. ■

1. The Blue Nile originates in Ethiopia,the White Nilein Uganda.The confluence of these two rivers is nearK h a r t o u m , in the Sudan.A p p r oximately 86 percent ofthe Nile water flowing into Egypt is from the Blue N i l e.


hard hit by periodic droughts since the 1970s.

CAIRO

Alexandria

Aswan

MediterraneanSea

E G Y P T

S U D A N

E T H I O P I A

K E N Y A

ASMARA

LakeTana

ADDISABEBA

U G A N D AD E M . R E P .O F C O N G O

S U E Z C A N A L

S A U D IA R A B I A

KHARTOUM

NILELength: 6,693 km from itsremotest headstream,theLuvironza River, Burundi;5,588km from its majorsource, Lake Victoria in EastAfricaMouth: Mediterranean SeaCountries: Burundi,Democratic Republic of theCongo, Egypt,Eritrea,Ethiopia, Kenya,Rwanda,Sudan, Tanzania,UgandaPopulation around the basin:89 million

RIVER FLOWS


SANJOY HAZARIKA

SENIOR FELLOW AT THE CENTRE FOR POLICY RESEARCH, AN INDEPENDENTTHINK TANK BASED IN NEW DELHI.FORMER REPORTERFORTHE NEW YORK TIMES OUT OF SOUTH ASIAAND AUTHOR OF FIVE BOOKS, OFWHICH HIS LATEST,

RITES OF PASSAGE (PENGUIN BOOKS INDIA, 2000)

South A s i a :sharing the giantsThree of the world’s mightiest rivers flow through countries of the Indiansubcontinent. Despite strife and war, several landmark agreements havebeen reached, but fresh disputes are looming

Regional cooperation appears difficult tocome by in South A s i a . There have beenfour conflicts between India and Pakistansince 1947, clashes on the Indo-Bangladeshborder and accusations about India’s

overwhelming influ e n c e. When the South A s i a nAssociation for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) wasestablished in the 1980s to provide a forum fordiscussion primarily on trade, contentious topics likewater resource negotiations were totally excluded fromits brief. Ye t ,South Asia has a commendable record inthe realm of water- s h a r i n g, developed through acombination of civil society presure, political sagacityand technical co-operation.

Countries had one precedent in the fie l d . Th eIndus Waters treaty, signed between India andPakistan in 1960, is a landmark as far as water- d i s p u t eresolutions go.The dispute can be traced back to the

Partition of the Indian sub-continent in 1947. Th eIndus river begins in the Himalayan mountains ofKashmir on the Indian side, flows through the aridstates of Punjab and Sindh, before converging inPakistan and joining the Arabian Sea south ofK a r a c h i . The source rivers of the Indus basinremained in India, leaving Pakistan concerned bythe prospect of Indian control over the main supplyof water for its farmlands. The newly formed statescould not agree on how to share and manage thecohesive network of irrigation, which was impossibleto partition.

Brokered by the World Bank, the treaty, whichcovers the largest irrigated area (26 million acres) ofany one river system in the world,has survived twowars and provides an ongoing mechanism forconsultation and conflict resolution throughinspections, exchange of data and visits. The treaty

Farmers in the Tibetan village of Zangri try to salvage their barley crop after the Tsang-po burst its banks.


demonstrates how functional cooperation on bothsides is not impossible to achieve, though most othercontentious issues remain deadlocked.

New breakthroughs were made in the 1990s overw a t e r-sharing in the region. In December 1996,recently elected governments in both India andBangladesh decided to resolve decades of acrimonyover the sharing of the waters from the Ganges, oneof the most culturally and economically significantrivers on earth.The breakthrough came after years ofpolitical stalemate and bitter rhetoric at the publicl e v e l , alongside quiet work behind the scenes bywater specialists, politicians and scholars on bothsides at the non-governmental level.The result was the30-year India-Bangladesh water-sharing agreement,signed in 1996.

Bangladesh, being in the downstream and deltaportion of a huge watershed,has been most vulnerableto the water quality and quantity that flows fromu p s t r e a m .The way rivers are used in one country canindeed have far-reaching effects on nationsdownstream.

When India built the Farakka Barrage in the1 9 6 0 s, Bangladesh (then East Pakistan until itsindependence in 1971), watched helplessly as itwreaked havoc.In the dry season, the barrage blockedthe natural flow of water into the country, c a u s i n gdrastic water shortages. And in the rainy season,sudden water releases caused floods and extensived a m a g e, including the loss of property and humanlives.

Early warningsystems

The principal objective of the 30-year treaty is todetermine the amount of water released by India toBangladesh at the Farakka Barrage.The water- s h a r i n ga r r a n g e m e n t s, primarily for the dry season, a r especified to the last drop and depend on the river’sflow. It aims to make “optimum utilization” of thewaters of the region,and relies on the principles of“ e q u i t y, fair play and no harm to either party,” with aclause for the sharing arrangements to be reviewedevery five years.

Spurred on by the success of this treaty, I n d i aresolved yet another riverine dispute, this time withN e p a l , in 1997. The Mahakali River treaty settlesN e p a l ’s entitlement to water flows and electricityfrom the Indian side, improving on a 1992 agreement.The treaty, h o w e v e r, has run into opposition fromvarious Nepali groups, who claim it is still unfair to thec o u n t r y ’s interests.

Although these various agreements point tosteady regional cooperation on water- s h a r i n g,another dispute may be looming on the horizon.This time, it centers on the Brahmaputra,the othergreat river of this region,which flows through Tibet( C h i n a ) , India and Bangladesh over a distance ofnearly 3,000 kilometres. Although no dispute hasbroken into the open,the issue of information sharing

has strained relations between the three countries.The problem is that even the most basic data is notdisclosed.

The results have been tragic. In the summer of2000, a landslide in Tibet caused a dam to collapse,unleashing a 26-metre wall of water that destroyedevery bridge on the Siang, as the Brahmaputra isknown in the Indian border state of A r u n a c h a lPradesh. The water then rushed through the Indianstate of Assam and,within a week,devastated partsof Bangladesh. Human casualties were light butdamage to property was extensive. An effectivee a r l y-warning flood system is a goal that all threegovernments must therefore work towards.

Tappingthe potential

According to Indian offic i a l s, the Chinese had notshared any information on the build up of waterpressure and the heavy rains in the upstream catchmentarea of the river, known as the Tsang-po in Tibet.

Concern is also being voiced about purportedChinese plans to divert the waters of the Tsang-powith the help of nuclear tunnelling.This appears to bea Chinese move to assess international reaction to thepossibility of a dam on the river to tap its huge hydro-energy potential.

Cooperation on river waters could significantlyimprove the lives of millions of people. In the case ofthe Brahmaputra, it is not so much a question ofsharing the waters as of tapping the waterwayp r o fitably for mutual benefit , primarily for transport,commerce and industry.

One example: through cooperation, A s s a m ’sfamed tea could be shipped downstream toBangladesh and sent to other parts of the world.Oil from the Numaligarh refin e r y, also in A s s a m ,c a nbe exported in river barges to meet Bangladesh’senergy needs. These simple but effective measureswould generate employment and revive theeconomies of marginalized communities. ■


BRAHMAPUTRALength: 2,900 kmSource: Kailas range,HimalayasMouth: Merges with theGanges, then into the Bay ofBengalCountries: Bangladesh,China,IndiaPopulation around the basin:300 million (including theGanges)

GANGESLength: 2,510 kmSource: Gangotri glacier,HimalayasMouth: Merges with theBrahmaputra,then into theBay of BengalCountries: India,BangladeshPopulation around the basin:300 million (including theBrahmaputra)

INDUSLength: 3,180 kmSource: Kailas range,HimalayasMouth: Arabian SeaCountries: China,India,PakistanPopulation around the basin:150 million

RIVER FLOWS

I N D I A

P A K I S T A N

C H I N A

Calcutta

Karachi

A U T O N O M O U S R E G I O N O FT I B E T

BHUTHAN

BANGLADESH

J A M M U A N DK A S H M I R

ISLAMABAD

KABUL

A F G H A N I S T A N

DELHI

DHAKA

KATMANDÚ

B r a h m a p u t r a

B r a h m a p u t r a

I N D I AG a n g e s

I n d u s

ArabianSea

Bay ofBengal

F A R A K K AB A R R AG E

Lhassa


AMY OTCHET


The Kalahari’su n d e rg round secre t sNamibia almost came to blows with Botswana over plans to diverta river, but the answer may lie just beneath the surface of the driestcountry south of the Sahara

Just nod with a smile and maybe your companionfrom the Water Affairs Department won’t noticethe confusion. Driving north into the vast spacesof Namibia,you keep missing the rivers he spots.“And this is the Okahanja River,” he says.

Another blank nod.“And here we have the famousO m a t a k o. It may look small but this river can be veryp o w e r f u l .”Look small? Look where? The patient GregChristelis is gushing with tales of flash flo o d s,yet all yousee is a cracked and sandy track in the bush, w h e ns u d d e n l y, what used to be dry facts and figures abouterratic rainfall and aridity come rushing back—Namibiad o e s n ’t have any regular or perennial rivers to call itsown.*

This is a land of ephemeral rivers, which arrivewith near violence and disappearwithout warning, flowing for afew hours, days or even weeksafter a good hard rain beforefading into the red desert sandor the tall grass of the savannah.But when they do run, t h e yrepresent events in people’s lives.Men will still swap stories abouta river that hasn’t flowed for 30years. The old-school Afrikanerfarmer will religiously plotrainfall levels on a graph, while in black communala r e a s, the same information is embedded in lessons thata father recounts to his children.

A dehydrated capitalIn Namibia—the driest country south of the

Sahara—water scarcity and unpredictability form aconstant constraint on national development.Av e r a g eannual rainfall is 250 mm compared to 1,400 mm in theDemocratic Republic of the Congo, for example. Acorner of the country can receive double the averagerainfall one season and nothing for years after.And thelittle that does fall doesn’t stay for long:83 percent islost to evaporation, plants soak up and then sweatanother 14 percent back into the atmosphere, l e a v i n gjust two percent to run off those mysteriouslyephemeral rivers and one percent to infiltrate rockunderground.

That single digit, h o w e v e r, may transform the

Namibian landscape. Groundwater is already providingfor about half of the country’s needs and its role willincrease as the population grows and droughts hitharder and more frequently with predicted climatec h a n g e.Yet this invisible resource is just breaking thesurface of the country’s national and regional priorities.

“ For the past ten years, w e ’ve focused onnegotiating protocols [agreements] for internationalrivers like the Zambezi,which involved eight states.B u twe ignored groundwater, even through we haveaquifers running across national boundaries,” says Dr.Serge Puyoo,a French geohydrologist working with theSouthern African Development Community (SADC).Think of aquifers as a lattice of rock, whose cracks,crooks and crannies are filled with water. Sometimesthe water is from recent rain which seeped downthrough the soil. Other aquifers only contain fossilw a t e r, rain of bygone geological eras.Depending uponvarious factors—from the type of rock to the pull of

gravity—the water can slowlyflow within the aquifer andb e y o n d . Like rivers,aquifers payno heed to national borders.

As Puyoo explains,“not onlyhas there been a general lack ofknowledge in monitoring andmapping these aquifers, but acultural and historical blockageto recognizing them. M a n ycountries relegate groundwaterto the geology departments of

government or universities. So politicians and watermanagers are unaware of the potential and limits of theresource, until they are faced with a crisis.”

That is exactly what happened in 1996-97, whensevere drought brought Namibia’s capital,Wi n d h o e k ,to its knees and the country close to the brink of warwith neighbouring Botswana, according to sensationalmedia reports. Simmering tensions over disputedborders added fuel to the fire surrounding Namibia’splan to divert part of the Okavango River, w h i c horiginates in Angola before carving the border withNamibia and then snaking into Botswana to feed the“jewel of the Kalahari.”In this vast wetland, t r a d i t i o n a lcommunities weave around a wealth of biodiversityand wildlife that tourist operators milk for foreigncurrency, amounting to ten percent of the country’sgross domestic product.

For ecologists in Botswana, the river was sacred.But in Namibia, those shining waters appeared as a

This is a landof ephemeral rivers,

which arrive withnear violenceand disappear

without warning.


saviour, prompting civil engineers like Piet Heyns toupdate an old scheme to pipe about one or two percentof the average flow to dehydrated Wi n d h o e k . Th ecapital was in crisis—ordinarily three dams wouldstore enough water to keep the city running for a fewy e a r s. Two were almost empty and the third wascollecting dust. Officials were digging holes in adesperate search for more groundwater, w h i l emunicipal authorities set up an electric sign to countdown the days remaining of supply in the dams. By thetime it hit 30,the government prepared to divert theOkavango. Then,without warning, it rained…

Rolling backapartheid’s legacy

To d a y, the plans for the pipeline still sit withinreach of Piet Heyns, who is now director of Wa t e rAffairs and Namibia’s representative to the PermanentOkavango River Basin Water Commission, which issupposed to resolve the dispute over the river. Heynsand his counterpart in Botswana, Balisi Khupe,s p e a kof glowing plans for joint studies and monitoring.Yetaccording to some experts involved, the commission ismired in bureaucratic gridlock. The delay may proveb e n e f i c i a l , h o w e v e r, as Namibia moves with theinternational current running against building newdams and their hefty price-tags.

Instead of grabbing for rivers, the government islooking underground to economize its reserves,n o t a b l yby building the largest water bank on the continent.Th eaim is to plug the holes in the three dams, p a r t l yconnected by an open canal running more than2 5 0 kilometres in the bushy savannah, w h e r esubstantial amounts literally vanish as vapour. In 1997,for example, the three dams supplied Windhoek withabout 15.7 million cubic metres (Mm3) of water.Yet thesystem lost 33.5 Mm3 to evaporation. Instead of letting

that precious river and rain water bake in the sun,plans are underway to inject it into an aquifer under thec i t y.The next phase will lie in opening two “ b r a n c h e s ”of the bank at nearby dams.

Through investment schemes like the bank,Namibia is removing the vestiges of apartheid’s controlover its natural resources 11 years after independencefrom South A f r i c a .“ There was so much money flo w i n gin from South Africa that we did major infrastructureprojects without proper study,” says Greg Christelis,chief geohydrologist at Water A f f a i r s. The problemmay not have been the quantity of money flowing in,but the direction it took: straight to wealthy whitefolk in Windhoek and the surrounding cattle country,where the average livestock farm,fattened by subsidies,covers at least 5,000 hectares.

Namibia is not alone in trying to roll back thehydrological legacy of apartheid. South Africa is inthe lead, passing the world’s most progressive water lawto ensure fair and sustainable use of the resource athome and abroad.With 80 percent of its river (surface)water originating in Lesotho, the government is keenlyaware of the need for hydro-diplomacy among itsneighbours, notably Namibia and Botswana.“We’re

Just about every country in the world, except for island states, probably shares an aquiferwith a neighbour.Yet these hidden sources of blue gold rarely appear on a map because

so little is known about them. UNESCO is trying to promote a better understanding of theseaquifers from a scientific,legal and management perspective. A new project will not onlyhighlight important case studies like the Karoo, but develop maps and a database on howbest to manage and monitor transboundary aquifers. The project has several partners,notably the IAH, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the UN Economic Commissionfor Europe. ■

UNMAPPED T R E A S U R E

“Drop by drop,water sculptsthe rock.”Theocrites, Greek poet (315-250 B.C.)


Herding in the communal areas of northern Namibia.


trying to move from the Okavango to something morepositive,” says Christine Colvin of the InternationalAssociation of Hydrogeologists in South A f r i c a .

Through SADC,representatives from thethree countries (and others)have crafted a set of soon-to-be legally binding ruleson jointly monitoring andmanaging groundwater,especially transboundaryaquifers. Bear in mind thatthis is probably the onenatural resource that hasmanaged to avoidinternational regulation.Countries spent decadeshammering out a UNconvention on internationalr i v e r s, yet they barelydiscussed deep aquifers.

Instead of trying to forgeformal agreements,international organizations

like UNESCO are promoting data exchange and jointmonitoring between countries (see box). N a m i b i a ,Botswana and South Africa are now mapping anenormous sequence of aquifers, known as the Karoo,which spreads across the Kalahari into all threecountries.The initial hope was that the investigationswould uncover phenomenal supplies of water inNamibia that could serve as an alternative to thecontroversial Okavango scheme. On the contrary, t h eNamibian side appears to be on the decline, a c c o r d i n gto Jurgen Kirchner, who is helping to coordinate amajor study financed and led by the Japan InternationalCooperation A g e n cy that focused on the country’smost important swathe of Karoo,known as Stamprietand covering an area of 65,000 kilometres2. The twoephemeral rivers which most experts used to believefed the aquifer seem to dead-end in sand dunes. Theonly apparent source of recharge is rainfall collectingin sinkholes, or indents in the topography, according torecent satellite images.

Trouble in cattle countryThe bad news is more destabilizing within the

country than across the borders. In South Africa,theaquifer sits beneath a national park, which requireslittle water.Demand is also low in Botswana,where fewpeople are willing to brave the remote Kalahari,although this may eventually change as traffic increasesalong a new highway crossing the desert.

The real conflict is brewing in Stampriet,w h i c h ,s a y sK i r c h n e r, must reduce its water use by 30 percent.This prognosis will ricochet like a bullet in this rollingland,with crests of red sand.This isn’t just any stretchof cattle country,but a bastion of wealthy white farmerswho believe that they are the backbone of a land theylove but a country they seem to fear and even hate.

Stampriet is the home of a “tough breed,” s a y sWillie Prinsloo, a legendary driller who dug for waterand minerals across southern Africa before retiring tohis farm,Donnersberg or Thunder Mountain,where heraises livestock and wildlife for trophy hunting on7,500 hectares.The one-eyed Willie runs the farm likea ship, overseeing every watering hole for cattle andvegetable planted in the plot he shares with his fourl a b o u r e r s, who live in tidy cottages behind his ownh o m e. Banish the thought that he and his brethrenare depleting the aquifer, says Prinsloo. Fault lies withthe government—for it refuses to replace the farmers’boreholes, the old rusty metal pipes installed decadesago to bring up the groundwater.To reach the Karoo,the boreholes must first pass through another aquiferwhich tends to have very salty water. Holes in thepipes enable this saline stuff to sink down and pollutethe clean Karoo.

Communal wisdomThe government, h o w e v e r, has a new policy in

which people pay for the water services andi n f r a s t r u c t u r e. In the north, nomadic herdingcommunities are helping to install new pumps andshould one day pay for the water they use. Might thesame apply to Stampriet?

The question provokes a torrent of what manywould consider racism, as Prinsloo expounds on thebenefits of colonialism.Beneath the old hatred lies anew fear:government plans to spread the wealth byland taxes and water metres. Here in the Kalahari,you can still feel the heat from Robert Mugabe’sZ i m b a b w e, so few dare to place the word “ l a n d ”b e f o r e“ r e d i s t r i b u t i o n .” But the government is slowly buyingcommercial (generally white) farms from willing sellersto ease pressure in the northern communal areas,which are in many ways like a separate country,d i v i d e dby a three-metre-high fence from the commercialcattle farms of men like Prinsloo.

According to the Japanese study, about five percentof Stampriet’s 1,500 farms are now government-owned.So not only must the Afrikaner brethren cut down ontheir water consumption,but they can also prepare formore and new neighbours. Yet Stampriet’s farmersare probably the only ones in the country to use halftheir expensive groundwater to grow commercialc r o p s.For economists, this is like throwing gold away—every cubic metre of water invested in irrigationbrought in just half a Namibian dollar (U. S. $ 0 . 0 6 ) .For the sake of the Karoo, Stampriet’s newcomershopefully won’t follow the “commercial”ways of the“tough breed”next door. ■

* Four perennial rivers form part of Namibia’s nationalborders.

+ …For more information, http://unesco.org/water

Atlantic

Ocean

Indian Ocean

N A M I B I A

A N G O L AZ A M B I A

Z I M B .

B O T S W A N A

LESOTHOS O U T HA F R I C A

Okahanja

Cape Town

WINDHOEK

PRETORIA

GABORONE

MASERU

O k a v a n g o

K A L A H A R I

K A R O OS t a m p r i e t

http://unesco.org/water


“It seemed absolutely improbable, b o r d e r i n gon the impossible,” U. S. Interior SecretaryBruce Babbitt said last January in referenceto a water accord reached among seven ofthe southwestern U. S. states after five tough

years of negotiation.The challenge he faced in brokeringthis agreement is one shared by many senioradministrators aroundt h e w o r l d . As increasingscarcity exacerbates waterc o n flicts within and amongc o u n t r i e s, water nego-tiations will inevitably growin scope and intensityalmost everywhere.

In a thirsty world,water can no longer beregarded primarily as a“strategic asset” that canbe secured andsafeguarded through theinstruments ofconventional security, l e a s tof all through the use off o r c e.As with atmosphericpollution leading to ozonedepletion and climatec h a n g e, or with thedepletion of renewableresources such as fishstocks and forests, w a t e rdisputes involve a whole range of political,economic,social and scientific considerations.The challenge lies infinding and maintaining a balance between politicaland technical priorities.To this end, the United Nationshas developed a framework convention to guide freshwater negotiations—which 10 states have ratified out ofthe 35 required for the treaty to come into force.National governments are,h o w e v e r, increasingly turningto an alternative form of negotiation involving neutralm e d i a t o r s, who work closely with internationalo r g a n i z a t i o n s, development banks, and a wide crosssection of groups concerned about the future of wateruse.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB), in its 1999

annual report, offered to mediate regional waterdisputes as part of a policy to increase access to cleanwater in A s i a .And the work of the World Commissionon Dams is cited by many as a remarkable feat ofconsensus building between widely divergent interestsaround a highly controversial development issue.From these experiments and other environmental

n e g o t i a t i o n s, we canhighlight some keyprinciples and “ b e s tp r a c t i c e s ” in waternegotiations.

Finding a unified voice

To begin with,it is notalways obvious whoshould be at thenegotiation table. Th estandard response is fornational governments totreat water as a foreignpolicy matter, and thus tocharge their top-leveldiplomats with workingout bi- or multi-laterala g r e e m e n t s. It is a mistake,however, not to include ahost of non-governmentalactors in thesenegotiations (farmers,

industry, environmental and women’s groups, etc.),whose activities directly affect the condition of aw a t e r s h e d , and whose livelihoods depend on ther e s o u r c e.These groups,along with local authorities andindigenous groups, can offer relevant technical andtraditional knowledge necessary to mitigate thestresses and strains suffered by a water system.

To be effective, these groups must be sufficientlyorganized to speak with something approaching au n i fied voice. So even before the larger dialogueb e g i n s, each group must work out its differencesthrough internal consultations which should continuethroughout the negotiation process. This ongoingfeedback forestalls the tendency of negotiators to

MICHÈLE FERENZ1 AND LAWRENCE E. SUSSKIND2

TOGETHER, THEYARE INVOLVED INTHETRAININGOF BI-NATIONAL MEDIATIONTEAMSFOR THE JOINT ENVIRONMENTAL MEDIATION SERVICE IN JERUSALEM

Negotiating with nature:the next ro u n dA step-by-step guide for brokering a deal on the one resourcewe cannot live without


1. Senior Associate att h e Consensus BuildingInstitute and a DoctoralFe l l ow at the Program onNegotiation at HarvardLaw School

2. Director of the PublicDisputes Program at theH a r v a rd Law Sch o o l ,and President, of then o n-profit ConsensusBuilding Institute.

“I can tell the wayof celestial bodies,but can say nothingof the movement ofa small drop ofwater.”Galileo, Italian astronomer(1564-1642)

Engineering a mutually reinforcing agreement.


lock into a position before hearing what others haveto say. Just to be certain that all of the key actors arei n v o l v e d , an impartial mediator should conduct aseries of confidential interviews with all the keystakeholders to clarify their concerns and identifyadditional players that should be included.

Finding the key people is only one element inpreparing for negotiations. Mediators should alsoplay a role in “joint fact-fin d i n g ” by helping to identifyexperts acceptable to everyone involved and byframing questions that these scientists should thenbe commissioned to investigate. Their findings canhelp reduce uncertainties and set priorities that maydiffer from country to country so that an overall“package” of proposals can bec r a f t e d . They can also help toestablish “red lines” o rthresholds of resource damageand depletion that would triggermore stringent obligations(known as “ c o n t i n g e n tagreements”).

Once the key people anddata have been assembled, theactual negotiations can begin.After a mediator prepares awritten conflict assessment to create an overview of theparties’ interests and priorities, face-to-face meetingscan begin. They usually start with the business ofsetting an agenda and adopting proceduralgroundrules that will allow for constructivedeliberation—or the “creation of value”—in anatmosphere that emphasizes creative problem-solving.No party is ever pressured to commit or tocompromise in well-managed mediation. At stagethree it is time to decide—or “distribute value.” Thechallenge here is to make sure that the goodwillpreviously generated isn’t lost as parties fight forcompeting proposals. Once an agreement on thesubstance is reached informally, the mediator mustthen be certain that it is communicated accurately tothe official decision-makers.

Still waitingfor the “Green Helmets”

In treaty-making, much of the focus is on thepainstaking task of drafting written agreements.Yet,in the global arena, the resulting provisions aretypically difficult if not impossible to legally enforce.Calls for an international water court are unlikely tobe heeded in the near future. Nor is deployment of“Green Helmets”—a kind of environmentalcounterpart to the existing blue-helmeted UnitedNations peacekeeping forces—feasible. I n t e r n a t i o n a lrelations theorists and lawyers hotly debate thepropensity of states to comply with treaty obligations.Some subscribe to the Machiavellian notion thatnations flout norms with impunity whenever they

think that the costs of adherence outweigh the benefit s.Others favour the theory that most nations observem o s t international law principles and obligations m o s tof the time, if only to avoid the “ s h a m i n g ”c a m p a i g n sorchestrated by non-governmental organizations.B u teven the optimists readily acknowledge that manyfactors other than willful disregard get in the way ofperfect compliance.The vague language of many legalrules, for examples, is a problem. In addition, somestates simply don’t have the capacity—technically orfinancially—to do what they have promised.

These constraints must be kept in mind whentransforming informal understandings into bindingc o n t r a c t s.There are a few important ways of enabling

agreements to adjust over time tochanging circumstances and newn e e d s. One is to build into theagreement mutually reinforcing,s t e p-by-step performance re-q u i r e m e n t s : the continuedcooperation of one side is tiedto compliance by the others.Th i sreassures more dedicated oractive states that their initiativeand largesse will not be takenadvantage of by laggards.

Penalties might also be levied in the case of non-compliance, or rewards might be agreed upon aheadof time for each step completed as promised.

Fi n a l l y,any effective agreement requires the activeengagement of actors operating on the ground.Wa t e rnegotiations can no longer be left solely to electedl e a d e r s. The conversation must be broadened. Wealso need greater transparency with regard to decision-making and greater rigour with regard to the scientificbasis underlying the agreements reached.These are thekey lessons learned from the two-decade longexperience with environmental treaty-making andnegotiation efforts. ■

+ …For more information on environmental negotiation: • Lawrence Susskind, Environmental Diplomacy, Oxford

University Press, New York, 1995 • Lawrence Susskind, Paul Levy and Jennifer Thomas-

Larmer, Negotiating Environmental Agreements, IslandPress, Washington, D.C.,1999

• Lawrence Susskind, Sarah Mckearnan,and JenniferThomas-Larmer, The Consensus Building Handbook,Sage Publishers, Thousand Oaks, California,1999

• Lawrence Susskind,William Moomaw, and KevinGallagher, Transboundary Environmental Negotiations:A New Approach To Global Cooperation, forthcomingfrom Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco

Water negotiationscan no longer be left

solely to electedleaders.

The conversationmust be broadened.

PMICHEL BESSIÈRES


On the tra c k sof a global viceCorruption may be as old as government, but rapid globalization has given it alarming newdimensions. For the United Nations, the scourge has become a top priority, although so far, the battleis being waged in thick fog

ublic corruption is a crime as old asgovernment itself. In the fifth centuryB C, Plato talked about it in his L a w s.Two centuries later, the Indian politicalreformer Kautilya1 listed 40 temptationsthat civil servants might yield to. But thestate of corruption today isunprecedented in at least two respects:scandals are erupting the world over,and people are no longer in the mood totolerate them.

In less than a year, two sittingp r e s i d e n t s — Joseph Estrada in thePhilippines and Alberto Fujimori inPeru—have been forced to resign, w h i l ea former president—Carlos Menem ofArgentina—has been put under housea r r e s t . In each case, the main legalcharges and the immediate public outcryagainst them involved corruption.

Something that until recently wasseen as just an internal government affair

has become an explicit priority for allinternational bodies, from the G-8nations and the World Bank to theUnited Nations, which plans to draft ananti-corruption convention by 2002.Th i ssurge of activity reflects various concerns,but has been fed by a single process:globalization.

The first “ m a n d a t e ” on corruptionreceived by international bodies hascome from governments themselves.

E T H I C S ◗


Economic austerity has fuelled the fight against corruption in many countries:here a march in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Twenty years of ever-faster fin a n c i a lt r a n s a c t i o n s, spurred by deregulationand the rise of electronicc o m m u n i c a t i o n s, has turned moneygained from criminal activities into asource of political and financiali n s t a b i l i t y. And money embezzledthrough corruption has gone hand-in-hand with the money made by organizedcrime.

“These two kinds of crime feed offeach other, hiding and recycling theirp r o fits in the same way,” says DanielD o m m e l , president of the French branchof the NGO Tr a n s p a r e n cy International.“ To stay out of sight, organized crimeuses corruption, which weakensinstitutional safeguards against suchcriminals.”

In recent years, several scandals haverevealed the extent of the scourge. I nthe summer of 1998, the InternationalMonetary Fund (IMF) lent Russia eightbillion dollars to stave off the collapse ofthe ruble. Benyamin Sokolov, Russia’schief auditor, told a BBC interviewer inNovember that year:“We have lookedinto what happened to some of the IMFmoney and we have to admit that severalbillion dollars did not go to theprogrammes they were earmarked for.Some of it was simply stolen.”

The following summer, the biggestmoney-laundering scandal in U. S. h i s t o r yerupted,with the Bank of New York atits centre. According to the FBI, t h eRussian mafia used this venerablefinancial institution to funnel $10 billionback into the Russian economy after itspassage through the tiny Pacific island-state of Nauru, famous for “offshore”banks that ask few questions of theircustomers.

“ Forty years ago, just one place in thew o r l d , S w i t z e r l a n d , guaranteed secrecyfor its banking clients, but today thereare more than 50 such countries,” s a y sYves Mény, head of the RobertSchumann Centre at the EuropeanUniversity Institute in Florence andauthor of Democracy and Corruption inE u r o p e ( C a s s e l l , L o n d o n , 1 9 9 6 ) .Monitoring financial movements,particularly through tax havens, is nowone of the main features of the battleagainst corruption.

An annualblacklist

The Financial Action Task Force onMoney Laundering (FAT F ) , which grewout of meetings of the G-8 countries andis based at the Organization forEconomic Cooperation and

Development (OECD), has since 2000published an annual blacklist of the mostfinancially suspect countries, sending asharp jolt through the genteel world ofinternational finance.

“ We want to get all banking centres,including the least willing, to conformto international standards,” says FATFexecutive secretary Patrick Moulette.“ We ’re exerting constructive pressureon all of them, whether they’re taxhavens like the Marshall Islands,Dominica and Nauru,or countries suchas Egypt, I s r a e l , Lebanon and Russia.Note that we’re removing Russia fromour blacklist of 17 countries because itpassed a law this summer imposingtighter controls on its banking system.”

Economic interests are also pressinginternational organizations to crackdown on corruption. But not for moralr e a s o n s. Firms operating in theinternational arena—from constructionto water supplies—are horrified by thedemands for ever-bigger kickbacks.

The bribing game“Economic liberalization has sent

the cost of bribes skyrocketing, but fewhave noticed,” says Rob Je n k i n s, w h oteaches political science at BirbeckCollege (London).“During public sectorp r i v a t i z a t i o n , prospective buyers fig h teach other to bribe politicians and civils e r v a n t s. And with each new reform,firms that want to have a say in draftingthe new rules or simply want to knowwhat the rules will be,are forced to makepay-offs without getting any guaranteesin return.I ’ve seen that in every countrywhere I’ve looked at economic reform—in India,South Africa and Uganda.It isironic that in the early 1980s, the IMFand the World Bank promised that theirliberalization programmes would reducethe power of bureaucracy and therebystamp out the source of corruption.”

To eradicate this kind of crime, theOECD in 1997 drew up a Conventionon Combating Bribery of Foreign PublicOfficials in International BusinessTransactions, which has been signed sofar by 33 countries. “Its main point iss i m p l e,”explains Dommel.“It bans fir m sin the signatory states from payingkickbacks to foreign offic i a l s. Until afew years ago, such “ c o m m i s s i o n s ”w e r etolerated in many countries. In France,for example, they were officially tax-d e d u c t i b l e. It was compared to going to


First day in prison for former Filipino president Joseph Estrada,arrested in April 2001.

confession in church.”The Convention’s many critics say it

is a step in the right direction, but farfrom enough. “It seems absurd tocondemn bribing an official of agovernment-owned airline and then shutyour eyes to a kickback paid to an offic i a lof a private one,” says Stuart Eizenstat,former U.S. under-secretary of state inthe Clinton administration.

His comments are especiallypertinent at a time when the economicfashion is to privatize public services.Benoît Dejemeppe, a state prosecutorin Brussels and a corruption expert,notes that the OECD convention islargely based on the Foreign CorruptPractices A c t , which U. S. P r e s i d e n tJimmy Carter pushed through Congressin 1977 in the wake of the Lockheedbribery scandal that rocked governmentsin Europe and Japan.“In over 20 years,only four major corruption scandals haveled to criminal convictions,”he says,“ s oI conclude the law isn’t strict enough.”

A third “ m a n d a t e ” a g a i n s tcorruption comes from civil society,which has shown increasing concernabout the murky relationship betweenpolitics and money. “In the process ofworldwide ‘quasi-democratization’ andglobal access to information,what peoplewant above all else is transparency,”s a y sJenkins.

Eluding allcontrol

Until the end of the Cold War, themajor political movements upheldwidely contrasting ideologies;how theywere financed was seen as less important.To d a y, in contrast, institutional politicaldebate boils down to minor differencesover how to apply broadly similareconomic programmes, all requiring bigsacrifices by most of the population.Soit is no accident that anti-corruptioncampaigners have emerged at the sametime as economic austerity in WesternE u r o p e,financial crises in Southeast A s i aand Latin A m e r i c a , and structuraladjustment programmes in many poorcountries.

But the slowness of the anti-corruption process, the problemsinvestigators come up against as theytry to trace international networks, therarity and lightness of the penalties—all have helped in fostering a good doseof cy n i c i s m . French journalist Denis

Robert has published several booksabout corruption scandals. His latest,(R é v é l a t i o n $) written with ErnestBaeckes, is about how a Luxembourg-based clearinghouse called Clearstreamo p e r a t e s. Such institutions are vital tothe business of banking since theycatalogue all transactions and list thepeople who make them. Th e ynevertheless encourage anonymity andelude all control.

An insult to the poor“ The very word ‘ c o r r u p t i o n ,’ if it

means a departure from the legal rules,is no longer appropriate,” says Robert.“It’s the system that’s corrupt.And theinstitutions never react until longa f t e r w a r d s. As Spanish judge BaltasarGarzón said, the fight against corruptionis a fight between a mammoth and aleopard.”

The battle is not only uneven but isbeing waged in thick fog according tofive European judges, all anti-corruptione x p e r t s, who wrote an article in the

French daily Le Monde last May, soonafter Robert’s book came out.“ The mainthing that emerges from thisi n v e s t i g a t i o n ,” they wrote, “is thedeafening silence of those responsible forthe system that is in the dock.… Th etactic of hiding one’s head in the sandmight suggest that the book was apointless exercise. But we think that it’sonly just started to tell the true story.…The book should help Europeansunderstand what clearinghouses do andthrow new light on the globalization offinance.”

The effectiveness of different ways tofight corruption is still being debated.But everyone at least agrees on whatthe enemy is. Even James Wolfensohn,the Australian president of the Wo r l dB a n k , raised the then taboo subjectinside the Bank in 1996. He calledcorruption a serious “ c a n c e r ” t h a t“insulted the poorest people by divertingmoney to the richest.” ■

1. Author of A r t h a s h a s t r a, a famousphilosophical treatise. He was adviser

T H E S I Z E O F W O R L D C O R R U P T I O N

Before you can measure corruption, you have to know what it is.The United Nations and the Wo r l dBank have adopted the sober definition offered by Transparency International, which calls it “ t h e

misuse of public power for private profit.”But even its authors recognize the limits of this description since it takes no account of private sectorcorruption. To understand this, it’s best to look at how graft works in practice.A bribe, according tothe English dictionary, is “a sum of money or other favour, given to someone in authority so as toinfluence their opinions or behaviour.”Putting a figure on the amount of corruption in the world is very hard but also irresistible. PatrickM o u l e t t e, executive secretary of FATF (Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering), s a y sthere is “no financial basis to measure the extent of this illegal activity.All the figures given are fic t i t i o u sand unscientific.”FATF documents, however, cite the International Monetary Fund’s estimate of $80 billion a year. Inc o m p a r i s o n , the total of criminally-acquired capital is reckoned at between $500 and $1,500billion—two to five percent of the gross world production.Case studies are a much more accurate guide. One in Milan,conducted before and after OperationMani Pulite (Clean Hands),showed that the city’s public works budget had been inflated by 30 to40 percent. The airport extension project, for example, could have been cut from 2,610 billion lire ($1.1billion) to 1,990 billion ($860 million).Transparency International has in the past few years published a Corruption Perception Index (CPI),and more recently, an index of corruption in exporting countries, the Bribe Payers Perceptions Index(BPI).Both are based on rigorous opinion polls among businessmen, financial analysts, journalistsand sometimes the general public. They are not exhaustive (not every country is represented) andremain subjective (because they measure corruption as perceived by those aske d ) . But despitethese two drawbacks, they give a meaningful picture of the situation and,in the absence of othersurveys, the indexes have been accepted by public opinion.In 2001, the CPI index revealed that Fi n l a n d ,Denmark and New Zealand were seen as the least corruptcountries, while Indonesia,Uganda,Nigeria and Bangladesh came out bottom of the list. ■

E T H I C S ◗


HINTERVIEW BY RENÉ LEFORT

DIRECTOR OFTHE UNESCO COURIER

C o n t e m p o rary art:who calls the shots?Despite the international veneer of the art market, research by French sociologist Alain Quéminshows that a handful of rich countries dominates the scene

ow has contemporary art been affected byglobalization?

Contemporary art lovers andprofessionals believe that it’s becomingincreasingly internationalized. A n ygallery director, art critic, m u s e u mcurator or exhibition commissionerwould more or less agree that it would beabsurd to take nationality or country oforigin into account when judging anartist’s work.All that matters, they say,is whether or not he or she is good. Inother words,an artist’s fame and marketvalue should have nothing to do withn a t i o n a l i t y. As proof, those in the artworld point to the fact that exhibitionsand biennales are scattered around theplanet2 (they are even held in Havana,Taipei and Dakar), and to the rise ofAsian artists after the Eastern Europeanwave of the early 1990s. In contemporarya r t , globalization and its corollaries inthe art world—cultural mixing andrelativism—are taken for granted.

But do these claims match what is actuallyhappening on the art market?

To answer that question, I havedeveloped or compared severali n d i c a t o r s, including rankings of“ r e p u t a t i o n ” by experts (those whocontribute to an artist’s fame or “namerecognition”),the composition of largeprivate and public collections,

acquisitions by large museums,participation in major fairs and biennalee x h i b i t i o n s, sales on the internationalm a r k e t , and so on. These indicatorssometimes give different rankings, butthey reveal a very strong geographicalhierarchy (see box). The most famousartists and those whose works have thehighest market value are from theUnited States. Several countries inWestern Europe form the second group,sometimes equal to or outdoing theUnited States, especially at fairs andbiennales.

But the ranking in this group is verym a r k e d . Germany is far ahead of theUnited Kingdom, Fr a n c e, Italy andS w i t z e r l a n d .After them,the contributionfrom other nations, including developedcountries such as Spain, the Nordicc o u n t r i e s, Japan and South Ko r e a , i si n s i g n i fic a n t . The third world is at thevery bottom of the list.

In art as in many other fie l d s, there isobviously a gulf between a “ c e n t r e,”made up of only a few countries that arethemselves ranked in a very rigidhierarchy, and a huge “periphery.”

But artists from the periphery, as you calli t , have achieved a certain degree of fameand their works have attained a very highmarket value…

That may be true, but the proportionis very small.And how long will it last?Artists from Eastern Europe, who werevery fashionable in the early 1990s, h a v enow fallen into oblivion in the Westernart world.And there’s nothing to indicatethat the Asian or African artists currentlyin vogue will not in their turn be as“disposable as Kleenex”themselves.

In any case, how should they goabout getting known? There arepractically no exceptions to the rule:they must be exhibited in a country at thecentre or go there to live in the hope offinding their place in mainstreamcontemporary art.

But hasn’t this inequality always existed?Without going too far back,didn’t Franceoccupy this “monopolistic”position fromthe late 19th to the mid-20th century?

Ye s,but the big difference is that thisdominant position was recognized andfully accepted in the name of France’scontribution to art history.To d a y, on thec o n t r a r y, contemporary art circles cannotrecognize America’s supremacy in thisfield because they simply don’t “see”it.In the artistic fields where this supremacyis recognized,it tends to be stigmatizedbecause the United States is considered

A FEW INDICATO R S

◗ Each year, the German magazine C a p i t a lpublishes a world ranking of living artists calledKunst Kompass. Highly influential around theworld,it supposedly reflects their aesthetic valuebased on the opinions of “ e x p e r t s ” a n dexhibitions in major museums and shows.In 2000, the 100 “ b e s t ” artists included 33A m e r i c a n s, 28 Germans, eight Britons, five Fr e n c h ,four Italians and three Swiss. Of the 16 otherartists, only five came from the developing world(South Africa, Cuba, Iran, Mexico, Thailand).◗ On November 16, 2 0 0 0 , Christies held one of itstwo major annual contemporary art auctions inNew York. Of the 48 artists whose works weres o l d , 26 came from the United States, six from theUnited Kingdom, five from Germany, four fromItaly, three from Switzerland,two from Japan andone each from France and South Africa.◗ On November 17, 2 0 0 0 ,S o t h e b y ’s held a similarauction in New York. Of the 63 works sold, 50were by American artists or artists living in theUnited States. Just one was by an artist from adeveloping country, where he still lives (Mexico).■

* Alain Quémin,a researcher and teach e rat Marne-la-Vallée university (Fr a n c e ) ,has just published a study commissionedby the Fr e n ch Foreign Affairs ministry,entitled “The role of buyer countries on themarket and in the contemporary artworld”

◗ C U L T U R E


a latecomer on the art scene.

So why is there this contradiction betweenimage and reality?

I ’ll answer with another question:why would the contemporary art worldbe an exception to the dominantglobalization credo, according to whiche v e r y o n e, wherever they are, has achance as long as they have talent? A n dmore specifically, why would it be freefrom two contradictory movements thatare part of globalization? On the oneh a n d , you have an endless search fori n n o v a t i o n , which sometimes goes asfar as including the periphery. On theo t h e r, the tendency to minimize risk,especially financial risk, ends upboosting the value of artists from well-established art centres, who aretherefore the easiest to promote.

But playing the devil’s advocate, can’t wesay that “ g o o d ” c o n t e m p o rary artistssimply wouldn’t choose to live in placesw h e re their work cannot be pro p e r l yexhibited or sold?

To d a y, artists from the peripheryhave a growing number of opportunitiesto aid them. For example, fine artsschools are now more open to thew o r l d . H o w e v e r, these artists rarelymake it on the international scene. Isthat because they might be “naturally”worse? Let’s take a sporting metaphor.For decades, people thought you hadto be Scandinavian to be a championmiddle-distance runner.Then they camefrom Eastern Europe. N o w, a t h l e t e sfrom North and East Africa are winningall the races.And each time, the successof these different groups is considered“ n a t u r a l .” At the very least, t h egeographical concentration ofcontemporary art hampers therecognition of the artistic potential thatexists outside the United States and insome European countries. ■

1. Experts sometimes disagree, but theygenerally define contemporary art as ani n n ovative form of creation thatemerged after 1960.The main mediaare painting, sculpture, photography,video, montages and installations.

2. Fairs are events where art works fromgalleries chosen by the organizers are

sold. The most famous one is in Basel,

S w i t ze r l a n d . In contrast, biennales arenon-commercial art events (exhibitions)that display works selected byc o m m i s s i o n e r s. By defin i t i o n , they are

held every two years.The most recognize dbiennales take place in Venice, Italy andKassel,Germany.

Without calling them by their name, Beninese artist Georges Adeagbo, 59,had been doing installations forover 20 years when Frenchman Jean-Michel Rousset came scouting around the capital Cotonou in searchof new artistic talents for a big collector. By chance, he fell upon Adeagbo’s home and discovered his work(above picture).That was back in April 1993.A few months later, Adeagbo’s pieces went on show in Francefor the first time. At the beginning of this year, works by the Beninese artist were exhibited at theprestigious P.S.1 museum in New York.


TJOHN VINCE

PROFESSOR OF DIGITAL MEDIA AT BOURNEMOUTH UNIVERSITY (UNITED KINGDOM)

When the mediameet as oneNow the Internet’s star has faded, a new buzzword is circulating in the corridorsof the world’s media. But will “digital convergence” really be able to keep its promiseof communication and information anytime, anywhere, in any shape or form?

he past 40 years have witnessed anextraordinary evolution. From slowexpensive machines controlled by punchedc a r d s, computers have become low-cost,powerful units taking up no more spacethan a briefcase. S i m u l t a n e o u s l y,our worldhas become interlaced with telephone wires,optic fib r e s, undersea cables, m i c r o w a v el i n k s, television channels and satellitecommunications.

At the crossing of these twodevelopments stands the Internet—a directresult of computer technology intersectingwith communication technology. But formany in the world of today’s media,this ismerely a first landmark in what promises tobe a giant upheaval in the way peoplecommunicate, relax and work. This is theera of digital convergence.

According to a recent article inScientific A m e r i c a n, convergence is inprinciple “the union of audio, video anddata communications into a single source,received on a single device, delivered by asingle connection.” Digital technology hasalready provided a medium for integratingmedia that until now required distinctchannels of communication: we can nowsend emails using our televisions or textmessages over mobile phones. Real-timevideo can be transmitted over radioc h a n n e l s, while television and radio can bereceived on Personal Computers (PCs).

Hyped-up precedentsFull digital convergence promises real-

time access to information anywhere in theworld,and global communication throught e x t ,g r a p h i c s,video and audio. In fact, t h e r eseems to be no technological limit to whatmight be possible.“ The reality of ‘ a n y w h e r e,anytime’ access to broadband digitalnetworks is going to make our lives freer andf u l l e r,”Gerald Levin,chief executive offic e rof AOL Time Wa r n e r, has promised. B u ttechnology alone cannot bring about such a

w o r l d :as long as consumers and companiesdo not embrace it,convergence is likely to gothe way of several hyped-up predecessors.

Over a decade ago, for example, v i r t u a lreality was the technology of the future,and many people anticipated a day wherewe would be wearing head-mounteddisplays and interacting with all mannerof virtual environments. At the time there

was real concern about changes in industrialpractices and social behaviour broughtabout by this technology. So what happenedto this vision? We l l , we got it wrong.Currently, the home computer is the maininterface to the Internet. But relatively fewpeople in the world have access to PCs, a n dfew would argue that they are ideal for thepurpose—they crash and freeze because

◗ M E D I A


Watch of the future: a digital audio player on which music can be downloaded to a

they were not designed for widespreadInternet use.

In promising to fuse media as diverse ast e l e v i s i o n , telephone communication,v i d e og a m e s, music and data transmission, t h eera of digital convergence goes one betterthan yesterday’s celebrated “informations u p e r h i g h w a y.”Yet in doing so, it also raisescritical questions: what services are needed,what is the ideal platform, will it be fullyinteractive? Can the old be so easilycombined with the new?

At the root of any digital applicationstands a binary coding system: d e s i g n e r sof early computers found that only when

using such a system could their computersbe relied upon to give consistent results.Th ebinary code enables numbers, letters andcharacters to be assigned unique digitalpatterns that can be stored on magnetict a p e, compact discs, DVD and computerfil e s.These digital codes can then be readilytransmitted via copper cable, fibre optics oras radio waves. Once in a digital format,

t e x t ,a u d i o,graphics and video can thereforeall be processed by one commontechnology with great accuracy.

Skeptical consumersYet achieving this single technology is

far from straightforward. There arecurrently three major television broadcasts t a n d a r d s, and they are all incompatiblewith each another. But this is nothingcompared to the many technologiessupporting the Internet, each with adifferent bandwidth and physical media.The problems faced in designing platformsand communication systems that will beaccepted across the world can appearinsuperable.

One body, the InternationalOrganization for Standardization (ISO), i sat the heart of efforts to devise worldstandards for coding audio-visuali n f o r m a t i o n . Its Motion Picture Experts’Group has already notched up severalimportant benchmarks via standards forstorage media and broadcast, while theMPEG-4 (now under development) willestablish the means for storage, t r a n s m i s s i o nand interactive manipulation of videodata—the essence ofwhat digitalconvergence promisesto deliver.

Even once globalstandards are assured,h o w e v e r, a furtherobstacle lies in wait.The Internet isplagued by long,erratic response timesbecause it is a pull-technology, driven bypatterns of user demands. P u s h - t e ch n o l o gy,on the other hand, reverses ther e l a t i o n s h i p : servers simply sendinformation to passive users, as intelevision and radio. But if some form ofcombination between one-way televisionflow and interactive Internet is to be thebasis of our future media,it is hard to seehow it could be operated.Current networktechnology could not support a pull-basedapproach towards television, while a push-based approach would simply duplicatewhat we have already: n o r m a l ,uninteractive television or radio.

Yet the problem of fusing Internet withtelevision is also one of defining the serviceso f f e r e d . As Steve Jo b s, chief executiveo f ficer of A p p l e,has observed:“TV is whereyou go to turn your brain off; the computeris where you go to turn it on.” I n f o r m a t i o n ,entertainment and relaxation appear atfirst to be quite different needs. S e r i o u s

doubts remain over whether consumerswill be interested in having to make thesort of mental effort associated withcomputing while also settling down in frontof a sitcom.

“There is a large group of people whohave no interest in the new media and,contrary to many predictions, that segmentis shrinking slower that the icebergs inAntarctica,” recently warned Horst Stipp,director of research at NBC televisionnetwork in the United States.

Besides the issue of consumer habits,infrastructure costs are set to be immense,and will have to be met by national states orthe private sector before being passed on tou s e r s. Platforms do not necessarily have tobe expensive. The mobile phone is a goodexample of how something that istechnologically sophisticated can almostbe given away, with its cost recoveredthrough service charges. Users are thencoerced through clever marketing toupgrade to newer phones with morefeatures to reinforce their dependence.

The creation and copyright protectionof digital content are other vital issues.Wehave already seen that satellite television

provides us with somany extra channelsthat televisionprogrammes have to berepeated indefinitely tofill the available space.But perhaps digitalconvergence will solvethis by making it easierto create totallysynthetic television

programs employing virtual sets and actors.One might even suggest this has alreadystarted to happen.

Whatever the outcome, it is obviousthat technology will play an increasing partin our everyday lives. Beyond technology,digital convergence embraces the services,industrial practices and social behaviourthat form modern society. We have in ourhands the technology to construct the mostsophisticated machines ever built, but ifthey are unusable, simply because of theiroperating instructions, then recent lessonshave taught us they will not survive.Whatever we design must be simple,reliable and useful. Perhaps this is wherea r t i ficial intelligence will play an importantrole. ■


“TV is where you goto turn your brainoff; the computeris where you goto turn it on.”

o a memory card via the Internet.

D

◗ M E D I A

INTERVIEW BY IVAN BRISCOE


All power to the baro n s ?Digital technologies may promise a host of new channels and activities,but the stranglehold of big business is set to tighten, says leading media commentator RobertMcChesney*

o you see digital convergence as atechnological process or as a wider changein the media?

The notion that there is technologicalconvergence is undeniable.The transitionto digital format of virtually all mediaand forms of communication is on its wayto being completed in the near future.But the convergence of media ownershipis even more striking, and in manyrespects anticipates technologicalc o n v e r g e n c e. For most consumers, i t ’s theconvergence of ownership that hasprobably had the most direct effect ontheir media experience to date. And I

think these changes in ownership will goa long way towards shaping how thedigital world will eventually look.

How exactly is ownership changing?The crucial trend is vertical

i n t e g r a t i o n , or more broadly,conglomeration of media ownership. Inthe United States for example—and thisis a pattern that could have been found inmost countries with market economies—the media industries such as music orcinema in the 1950s each tended to bedominated by three or four differentc o m p a n i e s. What has happened in theU.S. and globally over the last 50 years isthat the largest media companies havebecome conglomerates,meaning that thelargest film studio also owns a televisionnetwork or a music company, r a d i os t a t i o n s, m a g a z i n e s, cable systems, s a t e l l i t esystems, video rental chains.1 What youhave is a tremendous web of power builtup by the largest firms, which havebecome dominant players in severalmedia sectors. All this predates digitalc o n v e r g e n c e.Digital convergence is reallythe cherry on top of the sundae.

But will the new digital technology notoffer greater choice and allow newcompanies to enter the market?

There is a paradox with the rise ofthe Internet specifically and digitalcommunications more broadly. Th estandard belief has been that all of asudden,the traditional market power ofthese media giants is going to fall becausethe barriers to entering media marketsare being radically lowered, if note l i m i n a t e d . But the problem with thistheory is that it’s technology driven. I tmakes perfect sense technologically, butwhat it misses—and this is the perceivedwisdom on Wall Street—is that newtechnologies are not going to spawn awave of commercially viable mediaentrepreneurs or businesses due to themarket power of existing companies.Technologies are developed in the marketfor the most part, and the ones that are

aggressively pursued and promoted arethe ones most likely to offer a profitablereturn for the dominant companies.

What effects does concentration have onthe media we consume?

Firstly, you see the incessant rise ofwhat I call hyper- c o m m e r c i a l i s m ,meaning that these companies are quiterationally trying to make a profit fromevery aspect of their media services—something they can do much more easilyin a non-competitive market. If you don’tlike the fact that in the U.S. the averagecommercial radio station has 18 to20 minutes of advertisements per hour,you don’t really have any alternative,they all do the same. The flipside of thisprevalence of commercial valuesthroughout our media culture is a declinein public service content. Journalism thatdoes hard investigation or raises serioussocial issues doesn’t make economic sensefor these companies—it costs a lot ofmoney and the pay-off isn’t high.F u r t h e r m o r e, the largest mediacompanies now rank among the largestfirms in the entire economy. Th e s ecompanies are not neutral bystanders onthe sidelines of society. Th e y ’re mainplayers right in the heart of it,with distinctself-interests on the crucial issues of theday.

What do you believe should be done?Our traditional notions of what

proper media ownership is must be re-e v a l u a t e d . But the sort of public andpolitical debate on the issues, at least inthe U.S., is the last thing on earth largemedia companies want to encourage.Aslong as this issue is kept in the smoke-filled back rooms and lobbyists talk top o l i t i c i a n s, the position we have now willcontinue. ■

* Professor of Communications at theUniversity of Illinois

1. The seven largest media conglomeratesin the world are now Disney,AO L - Ti m eWa r n e r, S o n y, News Corporation,


WHEN THE MEDIA MEET AS ONE

Announcing the AOL Time Warner merger.

ou often say you’refirst and fore m o s ta storyteller, a“ g r i o t .” How doesthis deep-ro o t e didentity affect youra p p roach totheatre?

I draw my inspiration,my energy,from meeting people. In my corner ofAfrica—my parents were fromG u i n e a , I was born in Mali and I’mBurkinabé by adoption—suchencounters are important, s i n c eoutsiders are the ones who bring uswhat we don’t know.

I didn’t go to any drama school,unless you count the great school of thestreet—the school of life. When I wasy o u n g, a theatre producer friend,Boubacar Dicko, asked me severaltimes to play parts for him.But it wasthe last thing I dreamed of: at the time,I was playing for Burkina Fa s o ’snational football team!

Did you have a bad impression oftheatre?

When I was a kid, I enjoyed k o t e b ap e r f o r m a n c e s, an old African tradition.The word means “big snail.”They tookplace in our neighbourhood and therewould be three circles—one ofchildren,another made up of womenand a third one of men. But in thosecolonial days, the k o t e b a was dying outand being replaced by Western-stylet h e a t r e. The French started dramacontests between all their West A f r i c a nc o l o n i e s, which later became eightc o u n t r i e s. Consciously or not, the ideawas to instil us with Western culture.

Sotigui Ko u y a t éThe wise man of the stage

YDespite years away from home and a career spanning many cultures, Malian actorand griot Sotigui Kouyaté has not strayed from his foremost mission: to break ignoranceof Africa’s living traditions and spark encounters across continents


T A L K I N G T O . . . ◗

As Prospero, in Peter Brook’s staging of The Tempest.

Antigone, staged by Sotigui Kouyaté with M

“The best way to kill a tree is to cut

We weren’t allowed to speak our ownlanguage at school. If we did, t h eteacher would make us wear a piece ofwood or metal around the neck with am u l e ’s head on it and deprive us oflunch. The best way to kill a tree is tocut it from its roots.This We s t e r n - s t y l etheatre also helped steer A f r i c a nintellectuals away from the campaignfor independence.

What made you change heart?I love dance and in 1966, I finally

agreed to be in a historical playproduced by my friend BoubacarDicko which featured a war dance. H ealso asked me to play a part as adviserto the king. The play won a prize andwent on tour in the region. I becameattached to the show, and then toa n o t h e r, based on a play written bymy uncle.

Gradually, acting grew on me. ButI wasn’t enamoured by everything—not the courses run by Fr e n c hinstructors, for example. They told us,without explaining why,how we shouldwalk on stage, which seemed far tooaffected to me. They would ask us toimagine a ship,to picture it on the wall,but I couldn’t see anything. I left,though by then, I ’d really becometaken with the profession.

I set up my own theatre company in1966 with a group of 25 people.Burkinabé radio gave us a place towork and we mainly didimprovisations. I’d go to work at theministry for labour and publicadministration in the morning, p l a yfootball in the afternoon,and then gooff to theatre rehearsals. At the sametime, I was also writing my first play,The Crocodile’s Lament. It was aboutbeing sensitive, a gift with which youcan even manage to caress a crocodile,as it actually happens in several regionsof Burkina Fa s o, where crocodiles areviewed as sacred.

Sensitivity— is that what actors needmost?

When I give courses, I do a lot ofwork on being open, sensitive andlearning to communicate. Po l i t i c i a n salways make speeches aboutcommunication and dialogue. But itall has to do with economic interests,never human ones. You can’tcommunicate if you don’t listen, andpeople don’t listen to each other, e v e nif they live in the same country.E v e r y o n e ’s absorbed in themselves,so exclusion grows. People risk theirlives to leave their country, and theauthorities close their eyes on all that.

Finding another way of communicating,t h rough the efforts of actors fro mdifferent cultures working together, iskey to the approach of Peter Bro o k ,who you met in 1983 for the gre a tIndian epic The Mahabharata.

When I joined the Bouffes duNord Theatre in Paris, I had nointention of staying in Fr a n c e.I ’d takena year’s sabbatical from my job at them i n i s t r y. The problem—or if youprefer, the luck in my case—was thatThe Mahabharata was a hit. I askedthe ministry to extend my leave, andthey gave me another year unpaid.But when that was up, the play’s runstill hadn’t ended. I didn’t have an

understudy, and the play lasted ninehours. I was brought up not to aban-don something halfway through, Ic o u l d n ’t leave the company. But I’dbeen with the civil service for 29 yearsand was just a year away from beingable to draw my pension. I lost that,and four months later, T h eM a h a b h a r a t a closed and I was leftwithout a job back home. I didn’t wantto return to my family empty-handed

“A MAN WITH AN EXTRAO R D I N A RYPRESENCE AND QUA L I T Y ”

When casting The Mahabharata, Peter Brook’s assistant scoured through film studios in search of an actor to take on one of the lead roles, Bhisma the sage.

“I saw one shot of a tree and a man as tall and slender as this tree, with an extraordinarypresence and quality. It was Sotigui,” recalls Brook in a recent documentary about the actor. Bornin 1936 in Bamako (Mali), Kouyaté belongs to an illustrious family of griots—masters of wordswho are at once genealogists, historians, masters of ceremonies, advisers, mediators, singers andmusicians. He has handed down all these talents, as a composer, dancer, actor and father, to hisown children and a multitude of “spiritual children” dispersed across the world, for whom he isa precious guide. Filling each of his roles with profound dignity, he has appeared in some 60 films,most recently in Little Senegal, directed by Rachid Bouchareb. As one of Peter Brook’s longtimeactors, he will tour in several shows over the next year, including The Man Who, based on OliverSacks’ The man who mistook his wife for a hat, and The Suit, adapted from a story by the lateSouth African writer Can Themba. ■


because as the oldest son,I was theirp i l l a r.It was very hard.Here in Fr a n c e,I could struggle, work and continueto explore my culture and being. Arthas never fed anyone in Africa.

You are said to have slipped into thepart of the wise man Bhisma.

When I joined Peter Brook, I didn’tfeel out of place. I could see everything

B rook has said your imagination wasnourished by a culture where the visibleand invisible worlds are not separa t e. I nthe parts you play, it often seems as ifyou’re on an initiation voyage.

I come from a culture wherenature is very important in a person’slife. Your soul is first incarnated in atree, then in an animal and then in aliving human being. Some people areeven named after trees.All this meanseverything in the world is alive.U n f o r t u n a t e l y, humans increasinglythink they’re the only living beingson earth.

In Fr e n c h , you can point tosomeone and say “ t h e r e ’s a person.” I nseveral African languages, when yousay “person,” the word is followed bysomething that means roughly “ t h eperson of the person.” That is, e a c hhuman being comprises manyi d e n t i t i e s, which are in fact otherp e o p l e. Daily life is about discoveringall these beings within. This can onlyhappen through meeting otherpeople.“When you meet another, instead oflosing yourself in his eyes, recognizeyourself—and perhaps you’ll seey o u r s e l f,” the saying goes. Our wisemen tell us that ignorance is the worstthing that can happen to anyone, w o r s ethan illness or death. And the mostignorant person of all, they say, i ssomeone who has never stepped

was happening inside a circle, just likein A f r i c a , and on the third day, he tookmy hand, looked me in the eye andsaid:“Sotigui,from today, you’re partof the family.” That was a magicalmoment for me. He didn’t say:“ Yo u ’r epart of our group, of our company.”H e ’d understood the soul of anA f r i c a n , h e ’d embraced my culture.Brook is a universal man. For him,there are no barriers between people,which is rare in today’s world. Somepeople don’t understand my loyaltyto Brook. But how can I not be loyal tosomeone who defends such values intoday’s world, where separation andindividualism hold sway?

At his International Centre forTheatre Research were 22 actors from18 different countries. In T h eM a h a b h a r a t a , the five Pandavabrothers were played by a German, aFr e n c h m a n , an Iranian, an Italian anda Senegalese. This bothered no one,and the play travelled the world forfour years. Only Brook could havepulled off such a feat.There aren’t anyraces or skin colours in his mind.I’vealso played Prospero in The Tempestunder him. It was the first time aEuropean director, a BritishShakespearean to boot, had stagedthis play with a black Prospero.

h Malian actors from the Mandeka Theatre.

it f rom its ro o t s”T A L K I N G T O . . . ◗

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“Is there any sin so seriousthat it can never be forg i v e n?”

outside his or her house.Your own work as a stage dire c t o ri s enriched by such contacts ande n c o u n t e rs. You once pro d u c e dAntigone with Malian actors.

I t ’s through differences that youfind ways to work together. At therequest of the Jean Moulin Museumin Paris, I produced a show in 1999 tomark the centenary of the Fr e n c hwartime resistance leader’s birth. Iadapted his diary, Le Premier Combat,and merged it into a novel by theCameroonian writer Ferdinand Oyono,Le Vieux Nègre et la Médaille. Th i sshocked some of Moulin’s oldc o m r a d e s, but the director of themuseum, a historian, firmly defendedthe project.

In recent months, I ’ve been workingon O e d i p u s, which follows naturallyfrom A n t i g o n e. I ’ve based myself onseveral versions of the story, f r o mSophocles to Jean A n o u i l h , and even athriller on the theme. I ’ve read theanalyses of psychoanalysts from Fr e u dto Tobie Nathan. All focus on incest.For me, however, Oedipus is about the

problem of facing up to oneself. I ’ mnot trying to provide an answer, I ’ mjust raising the issue to foster awarenessof the battle that’s inherent in everydestiny, namely not to let ourselves beovercome by fatalism.Is Oedipus guiltyof killing his father? At first he washailed as a hero who rescued a sufferingc o u n t r y. Then he was rejected by hisown sons and stoned to death beforethe wall of Thebes by the very peopleh e ’d saved. H e ’s a man on the run,consumed by suffering, by an obsession.If he’d come to terms with his humanweaknesses, he wouldn’t have gougedhis eyes out. I end my O e d i p u s b ylooking at what I think is the mostserious issue—the refusal to forgive.The choir exhorts the gods to praisethe hero after his vain ordeal.

It’s an appeal to reason…Forgiveness doesn’t heal everything

but it can make some things better. Isthere any sin so serious that it cannever be forgiven? Is evil 100 percente v i l , or can we find a little crack withinthat can draw it closer to good?

You stand for deep-rooted A f r i c a nv a l u e s, just like the character you playedin Rachid Bouchare b ’s film Little Senegal

(2000). Do you think these values areunder threat?

I’m always afraid of that,but I tryto fight with words and culture. Fo rexample in Bobo Dioulasso, BurkinaFaso’s second city, my children and Iopened a cultural centre a few yearsa g o. I set it up in the courtyardbelonging to my father, a very larges p a c e.Today it’s a place where you canlearn music, percussion and painting, ameeting place where we invite foreignpainters to teach courses.We also wishto make it into a computer trainingcentre. Besides which,we are seekingto create a university of A f r i c a ntraditions where we could developways to preserve this heritage anddeepen knowledge of our culture.

You also set up the Mandeka T h e a t re inM a l i , which encourages literary andartistic creation.

We founded the Mandeka in 1997,at the same time as France wasdeporting charter plane loads of Malianand Senegalese immigrants every day.While that was happening, actors inBamako were still asking me how theycould come to France, as if they wereblind to how immigrants were beingt r e a t e d . When I advised them not to

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g o, t h e y ’d stare at me as if to say:“ L o o kat you,you’re doing alright over there,and so are your sons.” The easiest wayout in the end was to say I couldn’t helpanyone in coming to France. But I wasready to do what I could by fin d i n gthem jobs, courses or training. This iswhat I had in mind when I founded theMandeka—stopping young peoplefrom fleeing, helping them to winrespect through having a job andshowing people what they could do.Antigone was performed in France byactors from Mandeka.Les Bouffes duNord agreed to produce O e d i p u s, i nwhich Mandeka’s Malian actors will

perform with French ones.African theatre and films still have avery low world profile, unlike Africanmusic.

There is no African cultural policy.Our filmmakers don’t have the moneyto produce and distribute their work.A few years ago, a lot more films weregiven loans against eventual box-offic ereceipts from France because theirs u b j e c t s, often ethnographic, a t t r a c t e dd o n o r s. But as African directorsbecame interested in other issues andleft folklore to one side, they securedless and less money.As for the actors,for years you could look through thebudgets of African films and not findany mention of them.

In Mali and Burkina Faso, the filmauthorities do what they can, but thatdoesn’t go much further than lending

you vehicles and cameras.And it’s evenworse for theatre. The troupes you seea b r o a d , in Europe,have to live off theirown resources.You can’t even say theywere once better off. When I foundedmy own dance troupe in Burkina Faso in1 9 7 1 , I received no funding. I went intodebt to buy musical instruments andc o s t u m e s. Several times the governmentseized them so they could represent thecountry in foreign festivals or greet avisit by the French president—withoutever giving us anything in return.

Do you feel you’re carrying a messagefrom Africa?

L e t ’s be modest.Africa is vast, a n dit would be pretentious to speak in itsn a m e. I’m fighting the battle withwords because I’m a storyteller,a griot.Rightly or wrongly, they call us mastersof the spoken word. Our duty is toencourage the West to appreciateAfrica more. It’s also true that manyAfricans don’t really know their ownc o n t i n e n t . And if you forget yourculture, you lose sight of yourself. It issaid that “the day you no longer knowwhere you’re going, just rememberwhere you came from.” Our strengthlies in our culture. Everything I do as as t o r y t e l l e r, a griot, stems from thisrooting and openness. ■

INTERVIEW BYCYNTHIA GUTTMAN


Master of ceremonies:a griot performs in Guinea.

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■ Turning the page:when countries rewrite

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■ One Koran and four great Islamic schools

■ Exploring our behaviour with French

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In the next issue

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FOCUS

November 2001:

Politics, profit and

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Documents

A tale of two dams