The three-day World Water Conference ended in Plachimada on Friday with a demand for boycott of the products of multinational firms Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, raising the slogan of 'Coke, Pepsi, Quit India.'
On the concluding day of the WWC, beside the Pepsi plant at Pudussery, the Plachimada declaration was adopted calling upon the people to resist all 'criminal attempts' to privatise and corporatise water.
"Only through these means we can ensure the fundamental and inalienable right to water for the people all over the world," the declaration said.
"Water is the basis of life. It is the gift of nature, it belongs to all living beings on earth. Water is no private property and it is a common resource for the sustenance of all," the declaration said.
The declaration, being described as the 'Magna Carta' of water, was read out by Mande Barolow, a social activist from Europe, who said the water hunters and pirates should be driven out of the country.
"Our water is not for sale, our lives are not for sale," she said.
The Pudussery Panchayat president K G Jayanthi said the licence for the Pepsi plant was cancelled in May 2003 after the finding that they were extracting groundwater excessively.
Mande Barlow said what the people of Kerala were witnessing was a new form of colonialism. Multinationals will do anything to make profit. "They are water hunters and water pirates. They don't care about you. We should declare that our water and rivers are not for sale," she said.
M P Veerendrakumar, who spoke said the Perumatty Panchayat president who visited the Coke plant on Thursday was told by authorities that he had no right to speak against exploitation of groundwater as they had court permission.
"But he has the right to ask them to quit our land," he said.
The Plachimada declaration said water was the fundamental right of man. "It has to be conserved, protected and managed. It is our fundamental and inalienable right to water for people all over the world. The water policy should be formulated on the basis of this outlook."
The right to conserve, use and manage water is fully vested with the local community. This is the very basis of water democracy. Any attempt to reduce or deny this right was a crime.
The production and marketing of the poisonous products of the Coca-Cola, Pepsi Cola corporates led to total destruction and pollution and it also endangered the very existence of local communities, the declaration said.
The resistance -- that had come up in Plachimada, Pudussery and in various parts of the world -- is the symbol of the country's valiant struggle against the 'devilish' corporate gangs who 'pirate' our water.
The declaration offered full-fledged support to the tribals who had put up resistance against the tortures of the horrid commercial forces in Plachimada.
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