NOTE- REQUEST FOR ACTION
This is about the continuing battle in Argentina over the rights of Vivendi, the French Water Company and that of the citizens.
For those who may not be aware, Vivendi has the rights to water in the province of Tucuman and the citizens, after having endured rates which doubled and poorer service ,including none of the infrastructure improvements they were promised, cancelled the contract. Vivendi took them to an International Court which rulled against the citizens.

Please read the following - check it out on the web - and send in your support. Support from around the world is needed as this is an International decision which puts the rights of trade between two countries over the rights of citizens over their water.
Please consider taking the letter that is below to your individual groups to sign onto it. Send it to the e-mail address provided.

A message from Elyzabeth Peredo from Bolivia. Please send her your support on elysolonfunsolon.org. Maj

Dear Friends: we suggest this open letter to ICSID protesting and giving support to TUCUMAN people and denouncing the ICSID decision once again. We also suggest to continue our campaign to withdraw the ICSID. So please tell us if you agree to sign this letter then we can agree how we can send it to Ana Palacio. Please spread this news item far and wide.

Best wishes,
Elizabeth Peredo
Fundación Solón


Social movements worldwide condemn the decision made against the people of Tucumán
Open Letter to Ana Palacio, Secretary General of ICSID

Social organisations, activist networks, trade unions and other civil society organisations of the Americas and the World express our solidarity with the Argentinean people and those of Tucuman in particular, who once again have been the victims of corporate tyranny, condemned without any justification to pay a multinational the fortune of $105 million dollars.

We reject the decision made by the International Center for the Settlement of Investment disputes (ICSID), a branch of the World Bank set up to defend corporate interests, which has favoured the French multinational Vivendi and its subsidiary Aguas del Aconquija, awarding them compensation worth millions. This compensation was awarded for the Provincial decision to end the concession contract for drinking water and sewage in the province of Tucuman, despite the fact that the company failed to comply with its contract and provided a terrible service to the population.

We do not understand the reasoning of the arbiters, William Rowley, Gabrielle Kaufmman-Kohler and Carlos Bernal Verea, who held Tucumán´s provincial public servants responsible for violating Vivendi´s rights and the agreement to protect investments between France and Argentina, when the company in reality violated the human rights of its clients by doubling rates and not investing in the improvement of the network.

We pose a question to ICSID: Can a company that provides dirty drinking water which is not appropriate for human consumption claim $300 million dollars compensation, as Vivendi has done? Does a contractor deserve compensation for $105 million dollars when it proved unable to prevent the overflow of sewage for 20 continuous days, which took place in Tucumán?

Argentina has come to face 37 legal actions in ICSID, almost all made by multinationals who lost money due to the financial crisis of 2001. In 2004, the arbitration tribunal insisted Argentina pay $132 million dollars to the North American energy company CMS, just because the Argentinean government de-dollarised the tariffs for humanitarian reasons. Now, once again ICSID has put a company’s rights to profit above the rights of peoples.

The peoples of South America are becoming increasingly aware that ICSID, a modern version of medieval courts, is designed to favour multinational companies, and will never be a just institution because it does not consider objective realities (in this case the failure to comply with the contract) or human rights’ conventions when it analyses a case.

For this and other reasons, Bolivia was the first country in the world to denounce the ICSID Convention. On 29 April 2007 Bolivia resigned from the tribunal denouncing its complete lack of balance and partiality to multinational companies, its antidemocratic characteristics because it deliberates in secret and gives no account to anyone, its role as a mechanism for impoverishing the poorest States of the South and its unconstitutional nature.

The organisations which endorse this letter offer our active support to the Argentinean people, conscious that hundreds of activist networks of the world will force Vivendi to back down as we did with Bechtel when it wanted to prosecute the Bolivian State. We add our forces to the international campaign to eradicate ICSID, giving voice to our belief that human rights to food, water and basic services must always be placed above any negotiation or trade agreement which favour a few businessmen interested only in accumulating further wealth.

Signatures: