PBI-Honduras accompanies ARCAH in El Merendón as it rejects the privatization of drinking water services
PBI-Honduras has posted: “Today, on International Earth Day, we celebrate the important advocacy work ARCAH does to protect water. Recently, we accompanied members of ARCAH in an activity in El Merendón (Choloma, Cortes), in which concern was expressed about the privatization of water in Honduras. From PBI, we remind you that those who defend water in Honduras continue to receive threats for their work. In that sense, adherence to the Escazu Agreement could mean an improvement in the protection of persons defending the land and territory in the country.”
On March 22, ARCAH posted: “Today on World Water Day we demand the non-privatization of water in Honduras.”
In September 2022, Criterio.hn reported:
“At least 92 of Honduras’ 298 municipalities have reportedly privatized drinking water services through a scheme in which banks in the national financial system and transnational corporations have become the main administrative managers.
This was denounced by the Alternative for Community and Environmental Reclamation (ARCAH), an environmental platform opposed to the expansion of the extractive model of natural resources in Honduras.
The environmental organization denounced, through a statement, the execution of a privatization model of the drinking water service and warned of a gradual extinction of the National Autonomous Service of Aqueducts and Sewers (SANAA).
The organization denounced that the process of expansion of privatization has been promoted by national and transnational companies that ‘indirectly finance the gradual disappearance of SANAA.’”
The statement from ARCAH to the national and international community at that time further highlighted: “ARCAH once again denounces the process of privatization of water in Honduras, we strongly emphasize that water is a sacred element that, putting its future in the hands of the private sector, is nothing more than a hard blow to the peoples, which perpetuates the extractivist, mercantile and accumulating view of capital with which Ficohsa bank and other financial companies involved see the common goods of nature.”
The Dutch entrepreneurial development bank FMO has also noted: “Banco Financiera Comercial (Banco Ficohsa) is the largest bank in Honduras with total assets of US$ 2.9bn. FMO currently holds a 6% equity interest in Banco Ficohsa.”
Accompaniment
The Honduran Alternative for Community and Environmental Vindication (ARCAH) is a space for community articulation and an anti-capitalist, anti-racist, anti-patriarchal, anti-colonialist and anti-classist social movement that seeks to defend territories and common goods from any project that threatens the peace and cosmovision of communities.
Peace Brigades International has accompanied ARCAH since September 2022.
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