MAB and other organizations prepares the International Seminar Food, Water and Energy are not commodities!

Encouraged with the National Meeting that took place in early September, the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB) and Mundubat, Basque organization (Spain) of international cooperation and solidarity, will be holding the “International Seminar Food, Water and Energy are not commodities!”.

The seminar will be happen in the city of Bilbao, Pais Vasco, Spanish state, October 29 until and 31 and aims to bring together organizations and, from the context of the crisis will discuss collectively the appropriation of natural resources by transnational companies and increased exploitation of workers in different regions of the world. In addition, the seminar aims to share experiences of struggles and concrete lines of action aiming to strengthen and advance the unity in the international context.
To account for this wide range of discussions, the event will bring together members of workers’ organizations, social movements and trade unions, cooperation, students and organizations from countries of the southern and north hemisphere.

Organizations of affected people by dams and other power plants of Brazil, Colombia, Kurdistan, Greece, movements against water privatization of Italy and Bolivia (Cochabamba) and rural workers movements of Brazil, Germany, Spain, for example will be participating at the Seminar. Also will be participating at the seminar indigenous movement and labor unions of the energy industry, among many other organizations.

According to Ivanei Dalla Costa, of the national coordination of MAB, the international crisis affects directly workers worldwide in similar ways. “The increased exploitation of natural resources and the labor force is in the context of the regaining of profit rates of transnational corporations. We see that in the North and South hemisphere rights which were guaranteed losses its strenght due to the capital strength; what this number of organizations will also discuss”.

To Joseba Martin of the Mundubat organization and one of the organizers of the seminar it is simbolic that this event is happening in Bilbao since experiencing a major contradictions of this model. “While the population of our country suffers with the global crisis, with constant losses in labor rights, here is the headquarters of the largest transnational corporations and banks which appropriate resources and territories around the world,” he said.

For example , Iberdrola in Brazil appears with the name Neonergeia, operates largely on the energy distribution in the Brazilian Northeast. In addition is shareholder of several dam construction such as Belo Monte, in Pará, and Baixo Iguaçu, Paraná.