By Larry
Romanoff for PRAVDA, May 06, 2021
In
2013, the Internet almost exploded when a video was posted in which Nestlé
Chairman and CEO Peter Brabeck-Letmathe said that “access to water is not a
public right”, water was not a human right, that it was just another foodstuff
and a commodity, that it should be “privatised”, given a “market value”, and
distributed by the “free market”. Not only that, he stated that to declare
water a ‘right’ or a ‘human right’ was “extreme”. (1) These are his exact words from the video:
“The one
opinion, which I think is extreme, is represented by the NGOs who bang on about
declaring water a public right. That means that as a human being you should
have a right to water. That’s an extreme solution. And the other view says that
water is a foodstuff like any other and like any other foodstuff it should have
a market value.”
The
Huffington Post wrote that “People were shocked at the inhumanity of Brabeck’s
statement, and rightly so.” Nestlé’s water behavior is even more egregious than
with the baby milk, though direct deaths are not recorded. But in fact, Nestlé
have had enormous troubles in so many countries for depleting local water
resources and leaving communities entirely dry, for the sake of bottling and
selling their Pure Life brand water. Many cities and states in the US have had
violent demonstrations against Nestlé for their draining of aquifers,
especially in areas that are already suffering droughts. The company appears to
be able to use political connections, and direct or indirect financing of the
election campaigns of American politicians, to drain vast amounts of water for
resale while the local population and farmers have either no water or suffer
significant rationing.
A
few years ago, the Miami-Dade county in Florida ran some ads claiming the
county’s local tap water was “cheaper, purer and safer than bottled water”,
with Nestlé immediately threatening to sue the local government for making
those (undoubtedly true) statements. (2) And this is true all over the world. In one small
community in Pakistan, a village councillor said small children were all being
sickened by filthy water that resulted from Nestlé’s digging a deep well and
draining the entire aquifer, with villagers needing to drill new wells many
hundreds of feet deep to find any water at all. (3) Stories like this appear everywhere, with Nestlé
executives brutal in their pursuance of water supplies to bottle for resale, in
many cases draining much of an area’s available free water and then re-selling
to the same local population the same water they obtained free prior to
Nestlé’s arrival. (4)
When
we look at the total picture collected from dozens of countries, and consider
the statements by company executives, it becomes frighteningly apparent that
Nestlé intend to obtain control of so many aquifers in so many locations that
they will be able to dominate the supply of water to the populations of the
world just as they dominate the distribution of baby milk. For these reasons
and others, there is an enormous global movement developing against the entire
bottled water industry for the damage it inflicts on the natural environment
and the billions of plastic bottles that cannot be reused or recycled.
One
media report stated that, according to Nestlé, “the price of a bottle of water
is similar to that of other packaged beverages as it incurs similar costs
linked to production, quality assurance, bottling, storage and distribution.
One-third of the costs can be attributed to water and raw materials, one-third
to production and one-third to distribution.” But a documentary titled “bottled
life” demonstrated that in the US and many other locations, a truckload of
water cost Nestlé only $10 but, after being bottled, was sold for $50,000. (3) The producers of the documentary apparently
contacted Nestlé for an interview to present their side of the story, but the
company declined, claiming the film would not represent them in a fair manner,
which sounds suspiciously as if the facts in the documentary were true and the
company had no defense.
In
China, I have spoken to more than one former Nestlé employee who claimed the
company was simply re-bottling and re-selling tap water, but in any case,
Nestlé’s higher prices for bottled water appear to be based solely on the brand
name, and my information coincides with that stated in the documentary above,
which is that Nestlé obtains the water free or purchases it for an
insignificant cost, then reaps a 10,000% profit on resale. But let’s be sure to
register the main point which is that the executives of Nestlé not only believe
water is a foodstuff that should have a price, but they plan – by effective
expropriation – to ‘privatise’ that water by simply assuming ownership of it,
then giving it a market value and distributing it through their own version of
a free market. Citizens everywhere should be seriously alarmed by the enormous
privatisation of drinking water reservoirs and their supply chains all over the
world.
And,
if I can entertain you with two bits of bizarre news, the first is that
Canada’s University of Alberta, in spite of huge protests from the public and
from its own faculty, gave an honorary Doctor of Laws degree to Nestlé’s
Chairman and CEO for … Are you ready for this? The honorary degree was given
for Brabeck’s great contribution to “the preservation, distribution and management
of one of humanity’s most vital resources: water.” (5) (6) The second is that our problems are apparently not
limited to baby milk and water. Yet another tragedy occurring in Africa has
Coca-Cola’s name on it, the same Coca-Cola that plans to get into the milk
business because “it will rain money”. Pediatricians in West Africa are
reporting cases of a new medical condition so common it has a name: “Fanta
Syndrome”, which is infant malnutrition and dehydration caused by babies
drinking Coca-Cola’s Fanta orange soda rather than milk (because Nestlé’s
powdered milk is so expensive), and probably containing the same pesticides as
regular Coca-Cola. (7) (8)
Mr.
Romanoff’s writing has been translated into 30
languages and his articles posted on more than 150 foreign-language news and
politics websites in more than 30 countries, as well as more than 100 English
language platforms. Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and
businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting
firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a
visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in
international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai
and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and
the West. He is one of the contributing authors to Cynthia McKinney’s new
anthology ‘When China Sneezes’.
His
full archive can be seen at https://www.moonofshanghai.com/
and http://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/english/
He
can be contacted at: 2186604556@qq.com
End
Notes:
(1)
Nestlé Chairman Peter Brabeck Says We Don’t Have a Right to Water; https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nestle-chairman-peter-brabeck-water_b_315015
(2)Nestle
Waters Threatens To Sue Miami-Dade Over Water Ads; https://www.environmentalleader.com/2008/10/nestle-waters-threatens-to-sue-miami-dade-over-water-ads/
(4)
Drinking Water Crisis in Pakistan and the Issue of Bottled Water; https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/pakistan-case-study-by-nils-rosemann-on-the-impact-of-nestl%C3%A9s-pure-life-water-business-on-the-right-to-water
(5)
Nestle Chairman brings shame to the University of Alberta; www.babymilkaction.org/archives/10980
(6)
CBC News; Nestlé CEO given honorary degree amid protests; https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/nestl%C3%A9-ceo-given-honorary-degree-amid-protests-1.1178702
(7)
Coca-Cola enters dairy market with ‘Milka-Cola’; https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/nov/25/coca-cola-fairlife-milk
(8)
Babies Means Business; New Internationalist; https://newint.org/features/1982/04/01/babies
The
original source of this article is PRAVDA
Copyright
© Larry Romanoff, Moon of Shanghai, Blue Moon of Shanghai,
2021
