It all began under the Pinochet dictatorship, on 13 August 1981, when the Water Code (DFL 1122) was amended in order to transfer this vital element to the private sector, without cost or limits in terms of time or quantity.

Later, under the coalition governments and the administration of Sebastián Piñera, sanitation services were to suffer the same fate, as seen with utility companies such as Aguas Andinas or Esval, among others, under the banner of the "Golden Share".

The state held on to a measly five per cent.

Water rights in Chile are divided into consumptive and non-consumptive. The former allow the total consumption of the water in an activity and the latter requires the restitution of the water not used.

Those sucking up the water are, in the north, the mining operations, around the centre, agriculture, and, in the south, tree monoculture plantations coupled with a number of hydroelectric projects.

The water shortages in the north of the country are extreme, as is the quality of the water intended for human consumption, which contains high levels of arsenic, according to studies by the Sanitary Services Authority (SISS).

The maximum level of this lethal element should be 0.01 milligrams per litre of water according to Chilean standards, but the figure is 0.0113 in the northern port city of Arica and 0.0307 in Pozo Almonte, also in the north of the country.

National and multinational mining corporations, instead of investing in non-chemical mining or in seawater desalinisation for their processes, pass the cost on to the environment and the local communities.

In central Chile, the culprit is the agri-export sector: business operations such as avocado monoculture require large amounts of water, and irrigation commissions create reservoirs in the highest areas, to the detriment of the plain.

As a result, the natural water cycle is being manipulated for the benefit of the few and at the expense of the majority.

Former government ministers and other public officials have been denounced by civil society organisations working to end the water usurpation enshrined by legislation inherited from a dictator.

Commodification of nature

Such is the case with the Los Ángeles estuary, a tributary of the Ligua river, in the province of Petorca, from which the former minister, Edmundo Pérez Yoma has profited.

The accusations made in this respect by local leader and agronomist Rodrigo Mundaca haas earned the water rights activist a prison sentence [for slander].

In the south, the culprits are the pine and eucalyptus tree monocultures that deplete groundwater reserves.

The government nonetheless continues to support such plantations and the forestry expansion model.

Deep perforation of 50 metres or more is now needed to find water, the strategic resource of the 21st century, in places where it used to be found by digging just one or two metres.

The Association of Forestry Engineers for the Native Forest (AIFBN) has denounced the fact that "day after day, the growing deprivation of peasants, farmers and indigenous peoples from access to water is creating ever growing conflicts affecting the quality of life of the rural population on various levels. The vast majority of them are made invisible."

Meanwhile, the commodification of nature is the order of the day in Chile. Bearing in mind that 97 per cent of the earth’s water is saline and only three per cent is freshwater, the latter constitutes a scare resource, and one that speculators are turning into an economic commodity rather than a human right.

The research institute CIPER has revealed, based on a World Bank report from 2011, that almost 25,000 transactions involving the purchase and sale of water rights by private entities took place in Chile between 2005 and 2008, to the value of almost 1.2 billion US dollars a year.

It is a lucrative business that PPD Deputy Cristina Girardi wants to bring to an end. "The Alianza’s main concern is that it stays this way and that it be part of the market. If the market regulates it, which is what the Alianza wants, it is no longer a human right," she explained.

As pointed out in a report by the AIFBN: "The Water Resources Commission of the Chamber of Deputies launched the discussion of a bill amending the Water Code, but it is not enough to state that water is a national good for public use, given that unless there is a change in the mechanism awarding and transferring the right to profit from this common good to the private sector, it will continue to be turned into an economic good that can be traded on the market."

Meanwhile, civil society organisations are leading a variety of initiatives in a bid to reclaim water, the strategic resource of the 21st century, as a human right. One of them is the "Citizens’ Campaign for the Repeal of the Water Code".

Another is that led by the AIFBN, which has drawn up a map of the main water conflicts in Chile.