Fight-Back in Bolivia

By Maude Barlow & Tony Clarke

This article appeared in the September 2, 2002 edition of The Nation.

August 15, 2002

In 1998 the World Bank notified the Bolivian government that it would refuse to guarantee a $25 million loan to refinance water services in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba unless the local government sold its public water utility to the private sector and passed on the costs to consumers. Bolivian authorities gave the contract to a holding company for US construction giant Bechtel, which immediately doubled the price of water. For most Bolivians, this meant that water would now cost more than food. Led by Oscar Olivera, a former machinist turned union activist, a broad-based movement of workers, peasants, farmers and others created La Coordinadora de Defensa del Agua y de la Vida (the Coalition in Defense of Water and Life) to deprivatize the local water system.

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In early 2000 thousands of Bolivians marched to Cochabamba in a showdown with the government, and a general strike and transportation stoppage brought the city to a standstill. In spite of mass arrests, violence and several deaths, the people held firm; in the spring of that year, the company abandoned Bolivia and the government revoked its hated privatization legislation. With no one to run the local water company, leaders of the uprising set up a new public company, whose first act was to deliver water to the poorest communities in the city. Bechtel, meanwhile, is suing the government of Bolivia for $25 million at the World Bank's International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes.

About Maude Barlow

Maude Barlow is the chairperson of the Council of Canadians. She serves on the board of the International Forum on Globalization and is the author of Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water (New Press). more...

About Tony Clarke

Tony Clarke is the director of the Polaris Institute. He serves on the board of the International Forum on Globalization and is the co-author, with Maude Barlow, of Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water (The New Press). more...
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