Report on The International Solidarity Trip to Cochabamba, Bolivia

December 6-11, 2000
By Maude Barlow

You may remember an op-ed piece I wrote for The Globe and Mail last April on one of the world's first "water wars" in Cochabamba, Bolivia. I charged the World Bank and the giant engineering company, Bechtel, with masterminding a water privatization scheme that brought this state to its knees; both responded to my charges with furious denials that The Globe also published. Well, in December, 2000, I went to Bolivia as part of an international solidarity mission organized by the Council of Canadians to see for myself. It was an incredible journey. But first, the history.

Background

In 1998, the World Bank, which has endorsed water privatization schemes in many parts of the world, refused to guarantee a $25 million loan to re-finance water services in Cochabamba unless the government leased the public water system to the private sector and passed the costs on to consumers. Only one bid was considered, and the company was turned over to Aguas del Tunari, a subsidiary of a conglomerate led by Bechtel, the giant San Francisco engineering company, and several other construction companies.

In December, 1999, the private water company announced water price increases of as much as 200% and 300%. For most Bolivians, this meant that water would now cost more than food; for those on minimum wage or unemployed, water bills suddenly accounted for close to half their monthly budgets. To add insult, the Bolivian government, prompted by the World Bank, granted absolute monopolies to private water concessionaires, announced its support for full cost water pricing, pegged the cost of water to the American dollar and declared that none of the World Bank loan could be used to subsidize the poor for water services. All water, even from community wells, required permits to access and peasants and small farmers even had to buy permits to gather rainwater on their property.

The selling-off of public enterprises such as transportation, electrical utilities and education to foreign corporations has been a heated economic debate in Bolivia. But this was different; polls showed that 90% of the public wanted Bechtel turfed out. Debate turned to protest and one of the world's first "water wars" was launched.

Led by Oscar Olivera, a former machinist now turned union activist, a broad-based movement of workers, peasants, farmers and others created La Coordinadora de Defensa del Agua y de la Vida - La Coordinadora for short - to "de-privatize" the local water system. Hundreds of 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. Police reacted with violence and arrests and in early April, the government declared martial law. Activists were arrested in the night; radio and television programs were shut down in mid program. A 17-year old boy, Victor Hugo Danza, was shot through the face and killed.

Two wonderful Americans, Tom Kruse of Equipo de Apoyo and Jim Shultz of the Democracy Center, who are now Cochabamba residents with Bolivian families, sent information to activist groups around the world about the uprising. Their information - and the powerful response it triggered - made the Bolivian government aware that its actions were being watched. Government authorities and Bechtel did their best to characterize the unrest as the work of narcotrafficers, leading to some international press reports of the uprisings as Bolivian "drug wars."

Finally, on April 10, the directors of Aguas del Tunari and Bechtel abandoned Bolivia, taking with them key personnel files, documents and computers and leaving behind a broken company with substantial debts. Under popular pressure, the government revoked its hated water privatization legislation.

Deeply chagrined at the failure of its pet project, the local government basically handed over the running of the local water service, SEMAPA, to the protesters and La Coordinadora, complete with debts. The call went out for help, as nothing would please the World Bank and the Bolivian government more than to see the public system fail. We responded.

Our Trip

Our delegation consisted of myself, Jamie Dunn, the Council's Water Campaigner, Chief Garry John with the B.C. Interior Alliance and the Assembly of First Nations, Cam Duncan, Latin American Director of Public Services International, and Antonia Juhasz, of the International Forum on Globalization. Vandana Shiva, anti-bio-tech warrior from India was to join us, but could not obtain a Bolivian visa, as there is no Bolivian Embassy in India. She was greatly missed.

The morning we arrived, before a very needed rest, we held a press conference. It was packed and we were the lead story all over the news that night and the next day, which was great for our hosts. That evening, after a rest, we attended a special meeting with SEMAPA workers and later, attended a benefit concert to raise money for people injured in the uprising. We met the people who now run the company and heard the story of their struggle since the uprising.

They are very clear: they refuse to believe that their only choice for water services is between corrupt government and for-profit foreign corporations. Water is a public good, they insist, that must be provided by the people on a non-profit basis. The company must be efficient, free of corruption, fair to the workers, guided by a commitment to social justice (providing first for those without water) and it must act as a catalyst to further engage and organize the grassroots. Talk about your Citizens' Agenda!

One of the first acts of the new company was to operationalize a huge water tank in the poorest southern neighbourhoods, establishing connections to 400 communities that had been abandoned by the old company. Then, the company established an active presence in the neighbourhoods, listening to the people and working with them to solve problems. In the summer, La Coordinadora organized its first public hearing on SEMAPA, to begin a public process on building a broad, consensus-based definition of what the company must become, and received many proposals from civil society. As well as this outreach, every week, SEMAPA Director Dr. Jorge Alvarado, has a weekly television show in which he answers the public's questions and hears their concerns.

The company has also taken a strong stand against any compensation to Bechtel for its "losses." Bechtel is suing the government of Bolivia for close to $40 million US at the World Bank's International Court for the Settlement of Investment Disputes. It is claiming NAFTA-like investor-state rights under a 1992 Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) that Bolivia signed with Holland. Bechtel, an American company, must have smelled the conflicts in Bolivia brewing; late in 1999, it transferred and renamed the holding company of Tunari from the Cayman Islands to Holland.

(We need to take these BITs much more seriously. Recently, in an arrogant rebuttal to a journalist who mentioned the "defeated MAI," OECD Director General Donald Johnston said that the MAI is alive and well in the more than 1,500 BITS around the world. He is right. This Bolivia case is extremely important in this regard.)

The next day was a full-day seminar (and I mean full day - eleven hours!) on Globalization and the Privatization of Water. It was packed with a wonderful array of academics, workers, peasants, farmers, and even street people. What a lesson in how to do politics in a way that matters to the people! We all spoke, as did several Bolivians, and Oscar and colleagues presented their proposed plans for the future of La Coordinadora and SEMAPA. At the end of the day, we presented a draft of the Cochabamba Declaration (attached) that several of us had worked on at lunch and that was wildly supported by the whole group. That night, they held a lovely under-the-stars dinner for us, with music from an Indigenous anti-globalization youth group. Wonderful!

The next day was the most moving. We were taken by bus, first, to the country to visit with workers and peasants who had built the irrigation system in their communities to learn about their complex water distribution system, and then to several very poor communities in the city to see for ourselves the miracle of water in their lives. In Alto Cochabamba, one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Bolivia, we were greeted like royalty by the whole community. Speeches and testimonies, most given through tears, were followed by sharing Chicha - a very distinctive corn liquor that made my stomach none too happy and that was served in all our visits.

Everywhere we went, Chief Garry John brought out his drum, with its drawing of a grizzly - his totem - and sang his heart out for the people; everywhere, they fell in love with him. But at this one visit, high on a dusty hill overlooking this vast Andean valley, surrounded by inquisitive children and old women sitting in their best colours on the ground, Garry particularly shone. One man had wept as he told us that the browner your skin, the less likely you were to receive water under the old system. A woman told us that for years, women from this community haemorrhaged to death from carting water up the mountainside. That only stopped months before when a new community-run SEMAPA brought in potable water delivery.

Garry took his drum and sang a chant to honour the "water warriors" in our midst. The people were obviously deeply moved and we had to literally pull him away from the adoring young women who surrounded him when it was time to move on. Garry was a tremendous addition to our team and is a real ally back in Canada.

The next day, our last, was a day to meet and plan. La Coordinadora and SEMAPA need support - technical, legal, political and financial. It is imperative that we help them in any way we can. If this "de-privatization" scheme fails, the World Bank will be able to say, "we told you so." There are those in the Bolivian government who want to pay Bechtel compensation to prove that Bolivia is ready for economic globalization and will be a good player. There is a real concern that the government of Bolivia is in secret negotiations with Bechtel to settle that dispute out of court (shades of MMT?) and so the timing is urgent as well.

Before leaving that night we toured the market, a twenty-five square block world of its own in which you can buy anything and I mean anything. The meat and animal section was very upsetting - the live caged animals beside piles of eyeballs, tongues and feet, as well as dead endangered mountain cats. But the handcraft pottery and weaving were breathtaking and as always the shining beauty of the people, from infants to ancients, touched as all at every turn.

It felt like half of Cochabamba came to see us off, literally waving to us as our plane left the ground. I turned to my co-travellers and said “I think we have all left a piece of our hearts back there”.

So we have our work cut out for us. We have all made commitments. Antonia is working hard to put together the legal team; Cam to find the technical advisors; Garry will work with First Nations communities in Canada and around the world; Jamie and I will be concentrating on getting to Canadian government officials and unions to raise the profile of this case, as well as help raise funds. We will hold up Cochabamba as a real example at our international water summit in Canada in July; an alert, informed international community is the most important ingredient here.

I have been very moved in my travels many times and have seen terrible situations of injustice and deprivation. What moved me particularly in Bolivia is the fight-back taking place. These are among the poorest people in the world. They have been abused for centuries. They cannot count on their governments or the police to provide any justice whatsoever. But they are enormously hopeful and raising a generation of young people who have a deep commitment to social justice. They are holding on to their culture, music, dress, traditions, food and music in the face of globalization which is not the case for much of Latin America.

Once again, I am confirmed in my belief that the antidote to economic globalization is not going to come from the privileged of our world, but from those most devastated by its fallout. I learned a great deal in Bolivia. I only hope I can give a little in return.

January 1, 2001

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