BOLIVIA
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a documentary by sheila franklin
on the uprising against the privatization of water in Cochabamba, Bolivia
now available
Bolivian Describes Successful Struggle to Preserve Water, By Howard Kling ~ Nov. 4
Let Them Sip Champagne: The Battle Of Bolivia, By Robert Sterling ~ Oct. 4
U.S. Drug War At Center Stage In Renewed Bolivian Violence ~ Oct. 1
Detail Accounts of Events in Bolivia - Between Sept. 21 - October 2, by George Ann Potter, October 4
Confrontation in Parotani Leaves Dead and Wounded, Tom Kruse ~ 24 September
Weekly News Update On The Americas, Nicaragua Solidarity Network ~ Sept. 24
National Uprising Rocks Bolivia. Bolivia: Oil and Gas Fields Seized. Bolivia: Government Attacks, Negotiates, Attacks. US "Concerned" About Bolivia Uprising
"Los Bolivianos Jamás Hemos Tenido Alma de Esclavos", la Coordinadora, Cochabamba ~ septiembre 19
The World Bank Speaks - We Respond, Jim Schultz & Tom Kruse ~ June 6
Behind The New Globalization Protests Lies An Old Demand, Democracy, Jim Shultz ~ May 4
"Water For Life": A Travel Journal, By Manuel Rojas ~ July 29
Bolivia‘s Indigenous People Gather in La Paz to Reshape National Policies, Cidob ~ July 4
Brutal Attacks On Bolivian Immigrants, By Marcela Valente ~ May 24
Call To Citizens to Support Threatened Indigenous Group ~ May 8
Devastating Oil Spill Harms Uru Morato People, by Tamara Stenn ~ April 24, 2000
"Bechtel Speaks, We Respond" by Jim Schultz, Democracy Center ~ April 29, 2000
International Water Ltd. Responds to Op-Ed By Jim Schultz of Democracy Center
International Water Ltd.’s Response To Jim Schultz of The Democracy Center
Peace Accords Signed, But Controversy Far From Over. Violence Continues, by Bolivian Times staff ~ April 2
Banzer, The Siege and The Market in Bolivia, by Alejandro Campos ~ April 21
World Bank Head Comments On Water Protest. Bolivian Protest Leader Heads To Washington, Jim Schultz ~ April 13
Army Assassin Who Fired On Water Protesters Went To School Of The Americas, Andean Information Center ~ April 13, 2000
NEWS-InBrief, Jim Schultz ~ April 13
Oscar Olivera Member of La Coordinadora To Address IMF/World Bank Demonstrations In Washington
Bolivia Returns to Calm
Bechtel And Bolivian Government - War of Words
New Zealand Protesters Hose Down Bolivian Consulate
Blame The Bechtel Corp. Not Narcotraffickers For Bolivia Uprising, Jim Shultz, The Democracy Center, April 11, 2000
Army Shooters In Civilian Clothes Fire On Crowds, Tom Kruse, April 12, 2000
While Bolivia Says Bechtel Agreement Is Broken, Bechtel Says Its Staying. Jim Shultz, The Democracy Center, April 11, 2000
Text Of Statement by Bechtel Corporation, April 11, 2000
Protests And Violence Continues In Bolivia As Sides Seek Agreement To End Crisis, Jim Shultz, The Democracy Center ~ April 10th
State Of Siege Still In Effect While Repressive Measures Of Political Control Are Heavily Implemented, Asamblea Permanente de los Derechos Humanos de Cochabamba (APDHC) ~ April 9
Situation In Bolivia Under Martial Law, Jim Shultz, The Democracy Center ~ April 9
Bolivia Under Martial Law ~ April 9, 2000
Bolivian Protesters Win War Over Water, Jim Shultz, The Democracy Center ~ April 9
Bechtel and Edison Reach Agreement on Edison's Acquisition of a 50% Stake in International Water Limited, November 8, 1999 (Article from The Bechtel Corp. Website)
A Bolivian Baby Turns One In Jail, Jim Shultz, The Democracy Center ~ August 2, 1999
When The War On Drugs Becomes War On The Poor: Your Tax Dollars At Work, Jim Shultz, The Democracy Center, August 1, 1999
Sewing Shut Thier Mouths In Order To Be Heard, Jim Shultz, The Democracy Center ~ June 8, 1999
Resources On Human Rights In Bolivia, Nizkor International Human Rights Team
For More Information on the Enron Corp. Also Read:
Greenbacks and Election Blues: The Mutually Beneficial Relationship Between Enron CEO Ken Lay and the Republican Contender, By Pratap Chatterjee, Special to Corporate Watch
Bolivian Describes Successful Struggle to Preserve Water
By Howard Kling ~ Nov. 4
People in the developing world are leading the fight to defend our common resources, such as water, from becoming just another commodity. A hero in that struggle, Bolivian union and community leader Oscar Olivera, visited the Twin Cities recently, bringing with him the details of a major successful struggle to reverse the privatization of water resources in the Cochabamba region of Bolivia. Olivera, a machinist and executive secretary of the Cochabamba Federation of Factory Workers, spoke at a well attended Coffeehour at the Resource Center of the Americas on Saturday, October 28.
"For the first time in the history of Bolivia we have told the government 'no' and made them back off of their destructive schemes for privatization of our resources," stated Olivera. He played a major role in the Coordinadora de Defense del Agua y de la Vida, a broad movement of labor, peasants and others which organized a successive wave of protests against the privatization of their regional water system by an affiliate of the San Francisco based multinational, Bechtel. Eventually over 100,000 people occupied the streets of Cochabamba for weeks, blocking and even some factories stopped operations as men, woman and children from as far away as 40 kilometers joined the demand to create a new water operator based on community input.
Privatization stopped. In April 2000, Aguas del Tunari, the Bechtel affiliate, was forced to abandon their operations, the local water system was de-privatized, and substantive changes in water legislation were promised by the Bolivian government. But victory came with a price. Hundreds of people involved in the movement were injured, some severely. Several people were killed by government snipers dressed in plain clothes.
The repression could have been worse, according to Olivera. The broad base of the coalition that united workers, shopkeepers and intellectuals in the city with peasants in the countryside is one reason for some measure of police and military restraint. The coalition's democratic character was also the heart of the movement's success,outrage at 35 to 300 percent increases in the price of water after privatization. Further, the depth of popular resentment against government corruption and years of harmful economic policies provided additional meaning for the participants. "Behind the struggle for water there are people struggling to give democracy true substance. The fight for water rekindled values we had been losing over many years because of pressures from the neo-liberal economic policies of Bolivia and the World Bank."
Neo-liberal economic policy has become the mantra of globalization, informing the substance of international agreements like NAFTA and GATT and providing a theoretical basis to the practices of institutions like the World Bank. A crescendo of criticism has mounted against neo-liberalism, the World Bank and its sister, the International Monetary Fund, for their role in promoting undemocratic economic policies and the interests of multinational corporations around the globe. Protests against these policies brought thousands to the streets of Seattle and Washington, D.C. earlier this year.
Lessons for other countries Olivera described the impact of the World Bank/IMF influence in Bolivia. ?Since 1975 we have been told by the government and political structure that privatization and neo-liberal adjustments must happen to improve our economy. Airlines, railways and factories were given away to multinational interests as a result. But despite their claims our lives have been worsening. Their practices have not increased employment, not brought down prices.
Instead of increased state revenue, we have budget cutting by the government. In the process of adjustment all our labor rights were lost and new unfavorable labor conditions were brought about, replacing permanent jobs with temporary labor, and older organized workers with young people and women who enter the workplace with no rights. This has broken down production and divided workers, introducing personal competition and creating enemies among different sections of the workforce and population."In Bolivia new laws and arrangements involving water resulted from pressure from the World Bank as well, granting monopoly concessions to companies all over the country. But, when it came to water in Cochabamba, the people had had enough. Water and air were about all they had left in common. And now these new laws made water a commodity, allowed the confiscation of cooperative water systems, and privatized distribution and sources of water. The government agreement guaranteed Aguas del Tunari and Bechtel a 16% rate of return and was shrouded in secrecy through 'clauses of confidentiality'."
Traditional resource management was eliminated in rural areas like that around Cochabamba where water has been scarce for 40 years. The results were devastating to the ecosystem. \For the consumer under privatization, the price of water became tied to the dollar. The people formed the Coordinadora or Coalition in the Defense of Water and Life in November 1999 declaring "the water is ours". By April they had forced an end to the scheme. "I have these messages for my friends in the United States" Olivera stated. "It is possible to stop privatization and the neo-liberal onslaught if the people say 'enough'. Further it is important to understand that behind the struggle for water in Bolivia there are people struggling to create a world where democracy means social justice."
Howard Kling is project director for Workday Minnesota and director of the Labor Education Service Telecommunications Project at the University of Minnesota.
END
Let Them Sip Champagne: The Battle Of Bolivia
By Robert Sterling ~ Oct. 4
Water is the essence of life, making up 70% of the human body. Mankind can't live long without it. Such is the background behind a failed swindle, masterminded by the forces of globalization. The backlash nearly led to a revolution, the first of hopefully many to follow in the New World Order of economics. Oddly, there wasn't too much about it in the news. In 1999, the Bolivian government "privatized" the public water system in the city of Cochabamba, based on the "advice" (i.e. demands) of the World Bank. They only considered one bid, by a conglomerate led by Bechtel, the giant San Francisco-based engineering monolith. Bechtel and its pals were given a 40-year-lease. More than half a million people depend on the water to survive.
What is important to understand is that there's nothing unusual behind such plans: it's modus operandi for both the IMF and World Bank. "Privatization" means selling public enterprises and natural resources to private corporations. The corporations are unsurprisingly almost always Western military-industrial titans. In exchange, the countries are infused with more cash. The sales job is that the corporations will run things more efficiently than a bungling government industry. It didn't work that way in Bolivia. Big surprise: why would an amoral money machine not abuse a granted private monopoly and the license to gouge? The conglomerate doubled and tripled prices. They claimed it was to recover the cost of a huge dam project in Misicuni, yet to be built.
Many impoverished people suddenly couldn't afford the essence of life. The response from Bechtel, the Bolivian government, and the World Bank was a collective shrug. Get used to the new economic realities. Or, as Marie Antoinette would put it, "Let them sip champagne."
The people of Bolivia responded to the economic rape and thievery with protests led by workers, environmentalists, and citizen's groups. A strike and transportation stoppage brought the city to a standstill. They were met with tear gas and bullets. Six were killed and 175 injured, including two children blinded from the chemical warfare.
In April 2000, Hugo Banzer, the former Bolivian dictator and now the President, declared martial law. World Bank Director James Wolfensohn commented to reporters that, "The riots in Bolivia, I'm happy to say, are now quieting down." Bechtel issued a statement denying the upheaval in Bolivia had anything to do with its plundering, and suggested the revolt was the work of those opposed to a "crackdown on coca-leaf production."
But the tide had turned. This time, the opponents of Corporatism (under the banner of "free trade globalization") ended in victory against the evil empire.
While Bechtel and the Bolivian government tried to shift blame to the other, the industrial giant fled its offices and tried to extract a US$12 million exit payment. The leader of the water protests, Oscar Olivera, became a national hero. More than even Seattle or D.C., the Battle of Bolivia is a global wakeup call against economic oppression in the world.
END
"U.S. Drug War At Center Stage In Renewed Bolivian Violence"
Jim Schultz, The Democracy Center On-Line ~ October 1, 2000
Dear Readers:
I am sorry to report that, once again, I am writing from a Bolivia in the midst of conflict. A series of national strikes and highway blockades which began two weeks ago has been met with 20,000 government troops using tear gas and live rounds in abundance. At least ten are dead, more than a hundred injured and many jailed. The U.S. State Department has publicly declared its support for the government's actions. Below is my dispatch from Bolivia, which will be circulated to news outlets in the U.S. Monday morning by Pacific News Service. I hope you will share it with others to keep Bolivia in the U.S. public eye.
The only help I am asking for at this time is the following. Many of the injured are children, many mamed beyond Bolivian medicine's ability to help them. This includes a six year old girl whose nose and face was decimated Saturday morning by a government tear gas canister. If any of you have contacts or suggestions of resources to help these children with appropriate medical attention, please contact me at: JShultz@democracyctr.org.
Jim Shultz
"U.S. Drug War At Center Stage In Renewed Bolivian Violence"
by Jim Shultz ~ October 1
While Colombia and Peru have been catching more of the world's Andean attention for the past few weeks, Bolivia suffers one of its worst political and social crises in decades. Two weeks ago an informal alliance of teachers, farmers, rural water users and others began a series of national protest actions aimed at forcing the Bolivian government to the table over a mix of issues including teacher salaries, eradication of the last remaining coca crop, and the construction of three new, U.S.-financed military bases.
A nationwide teachers strike has left virtually the entire Bolivian public school system idle during the final weeks of the South American school year. Blockades of the major national highways have brought virtually all overland travel and commerce to full stop. Bolivia's President, Hugo Banzer, who ruled the nation as a dictator during much of the 1970s, has deployed more than 20,000 soldiers and police in an effort to stop the protests by force.
U.S. BACKS CRACKDOWN, DESPITE KILLINGS
At least ten people have been killed by government fire, more than 100 injured, and an unknown number jailed. Eye witnesses have reported that much of the shooting is being carried out by army officers, including long-distance sharp shooters. The current crisis comes just six months after President Hugo Banzer declared a national "state of emergency" in an unsuccessful effort to stop a civic uprising over water privatization. Those protests forced the departure of a subsidiary of the U.S. Bechtel Corporation which had raised rates as much as 300%.
On Friday in Washington, US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declared the U.S.'s support for Banzer's actions, saying, "We share and fully support President Hugo Banzer's call for communication and reconciliation." Hours later, just before dawn on Saturday, Banzer's government sent 1500 troops into the small town of Vinto, in an attempt to remove a highway blockade there. Soldiers killed a 25 year old taxi driver, Benito Espinoza Saravia, injured 29 others, including six year old Ximena Zenteno who had her nose destroyed by an army tear gas canister.
US DRUG WAR AT ISSUE
On Saturday, Bolivian government officials sat down for negotiations with various movement leaders, convened by the Catholic Archbishop. Sources close to the talks say that the hardest issues deal with the Bolivian government's US-financed plan to eradicate the last remaining 5% of the country's illegal coca leaf crop. That plan involves building three new military bases in the Chapare region, the chief coca growing area. To be built with $6 million in U.S. assistance, the bases would permanently deploy 1,500 troops in the area, a move bitterly opposed by local residents and many human rights groups.
"These bases were never debated in the Bolivian Congress or by the Bolivian people," says Edwin Claros, Vice President of the Assembly on Human Rights in Cochabamba. "The role of the military is to protect our borders, not to wage war with our own people. The bases will definitely mean more use of the military in the region and more violations of human rights." Late Saturday the government announced that it would back away from its hard-line insistence on the bases, but only with the alternative of expanding the military's presence at an existing base in the area. Arguing for a permanent military presence in the region in a televised speech to the nation last Wednesday, Banzer proclaimed, "We can't leave those areas unprotected to be retaken by the black market of narcotrafficking."
Despite U.S. Ambassador, V. Manuel Rocha's public declaration last week that the bases were, "not an imposition by the US government but a decision by the Bolivian government," many here question whether the US is voicing that same flexibility behind closed doors. An Embassy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, admitted that if Bolivia should back way from the US-financed base plan, it could create doubts about the Bolivian government's much-touted pledge to make the country "free of illegal coca" by 2002. Said the official, "That would leave open the question: If you are committed to eradicate coca using the military, how are you going to continue it without a military presence?"
In September the Bolivian government's coca eradication efforts were cited by President Clinton as his main reason for proposing that the U.S. and other lenders forgive the nation's multi-million dollar foreign debt. U.S. officials would very much like to use Bolivia as a model of a successful eradication effort, especially with the Clinton Administration's new $1.3 billion military-led coca eradication plan in Colombia.
Even with the apparent government concession on the bases, it is unclear how long the conflict may continue between the government and coca farmers in the Chapare region. Blockades there have cut off highway passage between the nation's second and third largest cities, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz. Representatives of farmers are demanding that they be allowed to continue growing small plots of the plant (less than 1/2 an acre). With nearly 95% of the crop already eradicated in the region, they argue, the small crops that remain would be for traditional uses, including the wide-spread Bolivian practice of chewing coca leaves. Talking about the eradication program this week, a top Bolivian official admitted, "We've also wiped out the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands, maybe one million people.''
While the coca leaf is the base ingredient for cocaine, it only takes on the drug's effects after being substantially processed with powerful chemicals. Unprocessed coca leaves are legal, sold and chewed widely and also used for commercial production of coca tea, popular as a treatment for stomach and altitude ailments. Coca farmers also note that small plantings are allowed under the nation's coca-eradication law approved under U.S. pressure in 1988.
FOOD SHORTAGES AND PATIENCE WEARING THIN
Meanwhile, food shortages caused by the blockades have started to take effect in some cities and many Bolivians are growing weary of the protest, lobbing criticisms and more at both sides. A collection of children's drawings pasted to the wall of one Cochabamba school shows images of soldiers opening fire on people and trucks stopped at blockades, along with writings such as: "I want peace; Don't throw rocks; and Don't kill people." A week ago, angry chicken producers dumped a pile of 1000 dead and rotting birds on the front steps of the Cochabamba state governor and of one protest group. The birds died when their food supplies were cutoff by the blockades. An informal poll by a daily newspaper here of 1440 readers voiced a 51% level of support for the protesters and their demands.
Following the end of negotiations Saturday, representatives of the various groups returned home to their local bases to consult on possible accords. Over the weekend some coca farmers announced that they were prepared to take up firearms if needed to protect their land if the government did not reach an acceptable agreement. The highway blockades, public mobilizations, and military deployments continue throughout the nation, creating a palatable air of tension and with no immediate end in site.
The Democracy Center (San Francisco: P.O. Box 22157 San Francisco, CA 94122 TEL: (415) 564-4767 FAX: (978) 383-1269
BOLIVIA: Casilla 5283, Cochabamba, Bolivia E-mail: info@democracyctr.org
END
Confrontation in Parotani Leaves Dead and Wounded
Tom Kruse ~ 24 September 2000
Cochabamba. At least two people were killed and over 10 wounded today in confrontation between Bolivian military and protesters near the community of Parotani, about 350 km from La Paz, Bolivia's capital, when government troops, under civilian cover, fired tear gas and live ammunition on protesters.
For more than a week Bolivia has been convulsed by waves of protests by peasants, coca growers, public school teachers and others. One key form of protest has been the blocking of major highways, effectively cutting off regions one from the other, and Bolivia from neighboring countries.
In April of this year Cochabamba, Bolivia was the site of fierce protests that succeeded in reverting privatization of the local water system by a Bechtel Corporation affiliate, and forced substantive changes to water legislation that local communities felt would cause them to lose control of their indigenous water systems. In the current protests, local groups are demanding approval of those legislative changes and final termination of the contract with the Bechtel affiliate. Those protests were joined by rural and urban public school demanding wage increases, and coca growers demanding an end to US financed coca leaf eradication and military base construction in Cochabamba's Chapare region.
At 1:30am this morning, the Bolivian Permanent Human Rights Assembly mediated negotiations between Prefect José Orías of Cochabamba and protest leaders, to allow a small number of trucks carrying chickens and buses carrying travelers, stranded for various day in Cochabamba. Protest leaders indicated they would make efforts to ensure safe passage of the caravan, but indicated that blockade leaders would be hard to reach until morning.
At about 2:00am the caravan left, and, unbeknownst to the protest leaders, accompanied by about 100 heavily armed regular army troops. Protest leaders indicate that at no time during the negotiations did the Governor indicate the caravan would be militarized, and hand they known, they never would have approved it's departure.
At 4:00am the first reports of confrontations between the military accompanying the convoy and protesters were reported. At just after 4:00pm the first confirmed reports of dead and wounded came in.
Sacha Llorentti, representative of the Bolivian Permanent Human Rights Assembly, and member of the National council of Human Rights in Bolivia, and who mediated the negotiations that led to the caravan's departure, feels the Prefect Orías lied to him. Llorentti commented, "We feel betrayed. At no time did the Prefect suggest that he would send dozens of well armed soldiers with the civilian convoy. Had we known, the [Human Rights] Assembly would never have played a role in negotiating the convoy's departure. We feel the Prefect deliberately used the Assembly and innocent travelers and truckers as cover for military operations."
Protest leaders have called for a mass public assembly to consult with local organizations regarding the next steps to be taken. What is certain is that with the recent government violence, protests are destined to continue.
END
Weekly News Update On The Americas
Issue #556, September 24, 2000
Niciragua Solidarity Network Of Greater New York
339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012
(212) 674-9499 <wnu@igc.org>
1. National Uprising Rocks Bolivia
3. Government Attacks, Negotiates, Attacks
4. US "Concerned" About Bolivia Uprising
National Uprising Rocks Bolivia
Campesino coca growers (cocaleros), public school teachers and other labor sectors joined in Bolivia during the week of Sept. 18 to press demands with a coordinated series of strikes, protests and roadblocks that had the country virtually shut down by Sept. 23. Cocaleros and other campesinos are demanding land rights, as well as protesting the forced eradication of coca crops and the planned construction of three new US-financed "anti-drug" military bases in the Chapare region. Bolivia's rural public school teachers have been on an open-ended strike since Sept. 13, pushing for a 50% wage increase among other demands; the strike was joined on Sept. 18 by the urban public school teachers.
The Coordinating Committee for Water and Life, which organized a protest movement in the city of Cochabamba last spring against the privatization of the municipal drinking water system [see Updates #523, 532, 533], is also backing the new protests. On Sept. 20, some 20,000 people demonstrated in Cochabamba to demand that the government discuss implementation of a new water law. On Sept. 22 more than 5,000 teachers, campesinos and workers marched from Quillacollo to Cochabamba. Speakers at the subsequent rally called for the resignation of President Hugo Banzer Suarez. While the Committee was able to resolve some water law issues through talks with local authorities during the week, it is continuing a civic strike and roadblocks in solidarity with the teachers and campesinos.
The other groups involved in the actions are following the same solidarity policy, insisting that all demands must be resolved before any protests will be lifted. The coordination was formally laid out in an inter-union pact between the different sectors. The Bolivian Workers Central (COB), the country's main labor federation, is backing the protests with a call for an open-ended general strike to begin on Sept. 25.
As of Sept. 24, some 60,000 cocalero families grouped in the six campesino federations of the Chapare region had barricaded 300 kilometers of the main road that crosses Bolivia from east to west; members of the Only Union Confederation of Campesino Workers of Bolivia (CSUTCB) are also blocking roads in La Paz department and other areas of the country, including important trade routes linking landlocked Bolivia to ports in Peru and Chile. As of Sept. 24, some 5,000 military and police troops had failed to clear the roads--as soon as the troops manage to break up a roadblock and move on, the protesters return to reblock the road. [La Republica (Lima, Peru) 9/19/00, 9/21/00, 9/22/00, 9/24/00, all from AFP; El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 9/24/00 from Reuters; Los Tiempos (Cochabamba) 9/19/00 & 9/24/00; El Diario (La Paz) 9/23/00]
Oscar Olivera, leader of the Coordinating Committee for Water and Life, said on Sept. 23 that the roadblocks around Cochabamba were intensifying, and would soon extend to the city's bridges. The same day, campesinos in Oruro department announced they will join the protests by blocking major highways in Oruro on Sept. 25 to press their own list of 11 demands, primarily concerning land and environmental issues. Urban and rural teachers have also threatened to step up their protests on Sept. 25. [ED 9/24/00]
END
Bolivia: Oil And Gas Fields Seized
On Sept. 20, some 300-400 campesinos seized three oil fields in Sara province, Santa Cruz department, as part of the national protest movement. On Sept. 22 the oil fields remained shut down, with protesters refusing to let anyone leave the area. The oil fields belong to the Chaco company, an affiliate of the transnational corporation BP-Amoco. [LR 9/21/00 from AFP; LT 9/23/00]
Indigenous protesters from the Ayoreo and Chiquitano tribes shut down two natural gas pipeline construction camps in Santa Cruz department, also apparently in conjunction with the national protests. Bolinter, the company building the pipeline, managed to evacuate all its personnel from the sites by Sept. 22, and is counting on government security forces to protect the equipment left behind. Bolinter was contracted by Gas Oriente Boliviano (GOB), a local consortium of the transnationals Enron and Shell, to build the gas pipeline, which is eventually to run from Bolivia to an electricity generating plant in Cuiaba, Brazil. The occupations were organized by the Federation of Ethnic Peoples of Santa Cruz (CPES) to demand that GOB fulfill promises it made to local communities for an indigenous development plan, the paving of roads in the communities, construction of a classroom and drilling of a water well. Indigenous leaders say they'll continue negotiations with company executives and local authorities, but will not end their occuption until demands are met. [ED 9/23/00]
END
Government Attacks, Negotiates, Attacks
On Sept. 21, three people were wounded, one of them seriously, when combined forces of the Bolivian army and police attacked campesinos on a bridge that links the town of Chimore with Villa Tunari, the epicenter of the protests in the Chapare region. Feliciano Mamani, executive secretary of the Federation of Cocaleros of Villa Tunari, was one of the wounded; he was hospitalized after a military bullet ripped through the bones in the lower part of one leg. Another victim was a 13-year old boy, hit by a tear gas grenade while watching the protests from the balcony of his home. A student, a journalist and a soldier were injured during protests in Villa Tunari the previous day. [LR 9/22/00 from AFP]
On Sept. 22, the government surrounded Villa Tunari with a massive troop blockade. Unable to stop the protests, the government finally agreed on the afternoon of Sept. 23 to meet with campesino leaders--including cocalero leader and legislative deputy Evo Morales Ayma--to discuss a solution. The campesino leaders were transported in an Air Force plane from Villa Tunari to the meeting at the Cala Cala church in the northern zone of the city of Cochabamba. The talks were brokered by Msgr. Jesus Juarez, vice president of the Conference of Bolivian Bishops [LR 9/24/00 from AFP; ENH 9/24/00 from Reuters; LT 9/24/00]
Campesino leaders refused to accept a government demand that the roads be unblocked before negotiations could start. "They put the condition on us that the roadblocks be lifted, [but] that would be foolish, a trap, because we have already gone through that," explained CSUTCB executive secretary Felipe Quispe Huanca. "In April we lifted [the protests] and inexperienced leaders entered into negotiations, they signed an accord, but it turns out that after more than three months there's nothing and the same thing could happen again," said Quispe, who is known to his followers as "el Mallku" ("condor" in the Aymara language). [LT 9/24/00]
On Sept. 23, as cocaleros began observing a "truce" for the negotiations, military and police troops tried to dislodge a group of protesters from El Castillo, just outside Villa Tunari. Four people--including a bus passenger stranded by the roadblocks--were wounded by bullets. Another three people, including a soldier, suffered other injuries.
The negotiations began around 2pm; by midnight, the cocalero leaders and the government representatives had worked their way through five of the 13 demands. A break was called, with talks scheduled to resume on Sept. 24. Taking part in the negotiations are Presidency Minister Guillermo Fortun, Agriculture Minister Osvaldo Antezana, Cochabamba prefect (mayor) Jose Orias, and Fernando Rojas, secretary of the Conference of Bolivian Bishops.
The points on which agreement was reportedly reached include: the creation of a University of the Tropics under the auspices of Cochabamba's San Simon Major University (UMSS); the paving of the route from Ivirgarzama to Puerto Villarroel; help in finding markets for alternative products; no expulsion of cocaleros from the Chapare region; and revision of the National Agrarian Reform Institute (INRA) Law. [LT 9/24/00]
The cocaleros charge that government troops have been retaliating against communities in the Chapare region by burning homes and stealing property. The government has also cut off drinking water to Villa Tunari, and has cut off telephone access to a number of communities. Overall, at least 15 people have been reported wounded by bullets, with a similar number injured in other ways, and nearly 40 people arrested; the cocaleros are asking representatives of the Catholic Church, human rights groups and the media to come to the area to act as observers. [ED 9/24/00]
On Sept. 22, President Hugo Banzer Suarez insisted that despite the widespread roadblocks and protests, "there's no risk that a state of siege will be imposed." Banzer, who ruled Bolivia as a dictator from 1971 to 1978, explained that "these protests are the fruits of a democratic process and they are protected by the political Constitution of the State, as long as they are carried out peacefully." [Amid similar protests in April this year, Banzer decreed a state of siege that lasted for two weeks--see Updates #532-534.]
Banzer claimed drug traffickers are financing the cocalero protests. [LR 9/24/00 from AFP; ENH 9/24/00 from Reuters; LT 9/24/00] Information Minister Manfredo Kempff reiterated on Sept. 23 that the government will not stop the eradication of coca plants, but rather will intensify its efforts. [ED 9/24/00]
END
US "Concerned" About Bolivia Uprising
On Sept. 23, US ambassador Manuel Rocha expressed "concern" over the current conflictive situation in Bolivia. Asked by a news agency reporter about the possible impact of the protests on US-mandated coca eradication programs, Rocha said: "We will be mindful of any proposal that the [Bolivian] government may make toward modifying the program and the goals that have been drawn up with regard to eradication under Plan Dignidad," the US-sponsored anti-drug program. Rocha clarified, however, that he had not yet received any such proposal from the Bolivian government. The Banzer government has set December 2000 as the deadline for the complete elimination of coca cultivation in the Cochabamba tropics. Bolivia's new deputy minister of social defense, Roberto Lemaitre Mendoza, has hinted that the coca elimination goals could be set back by two months because of the latest Chapare protests. [ED 9/24/00]
The first US-funded "anti-drug" military base in the Chapare region is set to be built in October of this year on army-owned land in the area of Chimore, Defense Minister Gen. Oscar Vargas confirmed over the weekend of Sept. 17. Vargas said that information about the contractor that will build the base is in the hands of the US Embassy, which controlled the bidding process. The other two bases are to be located in Ichoa and Villa Tunari. The Bolivian government estimates that the total cost of building the three bases will be at least $2 million--the amount committed by the US Southern Command for the project. The bases were designed by Southcom engineers with Bolivian army engineers last January; each base is to house 500 troops. [ED 9/18/00]
END
"Los bolivianos jamás hemos tenido alma de esclavos"
la Coordinadora, Cochabamba, septiembre 19 de 2000
Coordinadora Departamental de Defensa del Agua y de la Vida
Y....OTRA VEZ SALDREMOS DE NUESTRAS COMUNIDADES, NUESTRAS CASAS Y NUESTRAS ESCUELAS PARA MOVILIZARNOS
Despues de mas de cinco meses desde la victoria de abril, ante la incapacidad del gobierno, volveremos a salir a la lucha, esta vez porque la situación del país ha empeorado, los jubilados han marchado, los universitarios, los transportistas, los maestros y cocaleros están en pleno conflicto; la problemática del agua está siendo tergiversada por gobierno, algunos medios y comentaristas de prensa están pidiendo a gritos que el gobierno reprima a la población para restablecer el "orden".
Los cochabambinos dimos un plazo al gobierno hace casi un mes y no obtuvimos respuesta positiva.
Viajamos hasta La Paz para entregar de manera responsable nuestra propuesta de reglamentación a la Ley 2066.
Hicimos conocer nuestra posición con relación al Consorcio Aguas del Tunari, al cual expulsamos.
Estamos trabajando para proponer una Ley de Aguas que responda a nuestros intereses y no a la de los empresarios y el gobierno.
Estos no han querido escuchar, por eso....decidimos nuevamente salir a tomar las calles, los caminos y los puentes, como en enero, como en febrero, como en abril, con los siguientes objetivos:
1. Apoyo militante las demandas de los compañeros del magisterio en procura de mejores salarios y dignidad en su trabajo.
2. Apoyo a los compañeros del Trópico cochabambino, por que encarnan la dignidad del pueblo boliviano, que se oponen a la erradicación forzosa de la hoja de coca y la instalación de cuarteles, porque eso está convirtiendo al Chapare en campos de concentración y de miseria
3. Nuestras demandas regionales son:
· AGUA.- Aunque para los cochabambinos Aguas del Tunari no vuelve mas, el gobierno pretende indemnizar a sus socios, de hecho una empresa está trabajando para ello, según lo declarado por la delegada presidencial Ana María Cortés, el Super de Saneamiento Básico lo niega, ¿quién puede explicar esto?
La reglamentación de la Ley 2066, que es necesaria y que luego de varias semanas y con el esfuerzo colectivo de regantes, campesinos, pobladores de barrios y profesionales se presentó al gobierno como una propuesta nuestra. Ella no ha sido tomada en cuenta, se quiere desvirtuar y torcer el verdadero contenido de las conquistas de abril.
La inmediata discusión de una ley consensuada del recurso hídrico, que fue parte de los convenios de enero, febrero y abril, no pretende ser llevada a cabo por el gobierno, mientras tanto se dictan decretos y leyes para seguir enajenando este recurso a los empresarios extranjeros y sus socios criollos para hacer de nuestra agua un negocio.
El proyecto tan anhelado por el Valle Alto como es el de Qhewiña Khocha, debe iniciarse a la brevedad posible, mínimamente con la instalación de una oficina que empiece a gestionar este proyecto.
· TIERRA.- Los campesinos de todo el país y particularmente de Cochabamba, exigen modificaciones sustanciales en la Ley INRA, que les garantice la propiedad jurídica de sus tierras que son el único medio de subsistencia.
· CONDICIONES DE VIDA.- La situación económica se hace cada vez más insostenible con la elevación de carburantes, de pasajes, de impuestos y desempleo, en Cochabamba. Mientras en febrero y abril hemos luchado porque no se eleven las tarifas de agua, las facturas de energía eléctrica se han elevado en un 100% desde hace un año atrás; así nos quieran demostrar lo contrario. El pago de ítems como carga demanda, tasa de aseo y alumbrado público, no tienen hasta el día de hoy una explicación lógica y coherente. Exigimos, como pobladores que sufrimos las consecuencias de esta política de asalto a la economía de la población, un REVISION INMEDIATA DE TARIFAS Y FACTURAS de ELFEC, tanto para la ciudad como en el campo.
La contaminación del río Arque y otros debido a las concesiones para la explotación minera está poniendo en riesgo la actividad productiva de los valles cochabambinos. Cochabamba, ha dicho que no permitirá ni una sola concesión mas en nuestro territorio.
Nuestros heridos están esperando del gobierno el cumplimiento de sus compromisos
· DIGNIDAD.- La instalación de cuarteles en el Trópico de Cochabamba, la erradicación de la hoja de coca, el menosprecio al trabajo de los educadores, la política económica genocida diseñada por los organismos financieros internacionales y la embajada norteamericana, nos deben poner en una situación de resistencia y lucha para impedir mas humillaciones y pisoteo de nuestra dignidad y soberanía, por eso exigimos: no a la construcción de cuarteles en el trópico; si a la construcción de escuelas, hospitales, servicios básicos y caminos; no al trato de menosprecio a los maestros del país; salarios justos y respeto a sus derechos; basta de erradicar hoja de coca, que está sumiendo a la indigencia a miles de familias campesinas. Los derechos no se mendigan, los derechos se los conquistan.
· CORRUPCIÓN.- Los recursos, alimentos, equipos y vituallas para los damnificados por el terremoto de Aiquile, Mizque y Totora, fueron desviados por funcionarios gubernamentales que hoy se pasean impunes por los ministerios, las prefecturas, parlamento y las calles. Se enriquecieron a costa del dolor y la angustia de miles de familias, que hoy continúan en la permanente zozobra,
Los negociados en la Aduana, contrabando, vacunas, asfalto, impuestos, dietas y sobredietas, FONVIS, que son el dinero del pueblo, pero que están llenando los bolsillos de esa mafia encaramada del aparato estatal en éste y los anteriores gobiernos. Todo esto no puede quedar en la impunidad, exigimos el esclarecimiento de estos actos y el castigo a los responsables.
Estas son nuestras demandas, las de la población sencilla y trabajadora que exige del gobierno respuestas positivas, no promesas ni represión, por todo ello la Coordinadora de Defensa del Agua y de la Vida, resuelve lo siguiente:
PRIMERO.- En vista de haber concluido el plazo otorgado al gobierno, para la atención de estas demandas se declara el INICIO DEL BLOQUEO GENERAL DE CAMINOS A PARTIR DEL DÍA MIERCOLES 20 DE SEPTIEMBRE.
SEGUNDO.- Esta medida deberá ser implementada de manera GRADUAL por las organizaciones campesinas, barriales, sindicales y populares, hasta lograr la atención del gobierno, caso contrario estos bloqueos se radicalizaran hasta asumir el bloqueo general e indefinido de caminos.
TERCERO.- En caso de que el gobierno saque a las tropas de la policía y el ejercito a los caminos y/o las calles las medidas se asumirán de inmediato, sin esperar plazos.
CUARTO.- Convocamos a la población a tomar todas las previsiones del caso, como viajes, provisión de alimentos y medicinas, porque la medida puede ser prolongada en vista de la sordera, ceguera e incapacidad del actual gobierno.
QUINTO.- Se constituye el Comité ampliado de la Coordinadora, única instancia de representación y dirección de las demandas y el conflicto de la población cochabambina.
Cochabamba, septiembre 19 de 2000
COD, FEDECOR, FTFC, CODAEF, PROFESIONALES, FSTCC
Oscar Olivera Foronda, Omar Fernández, Gabriel Herbas, Samuel Soria, Basilio Mamani, Moises Tórrez, Rosendo Flores, José Escalera
END
The World Bank Speaks - We Respond
Jim Shultz & Tom Kruse, The Democracy Center ~ June 6, 2000
Summary: In early May, Christopher Neal, the World Bank's External Affairs Officer Latin America & the Caribbean, wrote to us to complain about inaccuracies in our reporting on the Cochabamba water protests and the World Bank's role.
This exchange of letters includes Mr. Neal's message and our response.
THE WORLD BANK'S LETTER TO US
Dear Mr. Schultz & Mr. Kruse Americas.Org website
We've received a few media calls prompted by incorrect information on your website under the title "Globalization and War for Water in Bolivia". Your web articles erroneously suggest that the World Bank supported the recent Cochabamba water privatization project, in which the government of Bolivia accepted an offer from Consorcio Aguas de Tunari. In fact, the World Bank advised the government against proceeding with the privatization plan and water tariff increases that sparked tragic violence in Cochabamba last month.
Bolivian governments and the private sector have studied alternatives to increase water supply and expand water service in Cochabamba for more than 20 years. In 1997, the Bolivians asked the World Bank to analyze a water project, called Misicuni, whose $252-million financing requirement led to the tariff hike, and compare it with another proposal, known as the Corani Project. The Bank advised against proceeding with the Misicuni project, as our analysis was that neither the public nor the government could afford its high price tag. Instead, the Bank favored the alternative project, known as Corani, as offering a lower-cost, fully private-financed option under which no tariff increases would have been permitted for at least five years.
This note is to request that you correct the misleading information about the Bank's role in the Bolivian water sector at the earliest opportunity. I would also be most appreciative if you would contact me to obtain more information about the Bank's role, so that you can inform your readers more accurately about the World Bank's acitivities. The Bank is working on many fronts to resolve the global water crisis. More than a billion of the world's people do not have access to clean, safe water. Three billion don't have adequate sanitation. A recent report by the World Bank-sponsored World Commission on Water estimates that demand for water will rise by 40 percent over the next 20 years.
Meanwhile, much water is wasted. In many countries, factories, farmers and middle-class consumers enjoy subsidies that shift the burden of paying for the water they use --- and often waste --- to the government. These costs leave governments unable to finance the water pipes, pumps, sewers and tunnels so urgently needed by the poor in the urban shantytowns and small rural farms of the developing world. Largely as a result of this, millions die each year from water-related diseases.
The challenge we face is finding the resources needed to provide clean water and sanitation for everyone. Many countries' public sectors do not have the money or the expertise needed to deliver safe water to all their citizens. Consequently, they look to the private sector to build, maintain and manage water systems.
This has prompted opposition from those who, apparently, believe that public sector ownership is the only appropriate model for water service delivery. Others, including the World Bank, believe that shutting the private sector out of water services altogether will prevent the poor from gaining access to the water they need. That's why the Bank is working with governments to involve the private sector in water delivery.
But there is an essential caveat. Governments need to set up the regulatory frameworks needed to ensure that a monopoly private provider delivers water at an affordable price to consumers. The Bank is helping many of them do that. This means governments negotiate with the private providers where and what kinds of water investments are made. They also provide subsidies targeted at those who need them, namely the poor. In Santiago, Chile, for example, the municipal government introduced a 'water stamps' program that covers part of the cost of water for low-income residents. The result is that more people have access to water, and water use is more efficient.
External Affairs Officer Latin America & the Caribbean
The World Bank Room I 8 - 178 1818 H Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20433 Email: cneal1@worldbank.org Phone: (202) 473-7229 FAX: (202) 522-3698
OUR RESPONSE TO THE WORLD BANK
Christopher Neal External Affairs Officer Latin America & the Caribbean The World Bank (via e-mail)
Dear Mr. Neal, This letter is in response to your May 10 e-mail to us regarding the recent civic uprisings over water prices and water privatization here in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Please forgive our delay in responding. We were both traveling outside the country when your message arrived. We appreciate you taking time to represent the World Bank's official view on the events that happened here. We assume that you are a person of goodwill whose concern for the poor is genuine. However, as residents of Cochabamba we must say that your representation of the World Bank's role in the tragedy that occurred here is seriously incomplete.
As you well know, following the completion of water privatization here last January, the people of this valley saw their water bills climb by double and more. To seek recourse they were forced to shut down their city for a week, and to endure government tear gas, bullets, and repression which left a 17 year old boy dead and more than 100 others injured. While the World Bank may wish it were otherwise, the events that set this tragedy in motion lead directly back to the Bank and its heavy handed privitization policy in Bolivia.
First, despite your statement that the World Bank, "advised the government against proceeding with the privatization plan and water tariff increases, the facts are absolutely clear that the World Bank relentlessly forced privatization of the water system, over the clear objections of many Bolivian citizens and leaders. In February 1996 the World Bank told Cochabamba's mayor that unless it privatized its water system the city could forget receiving any additional World Bank assistance for local water development. In July 1997 World Bank officials told Bolivian President, Gonzalo Sánchez de Losada, during meetings in Washington, that the privatization of the Cochabamba water system was also a pre-condition of receiving international debt relief from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and others.
Far from opposing privatization, the World Bank used every coercive power at its disposal to force water privatization on the people of Cochabamba. The process that resulted was carried out in a shroud of secrecy, with just one bidder, and by a government completely unequipped to adequately negotiate with or regulate a private monopoly.
Second, in your letter you place the blame for the water rate hikes entirely on the Misicuni dam project, which you explain was vigorously opposed by the Bank. We agree that the Bank's opposition to the dam is well-documented, and we have never said otherwise in any forum. In fact, the Bank's doubts about the project are shared by many here in Bolivia, despite the insistence by many local interests the project move forward. Yet, while you at the Bank argued the Misicuni project was absurd and overpriced, at no time did you disapprove of the tariff increases; just the opposite. The Bank insisted on price increases to cover costs of the Misicuni project despite knowing the project is commercially unjustifiable. The Bank staff wrote - in bold type - in its June 14, 1999 "Bolivia: Public Expenditure Review", that "No public subsidies should be given to ameliorate the increases in water tariffs in Cochabamba&ldots;" By issuing that command to the Bolivian government, did you expect any result other than the public erruptions that occured here?
Third, the Misicuni project was clearly not the sole reason for the enormous rate hikes forced on people here. World Bank debt also played a key role. International Waters Limited and the Bechtel Corporation, the owners of the company that implemented the rate increases, claim that the Misicuni project was responsible for well-less than half of the increases (see April 25 letter from Mr. Didier Quint to Jim Shultz posted at www.Bechtel.com). Those increases were also forced by the company's demand for a guaranteed profit (an average 16% per year, according to their contract) and by huge foreign debts agreed to by the Bolivian government - including millions owed to the World Bank. The World Bank made these loans to a public enterprise in which it evidently had no confience whatsoever, yet, nevertheless, it expects local water users to now pay off that debt in the form of higher water prices.
Fourth, another reason that rate hikes were so high, especially for the poor, is the World Bank's insistence that all of the operating and maintenance and project costs be born entirely through water tariffs, with no opportunity for public subsidies. In a policy dictated with absolutely no input from the people actually affected, the World Bank made it abundantly clear to the Bolivian government that Cochabamba water users should pay whatever the market dictates. The World Bank seems driven by an economic theory that water prices for the poor must be kept high in order to keep families from wasting water. In addition to your statements, that theory was also articulated by World Bank director James Wolfensohn, when asked directly about Cochabamba in an April news conference in Washington. Mr. Wolfenshohn explained that people in Bolivia and elsewhere would waste water unless there was a "proper system of charging," adding, "It's just a fact that if you give public services away, I think everyone would agree that that does lead to certain waste." In the world where clothes washers, dishwashers, water heaters, and automatic sprinkler systems are commonplace, perhaps using elevated prices to discourage waste makes sense. Here, however, families own none of those luxuries. Most have water entering their home for an hour every day or two. Market pricing for water here in Cochabamba goes well beyond discouraging waste. It threatens to put water entirely out of reach. It is no surprise that the end result of World Bank policy was the bloody fiasco that occurred here in April. To have demanded privatization under such conditions makes the Bank directly complicit in what followed. You can not send a boulder racing down a mountain side and then claim no responsibility for the damage caused when it hits its target. Let us be clear. We are not apologists for poorly run public enterprises. The former public water system was plagued by corruption and mismanagement. We are working closely with civic groups here in their effort to construct a public water system that is efficient and well-administered. Nor are we opposed to private investment and involvement in public services such as water. Clearly, private investment is critical in a poor country such as Bolivia.
The heavy-handed and anti-democratic approach to forced privitization that the World Bank implemented here is precisely the kind of policy that has led to the recent wave of international protest against the Bank. If the World Bank wants to be of genuine assistance in Cochabamba it should begin by looking at the debt it holds over water users’ heads, and negotiate forgiveness of that debt in exchange for water rates which the poor can afford. Rather than pursue its relentless demand for privatization, the World Bank should support genuine efforts to create well-run, well-financed public systems that allow local residents to keep control of their water. Finally, we would be delighted to invite you to come to Cochabamba. This would be an opportunity for you to bring in to the public light what the World Bank intended with its demand for privatization. Such a visit, by giving you an opportunity to hear from those directly affected, would also expand your understanding of what led to the violent rejection of water privatization. Sincerely,
Jim Shultz and Tom Kruse
Cochabamba, Bolivia
END
Behind The New Globalization Protests Lies An Old Demand, Democracy
Jim Shultz, Director, The Democracy Center ~ May 4
Watching coverage of the protests in Washington DC last month it would be easy to have the reaction, "Now what is this all about?" For most people the names World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization are signals to change the channel or move on to something a little closer to home. However, what erupted in Seattle last December and marched on to Washington in April is not some passing fancy. It is, in fact, the start of an important, worldwide political movement and, while its slogans and messages may still be rough, the issues that movement raises are among the most important we will face for much of the new century.
Within the U.S. much of the last century was marked by one citizen effort after another aimed at curtailing the abuses and excesses of corporations and the marketplace - child labor laws, the regulation of monopolies, the right to organize unions, minimum wage laws, consumer protection, environmental protection, and more. All these have been important steps forward in U.S. economic life. Today, as the economy turns more and more global by the week, individual nations are becoming less and less able to set such rules.
Steadily, the economic decisions that affect our daily lives are leaving the hands of governments we elect and falling into the arms of multinational corporations and global economic institutions that we do not. The movement we saw being born in the streets of Seattle and Washington is an echo of all those same fights for economic justice, only this time the issues and the battles have gone global.
As thousands of students, working people, environmentalists and others were preparing to gather in Washington, from far off Bolivia came a powerful example of what that protest was about. Bolivia, in many ways, is the poster child for what happens when a poor country is left to the whims of global economic planners. This little-thought-of land of high mountains and lush jungles is saddled with a huge international debt which benefited mainly the wealthy but now bears down on mainly the poor. The cost of paying the annual interest on that debt cuts deeply into revenues that could be used for health, housing or education. Similarly, at the command of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Bolivian government is about to change the national labor laws, weakening the right to organize unions and other worker protections.
Then there is the issue of "privatization". For years the World Bank has pressed hard on poor countries like Bolivia to sell off their public enterprises to international investors. Fearful of losing access to World Bank credit, the Bolivian government has eagerly complied. One by one it sold off the national airline, the train system, and electric utilities. Last year it traded away the public water system in Cochabamba, a city of more than half a million. In a secretive, one-bidder deal, a 40 year lease was sold to a subsidiary of San Francisco-based Bechtel Enterprises.
It took little time to understand what all this elaborate global economics meant to the mostly-poor families who live here. Before Bechtel's subsidiary even finished hoisting its new logo over local offices, it hit local water users with rates of double and more. Franz Pedrazas, who supports his family driving his taxi 12 hours a day, seven days a week, had his rates doubled, an increase equal to what he makes in a day. Even in the U.S. it seems unlikely that consumers would take calmly a utility increase equal to a day's pay. Cochabambinos, many earning a minimum wage of less that $60 per month, reacted with unity. They shut down their city with a one week general strike and took to the streets to demanding water rates they could afford and democratic control of the water system.
The reaction of the government, the corporation, and the World Bank was a case study of the New World Order. Bolivia's President, Hugo Banzer (who ruled the country as dictator for most of the 1970s) declared a "state of emergency", pulled the plug on radio stations, sent soldiers into the street (killing a 17 year old boy and injuring hundreds more) and tried to blame the water protests on "narcotraffickers". Bechtel's subsidiary refused to leave, lied about how much they had increased water prices, and hid behind the government's repression. World Bank director, James Wolfensohn, asked about the Bolivian water uprising at a Washington news conference, defended the Bank's price increase policy with cool, clueless economic theory. "It's just a fact that if you give public services away," said the $300,000 per year Bank head, "that does lead to certain waste."
In Cochabamba the protests ended in victory. Amidst a flurry of finger pointing between Bechtel and the Banzer government, the corporation fled from its offices and turned its attention to trying to snatch a $12 million exit payment. The leader of the water protests, Oscar Olivera, accepted an invitation to come to Washington where global justice advocates were just beginning to gather. Standing next to him in the middle of the Washington march, I asked the 45 year old machinist what he thought of the nation's capital. "It looks just like Cochabamba," he told me, "young people and police everywhere."
It was, in fact, the young people, that gave real life to these twin protests on opposite sides of the equator. Beneath the economics, the slogans, the street confrontations and the rest, young people in Bolivia and in the U.S. smelled what the young always notice first, the arrogance of power. It is true that setting the rules for the new global economy will not be easy and the issues are not all so simple. Yet beneath it all there is once principle that is simple. People, regular people who work for a living, want a say in the decisions that shape their economic futures. They believe that these decisions should not be simply left to the arrogant commands of Banzer, Bechtel, the World Bank, or the IMF. The issue in the streets of Cochabamba and Washington last month was an old one - democracy.
END
"Water For Life": A Travel Journal
By Manuel Rojas ~ July 29
Wednesday, Jun 21, I was eating lunch, everything was ready, even the small details, I had my airline ticket, the television channel was reporting on the most important events that had happened the morning past. The information that the television channel concentrated on was important, the speaker emphasized that a film team from USA was in Cochabamba to make a documentary film about the big social movement which took place in the city in the valley at the beginning of this year.
The picture on the screen of Ravi Khanna and Sally Hanlon (translating) gave me the concrete information, the team was in Bolivia to gather the information that couldn't be gotten in other ways. I remember the words of an old journalist, who had been my teacher at the journalist school, "sometimes the people are not prepared to get the truth because it can destabalize the whole society". I never accepted that, I think that society has a right to know the truth, even if it can damage some, but I'm positive that it will help the society the long-term.
I was also very happy to know that everything was beginning to work for us who have been waiting for more than a month for this moment. It took more then a month for Ravi to get the visa to come to Bolivia, nobody has a clear idea why it took so long for the embassy and for the Bolivian Foreign Ministry to give the visa to Ravi. But finally in the end the team was in Cochabamba.
Ravi Khanna, the man that I met just one and half month ago had invited me to join the group, when we had been discussing the situation of the Urus tribe, who had been so much affected by the situation of the 70 thousand barrels oil spilled at the Desaguadero river.
It was very generous for Ravi to make this invitation to me, at the moment I was preparing my trip to Europe where my exhibition about the Andes People was taking place in Hanover - Germany. It was important for me to be in Europe, but it was much more important to join the film team, that was going to be very important for finally knowing the truth about what happened in Cochabamba.
First time I saw Ravi I got the impression that he was a person who knew what he was doing, not only with the film, but with his life. I told him what I saw on the television before I left La Paz, and even though I didn't like the way our common friends had done the press conference I was very glad to see him, Sheila, and Sally.
Next morning at 8:30 we met the other persons who where going to join us in Cochabamba, immediately we went to the high Valley of Cochabamba, to visit the areas that are close to the swamps, and the places that had been very much affected by the law that the Bolivian State wanted to put in practice, to make the peasants pay for the water they had owned generation after generation without any help from the government. We visited also the dam, Angostura, where some technicians assure the water problem of Cochabamba starts.
When we met the courageous people who are not easily going to accept a situation that the transnational companies wants the people to accept, I was positive that the situation was more complicated. The government wants the public opinion to be shaped by the information the mass media was given.
That day and the next day were very important for us because we had the version of the people who had been acting during those very difficult days, we had been also visiting places at the low valley, where the peasants had the same attitude , they confirmed my impression, they were very much positive that the water was the beginning of theirs lives and they were going to defend the water even with their own lives.
Saturday the 24 we had being visiting the radio stations in town that was also fighting for the water in those difficult days that paralyzed the state of Cochabamba department. One was Radio Pio XII and the other was Radio La Cancha.
Sunday the 25 we met the young people who were called the Water Warriors. We went to visit different places where the struggle took place, especially downtown where the warriors showed us where they had being during that time, I could imagine how seriously the entire population was acting, defending the right to have water, but not at the price the transnationals wanted the people to pay. We also could see where the young person Victor Hugo Daza was killed by the army who had shot him with live ammunition. The people didn't have weapons, they used only their own hands or stones.
Monday the 26 we traveled to Oruro, after the mission in Cochabamba went very well, I was very satisfied by the results we got there.
Thursday the 27 we were in Oruro, the first idea we got was to visit the Pastoral Social, especially to visit the Oruro bishop, Mons. Saenz. And we got the invitation to visit the pastoral, the intention was to interview the persons who had some things to do with the indigenous population. At the Pastoral Social we got the information that was there, a person who had been working with the Urus ethnic group who are spread throughout the whole altiplano which raises from 3.600 mts. o.s. to 4.100 that is the altitude of Oruro town.
We interviewed there a person, he presented himself as the President of the entire Uru Nation, his name is Juan Condori Mamani. Juan didn't want to say very much about the catastrophic situation the people were under after the oil spill took place in January 30 the present year.
The facts were like this: Sunday the 30 of January, a French investigator could notice that something very dangerous had happened in Desaguadero River, immediately he saw the black of the oil in the water, he contacted the police. The policeman who was at that place didn't have any form to contact his superiors therefore he waited until Monday the 31, and the his superiors didn't know what to do under such a situation.
The company who owns the Bolivian oil transport a month ago was alerted by the authorities of the Environment Ministry of Bolivia that the pipeline in different places were very old and needed replacement. The company didn't do anything to replace the pipelines. The water of the river this year was very high, and it made a hole in the pipeline and through this hole 75 thousand barrels of oil came to the river.
Consequences of that fact are not serious taken in consideration yet, but the oil went to the river to different lakes, especially to the Poopó lake and to the Uru - uro lake, that is connected by different rivers, where the oil had affected.
The company immediately started the works to clean the river Desaguadero, and at the beginning the Company Transredes, who is the representative for the Enron Oil Co. and Shell, transnational companies which formed now a big transnational . They said to the mass media in Bolivia that only 4 thousand barrels were spilled, but they knew that it was 60 barrels, they show at the television that they had been cleaning and had been using more then 4 millions dollars in that goal.
The man we met at Pastoral Social, Juan Condori Mamami, he didn't want to tell very much, because he said he didn't have the information to give a concrete idea. The director of The Pastoral Social, which is an institution that belongs to the Catholic Bishop of Oruro, recommended us to speak with an anthropologist who had being working with the population of that area for very many years. We waited for Orlando Acosta, the anthropologist, to come in.
At the evening when he came to the office, after we had visited Poopó and had interviewed a member of the Poopó local Communal Council, Mary, so we could have an interview with Oralando Acosta, he was very nervous and all the information he gave us was very well known, it was the same information we got by the media, I got the impression that he had a deal with the company Transredes. One very important thing he mentioned was that the Urus people had to make a deal or compromise with the company. When we asked that company who had lawyers and personnel for interpreting the situations favorable to the company, how they could get favorable treatment in compromises. The answer was, "They have to learn to do by themselves."
In the afternoon Ravi decide we should go to the place was mentioned by Tamara that was important we should visit. We had a problem to go to the place close to Wary, where part of the ethnic group Uru is living, it was a route blockaded in that area because of other ethnic groups fighting there, that area is one of the poorest regions of the world.
We make one appointment with Mary to visit them the next day, which we have done, we ask them to show us where the most affected part of the lake was, we spent the whole morning in one trip to go to the lake Uru, but we couldn't get to that place but we were very close to that. We decide to meet some of the leaders of the indigenous population nearby Poopó village next day.
That night Winston Moore, who present himself as a director of PR of the Transredes company, he came to visit us at the hotel, we didn't have an appointment with him, but he just came and invited us to visit the office of Transredes and to talk with him.
The 29 of June we went to Poopó again, the appointment was at 10 a.m. The members of the local Council were not there, but leaders of the indigenous of the region were waiting for us. We took both persons with us Mr. Esteban and Mr. X, we went all together to visit some of the persons who were living near to the river where the problem was.
My impression is that day we could meet the dimension of the tragedy why these people were suffering, we saw how the animals were dying by thirst and by hunger. It was the best journey in which we got a realistic idea about all the tragedy of those persons.
In the afternoon we went to visit the company offices. We expected to meet only one person, but at the office were ten persons and the Uru representative, that is how he presented himself, Juan Condori Mamani, who had the mission to explain to us how positive the company was acting in that area, and how kind they were with the URU Indians. The meeting was completely filmed, not only by us, but by the persons of the Transredes company.
We had another appointment to visit the lawyer Eduardo Alessandri who represents in Oruro the human rights organization and who had also contacted the environment organization FOBOMADE, he was the man who gave to us the most concrete information about what was happening in reality in the region. He explained to us the way Transredes was acting, trying to make deals with some of the communities but not with all the communities, and also the way that the company had not been covering all the compromises in theory they had agree to do.
Next day at 9 a.m. we met the bishop of Oruro, and we made also an interview with him. At once I took the bus to La Paz, because I had a speech in El Alto, and I had to be there.
When I was traveling by bus I had an idea, what I had been doing was great, I was very lucky to have participated in such trip and have all the information, the compromise with myself was to try to give this information to all the organizations and people I could, and try to make them understand how the situation is there where so many persons have so many difficulties and they are not getting any kind of help.
END
Bolivia‘s Indigenous People Gather in La Paz to Reshape National Policies
Cidob ~ July 4
An historic moment is now unfolding in Bolivia. Indigenous groups from across the country have gathered to finalize a proposal to radically reshape national policies and take part in direct negotiations with the government this week. It is very likely that negotiations will turn out unfavorably and they will vote to begin a massive month long 300 mile march from the lowland city of Santa Cruz to the highland city of La Paz.
Should this occur, they will need support in all forms, whether it be helping with their website from afar, coming to march, providing financial support, food, media outreach or the like. If you can help in any way, please contact Cidob, http://www.cidob.f2s.com, http://www.paraba.f2s.com, and http://www.oyendu.f2s.com or contact Derrick Hindery Tel: 011-591-16-82490/011-591-3-477050.
For Immediate Release: July 4, 2000
Contacts: Derrick Hindery 011-591-16-82490/ 011-591-3-477050 Email: dhindery7@hotmail.com Jordi Beneria Surkin 011-591-10-12326
History in the Making as Bolivian Indigenous Peoples Initiate Direct Negotiations to Radically Restructure Government Policies
Santa Cruz, Bolivia - Today more than 350 representatives from the 34 indigenous groups in the Bolivian lowlands will initiate an historic National Assembly to reach final agreement on their proposal to overhaul the Bolivian constitution and national policies in preparation for dialogue and direct negotiations with the national government later this week.
"Our dialogue with the government is of national interest. There is social discontent in the country, and these negotiations represent an opportunity for a new form of civil society" (Marcial Fabricano, Vice-President of the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia (CIDOB), 7-3-2000).
After fifteen years of democratization and economic reform, indigenous peoples of Bolivia still face devastating socio-economic inequities and environmental degradation. In this context, the central objective of negotiations with the government is to improve their own lot and engender a more just, equitable and multicultural nation.
Tomorrow, indigenous representatives will continue prioritizing their proposal and developing strategies of negotiation. On Wednesday and Thursday, the acting President of Bolivia, Tuto Quiroga and government ministers will initiate direct negotiations with the indigenous peoples. During negotiations, representatives of the major political parties, non-governmental organizations, representatives of embassies and international development agencies, churches, unions, and grassroots organizations will be present to voice their opinions and act as outside observers.
If negotiations do not produce positive results, on July 7th representatives of the 34 lowland indigenous groups will vote on whether to initiate a month long massive march from Santa Cruz to La Paz in an effort to place greater pressure on the government. Peasant and colonist organizations as well as other sectors have already expressed their willingness to participate in the mobilization, should it occur.
For more information or to obtain high resolution digital photographs of the event see CIDOB's web sites at http://www.cidob.f2s.com, http://www.paraba.f2s.com, and http://www.oyendu.f2s.com.
END
Brutal Attacks On Bolivian Immigrants
By Marcela Valente (IPS) ~ May 24
The robberies of three Bolivian families living in Argentina have shaken local rights groups and the immigrant community due to the particularly brutal nature of the attacks, in which the victims -- men, women and children -- were bound, tortured and beaten for two hours.
Prosecutor Juan José Maraggi said he was shocked by the violence of the 13 masked assailants -- two of whom were reportedly women -- who broke into the homes of three families in the town of Campana in Buenos Aires province late yesterday.
The assailants tied up their victims and tortured them with electric shocks to the testicles and legs. One of the victims was beaten with a hatchet.
The aggressors stole the families' money, watches, clothing and other belongings that turned up later in a stolen vehicle.
Two suspects, local residents of Merlo, a town not far from Campana, were arrested and charged with aggravated robbery, aggravated deprivation of liberty, torture, resisting authority and assault and battery.
Prosecutor Maraggi said similar attacks had occurred but that fear had stopped the victims -- most of whom were undocumented immigrants -- from filing complaints. "We find out because the hospitals report the admission of a Bolivian patient who has been beaten, but the victims don't explain what happened," he said.
"These people are very timid, they find it hard to speak out and defend their rights," said Maraggi. "And those who don't have documents are even more vulnerable."
Last year, Maraggi handled a case in which a 25-year-old Bolivian man was beaten to death for refusing to pay an illegal "toll" charged by local residents to outsiders wishing to pass through their neighborhoods.
Argentina has a long history of immigration, mainly from Europe. But in the past few decades, the decline in immigration from Europe has made the presence of immigrants from other Latin American countries like Bolivia or Peru more noticeable, even though there has been no actual rise in the influx of nationals from neighboring countries in absolute terms.
The total number of immigrants from neighboring countries stands at less than a million in this country of 37 million, and the number of immigrants has even dropped in recent years due to Argentina's high level of unemployment, which currently stands at around 15 percent.
The Buenos Aires-based International Organization of Migration (IOM) issues periodic reports on the scant impact that immigrants actually have on the local labor market, pointing out that they tend to take jobs in which Argentine nationals are not even interested.
The Bolivian families attacked in Campana work as caretakers on farms belonging to local residents who live in the city, said Maraggi. They did not "steal" work from anyone, because they took difficult jobs that few people would have accepted. They get up at five in the morning and work until ten at night, the prosecutor added.
Juana Waitel, with the Center for Legal and Social Studies, told IPS that Bolivian nationals had complained of an increase in attacks since the publication by a weekly paper of a report on immigration that was criticised as "xenophobic."
"They threaten to burn their homes, they attack them in the streets, they tell them to 'go home'. I never thought a publication could trigger so much contained violence and hatred against immigrants," said Waitel, who expressed outrage over yesterday's brutal attacks.
The article, headlined "The Silent Invasion," was published in April by La Primera de la Semana, triggering a lawsuit on discrimination charges by associations of civil society.
Waitel said the article manipulated statistics and provided false data. It claimed, for example, that in some public schools, 80 percent of students were of Bolivian or Peruvian origin, a statistic that was refuted by education authorities. The authors also described Bolivians and Peruvians as "smelly" and "dirty."
In a report released early this year, the Center for Legal and Social Studies said the lack of an updated law on immigration and government persecution of immigrants -- including derogatory and false remarks by high-ranking officials -- had made 1999 the worst year for foreign nationals living in Argentina.
For the past few years, immigration experts have been calling for a new law to replace the existing one -- passed during the 1976-83 military dictatorship and still on the books -- which virtually orders authorities to treat immigrants as criminals.
Former president Carlos Menem (1989-99) pinned the blame for rising crime and unemployment rates on immigrants, while former director of migration Hugo Franco asserted that foreign nationals were responsible for 60 percent of the crimes committed in Buenos Aires -- a statistic that was later refuted by the federal police.
The mainstream media has also begun to echo the increasingly widespread prejudice, referring to suspects by their nationality, with headlines like "Gang of Peruvians Steals Phone Lines," or "Bolivian Exploiters," said Waitel.
Ricardo Roca Sánchez, the owner of the daily Vocero Boliviano, said the rise in aggression against immigrants who are blamed for taking jobs away from Argentine nationals is real. "The climate is one of discrimination towards us, from the first moment they see our faces," he said.
A local polling firm, the Center of Studies for the New Majority, carried out a survey in April designed to gauge the "self-perception" of Bolivians living in Argentina. A full 65 percent of respondents said they felt "unsafe" here, and 57 percent said they had felt discrimination at some point.
The respondents felt that the main reason for that discrimination was their physical features, which are similar to those of Argentine nationals living in the northwest -- in the provinces of Jujuy and Salta -- where the indigenous influence has far outweighed the European influence.
However, most of the respondents said they had been living in Argentina for at least six years, and that despite everything they felt "grateful" and "happy" to live here, and desired to stay here and "progress."
END
Call To Citizens to Support Threatened Indigenous Group
Tamara Stenn ~ May 8
School for International Training student, Tamara Stenn is inviting the public to help with the formation of "Friends of Poopo," a citizen advocacy group which supports indigenous people affected by a recent oil spill in Bolivia, South America. Friends of Poopo’s immediate focus is the 5,000 year old Uru Morato who have had their food source destroyed by the oil spill and are now in serious danger of extinction.
The oil pipeline operated by US/Dutch owned Transredes erupted on February 4, 2000, in the Bolivian altiplano region of Oruro and for 18-32 hours, pumped 29,000 barrels of refined crude oil into the Desaguadero River. The Desaguadero feeds into Lakes Uru Uru and Poopo where many indigenous groups - including the Uru Morato - live, farm, and hunt.
Two months after the oil spill, on April 4th, the Uru Murato were forced by pending starvation from the loss of their life sustaining waterfowl and fish, to leave their ancestral lands at the southern shores of Lake Poopo and march 135 kilometers to the city of Oruro. There they expected to meet with Transredes authorities and government officials to discuss the condition of Lake Poopo and secure a guarantee that the lake would be restored to its original state and that the community would be supplied with food in the interim.
German Choque, Representative of the Uru Morato declared, "until the ultimate consequences, we need to find a solution. We need a guarantee." Later Choque voiced his fear that the group was dying. Once a powerful numerous people, now the Uru Morato number just 600. Living only by hunting waterfowl and fishing, the Uru Murato are completely dependent on Lake Poopo for their survival.
"The lake has died and there is no life since the oil spill," said a Uru Morato woman.
When the Uru Morato approached the city of Oruro, April 5th, Transredes authorities stopped the group and offered them money to return to their ancestral lands. The group refused the offer and continued on to the government offices where they were scheduled to meet with Transredes and Bolivian authorities. Transredes claimed that the remote parts of Lake Poopo where the Uru Morato live were not contaminated by the oil spill but would not guarantee that. The meeting ended without the Uru Morato receiving any type of help, food or guarantee from Transredes or the Bolivian authorities.
The group "with tears in their eyes" as reported the national newspaper, Presencia, left the city empty handed to return to their ancestral lands. Today the Uru Morato wait on these lands for help. They are without electricity, telephone or mail service. Surrounded by such isolation, it is very easy for Transredes and other authorities to forget their plight. Meanwhile the ducks, geese, flamingos and other water fowl are gone, the fish dead, and the struggling community is facing the question of their own survival.
Two weeks ago, Bolivian journalist, Manual Rojas, reported a similar situation with the Uru of Irohito located at the north of Lake Poopo. There they were also experiencing the same problems as their cousins in the south - no birds or fish to eat. They too are very fearful of losing their culture, land and history and only want their lake to be restored to "how it was before."
Stenn, met with the Uru Morato and Bolivian authorities April 4th while in Bolivia investigating the impact of the oil spill on the rural indigenous of Poopo. Due to the Uru Morato’s isolation, Choque gave Stenn the authority to represent the group in the US.
Today Stenn is working to develop further dialog between the Uru Morato, Bolivian authorities and Transredes, put pressure on Transredes to take responsibility for all oil spill damages, and is forming a citizens advocacy group, "Friends of Poopo." For more information contact Stenn at 802-258-3421.
BACKGROUND
The February pipeline eruption prompted the Bolivian Environmental Deputy, Neyza Roca, to charge Transredes (owned by the Royal Dutch Shell Group and US Enron) with gross negligence in their pipeline operations. International and national environmental organizations such as the Bolivian Forum for Environment and Development (FOBOMADE), LIDEMA, Amazon Watch, and the Institute of Ecology from the San Andres University of Bolivia, traveled to the effected region to oversee the cleanup and report on environmental damages.
In a March 27th press conference in New Orleans, FOBOMADE and Amazon Watch requested that the Inter-American Development bank reevaluate its funding of future projects with Transredes. "Several cases of negligence from Shell and Enron in Bolivia demonstrate that the IDB should not finance these irresponsible corporations," said Patricia Molina, a representative of FOBOMADE. The groups also noted the following:
Transredes only began to respond to the oil spill eight days after it began even though the company's extensive public relations campaign began immediately to downplay this disaster. Concurrently, the company is maintaining a campaign of disinformation, refusing to provide data about the spill volume and composition of the crude, which is necessary to evaluate the extent of contamination.
Although Transredes claimed to have brought 200 North American specialists to apply high technology, local monitoring groups report the cleaning process has consisted of manual collection in plastic bags, using local people. The bags have been transferred to highly permeable soils in the Pumping Station in Sica Sica and are being decomposed by the sun, risking leakage into this region's important aquifer.
For More Information on the Enron Corp. Also Read:
Greenbacks and Election Blues: The Mutually Beneficial Relationship Between Enron CEO Ken Lay and the Republican Contender, By Pratap Chatterjee, Special to Corporate Watch
END
Devastating Oil Spill Harms Uru Morato People
by Tamara Stenn, Friends of Poopo ~ April 24, 2000
School for International Training student Tamara Stenn is inviting the public to help with the formation of "Friends of Poopo," a citizen advocacy group which supports indigenous people affected by a recent oil spill in Bolivia, South America. Friends of Poopo's immediate focus is the 5,000 year old Uru Morato who have had their food source destroyed by the oil spill and are now in serious danger of extinction.
The oil pipeline operated by US/Dutch owned Transredes erupted on February 4, 2000, in the Bolivian altiplano region of Oruro and for 18-32 hours, pumped an estimated 10,000 barrels of refined crude oil and gasoline into the Desaguadero River. The Desaguadero feeds into Lakes Uru Uru and Poopo where many indigenous groups - including the 5,000-year-old indigenous group: Uru Morato - live, farm, and hunt.
Two months after the oil spill, on April 4th, the ancient Uru Murato were forced by pending starvation from the loss of their life sustaining waterfowl and fish, to leave their ancestral lands at the southern shores of Lake Poopo and march 135 kilometers to the city of Oruro. There they expected to meet with Transredes authorities and government officials to discuss the condition of Lake Poopo and secure a guarantee that the lake would be restored to its original state and that the community would be supplied with food in the interim.
German Choque, Representative of the Uru Morato declared, "until the ultimate consequences, we need to find a solution. We need a guarantee." Later Choque voiced his fear that the group was dying. Once a powerful numerous people, now the Uru Morato number just 600. Living only by hunting waterfowl and fishing, the Uru Murato are completely dependent on Lake Poopo for their survival. "The lake has died and there is no life since the oil spill," said a Uru Morato woman.
When the Uru Morato approached the city of Oruro, April 5th, Transredes authorities stopped the group and offered them money to return to their ancestral lands. The group refused the offer and continued on to the government offices where they were scheduled to meet with Transredes and Bolivian authorities. Transredes claimed that the remote parts of Lake Poopo where the Uru Morato live were not contaminated by the oil spill but would not guarantee that. The meeting ended without the Uru Morato receiving any type of help, food or guarantee from Transredes or the Bolivian authorities. The group "with tears in their eyes" as reported the national newspaper, Presencia, left the city empty handed to return to their ancestral lands. Today the Uru Morato wait on these lands for help. They are without electricity, telephone or mail service. Surrounded by such isolation, it is very easy for Transredes and other authorities to forget their plight.
Meanwhile the ducks, geese, flamingos and other water fowl are gone, the fish dead, and the struggling community is facing the question of their own survival.
Two weeks ago, Bolivian journalist, Manual Rojas, reported a similar situation with the Uru of Irohito located at the north of Lake Poopo. There they were also experiencing the same problems as their cousins in the south - no birds or fish to eat. They too are very fearful of losing their culture, land and history and only want their lake to be restored to "how it was before."
Stenn, met with the Uru Morato and Bolivian authorities April 4th while in Bolivia investigating the impact of the oil spill on the rural indigenous of Poopo. Due to the Uru Morato's isolation, Choque gave Stenn the authority to represent the group in the US. Today Stenn is working to develop further dialog between the Uru Morato, Bolivian authorities and Transredes, put pressure on Transredes to take responsibility for all oil spill damages, and is forming a citizens advocacy group. For more information contact Stenn at 802-258-3421.
A HISTORY OF NEGLIGENCE
The February pipeline eruption prompted the Bolivian Environmental Deputy, Neyza Roca, to charge Transredes (owned by the Royal Dutch Shell Group and US Enron) with gross negligence in their pipeline operations. International and national environmental organizations such as the Bolivian Forum for Environment and Development (FOBOMADE), LIDEMA, Amazon Watch, and the Institute of Ecology from the San Andres University of Bolivia, traveled to the effected region to oversee the cleanup and report on environmental damages.
In a March 27th press conference in New Orleans, FOBOMADE and Amazon Watch requested that the Inter-American Development bank reevaluate its funding of future projects with Transredes. "Several cases of negligence from Shell and Enron in Bolivia demonstrate that the IDB should not finance these irresponsible corporations," said Patricia Molina, a representative of FOBOMADE. The groups also noted the following:
Transredes only began to respond to the oil spill eight days after it began even though the company's extensive public relations campaign began immediately to downplay this disaster. Concurrently, the company is maintaining a campaign of disinformation, refusing to provide data about the spill volume and composition of the crude, which are necessary to evaluate the extent of contamination.
Although Transredes claimed to have brought 200 North American specialists to apply high technology, local monitoring groups report the cleaning process has consisted of manual collection in plastic bags, using local people. The bags have been transferred to highly permeable soils in the Pumping Station in Sica Sica and are being decomposed by the sun, risking leakage into this region's important aquifer.
Distributed by: 'AMAZON ALLIANCE' FOR INDIGENOUS AND TRADITIONAL PEOPLES OF THE AMAZON BASIN 1367 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 400 Washington, DC 20036-1860 tel (202)785-3334, fax (202)785-3335, e-mail amazoncoal@igc.org.
Note: Enron and Shell bought 50% stake in Transredes after its creation following the World Bank aided privatization of Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Boliviano (Bolivian government owned oil and natural gas production and pipeline company) in 1996.
END
Jim Schultz, Democracy Center ~ April 29, 2000Apparently the e-mail messages that many of you have sent in the past weeks to Mr. Riley Bechtel, regarding his corporation’s role in the Cochabamba water uprisings, have gotten his attention. On Tuesday I received a lengthy public response from Mr. Didier Quint, the head of Mr. Bechtel’s subsidiary that oversaw the corporation’s fiasco here in Bolivia.
I know that many of you have received the same letter. Bechtel’s subsidiary also submitted a shorter version as a letter (accusing me of "misconceptions") to the San Francisco Examiner, in rebuttal to my article published there and in the Toronto Star.
Today I am releasing my response, included in full below. Those of you who know my work well know that I do not take accuracy lightly. My reports from Cochabamba this past month have been based on my personal eyewitness accounts and extensive interviewing from the center of action, on occasion at personal risk. I stand by each one. In contrast, Bechtel’s response was written from the quiet of far off London and is riddled with numerous, profound, and documentable misstatements of fact.
I hope those of you interested will read my response closely. As the letter points out, Bechtel, in addition to all of the other damage it has contributed to in Cochabamba, is now demanding a $12 million compensation payment in exchange for leaving. I think that is intolerable. If you are interested in sharing your own opinion about that demand or any otheraspect of the matter, I encourage you to do so directly via e-mail to:
Mr. Didier Quint
Mr. Riley BechtelSend a copy to: Bechtel Public Relations Division
Again, my response to Bechtel is included at the end of this note. Copies of Mr. Deider’s letter to me and to the Examiner (along with as my original article) have been posted by Bechtel on its corporate web site.
Thank you for your ongoing interest and support.
Jim Shultz, The Democracy Center
MY RESPONSE TO BECHTEL
April, 29, 2000
Mr. Didier Quint and Mr. Riley BechtelManaging Director Chairman and CEOInternational Water LLC Bechtel Enterprises(via e-mail)Dear Mr. Quint and Mr. Bechtel:This letter is in response to Mr. Quint’s April 25th e-mail to me and his letter to the San Francisco Examiner, regarding the civil uprising over water prices in Cochabamba. While I appreciate your effort to share your views on this matter, it is disappointing to see the extent of your misunderstanding of the basic facts and your unwillingness to accept any responsibility for your actions here. From your offices in London and San Francisco I am sure you had to rely on your companies’ local representatives for information. It is clear they have briefed you very, very poorly.
To be clear, most everyone in Cochabamba would agree with your assessment about the need for more and better water. Cochabambinos are anxious to solve their water problems and many once had high hopes that your company would help to do this. You are also not alone in your questioning of the Misicuni dam project. Your account of your secret negotiations with the Bolivian government provides much more detail then had been available publicly and I have shared it with civic leaders and journalists here.
Most importantly, your account confirms what water rights leaders here have been saying for months - that the contract agreed to by the government was a failure from the start, a virtual guarantee that thousands of poor families would be hit with water rates they could ill afford. But let’s be clear on one other point. While you complain bitterly about that contract, you are just as much a party to it as the Bolivian government. You negotiated it, you signed it, and you implemented it, knowing well the injustices and social eruptions it would cause. You did not enter into that contract as an act of public spirit. You saw an opportunity to make aprofit here and you took it. One additional point you left out of your summary - your companies also demanded and won a provision in that same contract guaranteeing you, come hell or high water, an average 16% annual return on your investment (contract annex #5), leaving Bolivia’s poor to bear all the financial risk.
That said, let me now address your profound misstatements of fact about the public protests and your water price hikes that triggered them:
1) You state, "Several wealthy interests paid poor people – many bussed in from outside the area – to demonstrate against the concession." Apparently your local representatives failed to inform you that, during the seven days of protests here in early April, protesters blockaded all highways in and out of Cochabamba. There was no bus service, commercial or otherwise, or any other ground transportation entering or leaving the city. Not evenbicycles were allowed through without having their tires flattened. If you have any doubt about my account you should consult with the Bolivian government, which specifically cited the blockades as a reason for its declaration of a "state of emergency" on April 8. Before you make this claim again I suggest your provide your proof. I spoke personally withmany who came here from the rural communities, on foot from as far as 40 miles. No mysterious unnamed interests paid them to do so. They came to reclaim control of their water.
2) You state: "The Coordinadora [the civic alliance that led the protests] was mostly composed of people and organizations having an interest in the parallel water market or being part of the most affluent sector of the population." The Coordinadora’s affluence will certainly be news to its members. The coalition is led by the union that represents minimum wage factory workers. Its members also include organizations of peasant farmers, environmentalists, youth, and others. Could you explain which of these groups you count as affluent?
3) You state, "Opposition to the proposed new water law also came from coca leaf growers who, the state asserted, were supported by their cocaine connection." It seems hypocritically convenient that you would so blatantly criticize the Bolivian government on the one hand and yet so readily parrot their false political spin on the other. I have shared your charge in the past few days with many people here who participated in the protest and I think the best response comes from Franz Pedrazas, a local taxi driver. You raised his water rates last January from $10 per month to $20, an increase equal to more than what he earns in a day driving a cab for 12 hours. Regarding your charge that nacrotraffickers were behind theprotests he says, "It’s a big lie. I’m not a narcotrafficker. If I were why I would I be driving a cab? The farmers aren’t narcotraffickers either."
4) Finally, you state: "The typical rates for water and sewage services rose 35%. Low income residents were to pay 10% more and the largest hikes (106%) were reserved for the highest volume users, the most affluent." After four months I am still looking, with no success, for someone here who had a rate hike of just 10%. I have interviewed dozens and dozens of families about their rate hikes. Even among the poor, rate increases of at least 100% were the most common and many people suffered increases much higher. Your claim will be big news to Mr. Pedrazas, the cab driver, to Tanya Paredes, a mother of five who knits baby clothes for a living (her increase was 300%), and thousands of others. If you don’t wish to believe my account I would gladly send you copies of the local newspaper investigations that also confirm the extremity of your rate hikes.
As a parent, one of the lessons I have tried to teach my children is the importance of telling the truth and of accepting responsibility, rules that should apply as well to large corporations. The people of Cochabamba have suffered four months of upheaval because of your conduct here. A 17 year old boy is dead. Two youths are blinded. More than 100 are injured. Those who opposed you had their homes ransacked in the dark of night and were flown off to a remote jail in the jungle in an effort to silence them. In your defense you rely on lies and seek to blame everyone from peasants to well-drillers. Whatever credibility you had left has only been tarnished all the more.
I tried, as did many other journalists here, to reach your local representative, Mr. Geoffrey Thorpe, for comment during the uprisings. Neither my calls nor anyone else’s were returned. In fact, on several occasions, he hung up on those few reporters who managed to reach him. You may also find it of interest that, while the people of Cochabamba were having their blood spilled on the streets, your subordinates were busy taking away the water company’s computers and financial and personnel records. Your subordinates also left behind bank accounts that were empty and more than $150,000 in unpaid bills. On top of all this suffering and damage you now have the audacity to demand a compensation payment of $12 million from the Bolivian people.
I am afraid that the misconceptions in this matter are not mine, but yours. Despite your apparent views to the contrary, the people of Cochabamba are not stupid, nor are they misled. It may not be the public relations message you would like to project, but the facts speak for themselves: You came here to make a profit, agreeing to a contract thatinsured water rates far beyond what people could afford. You implemented those rates, provoking exactly the social eruption you anticipated. Even as people here died demanding that you leave you refused to go and hid behind the violent repression provided for you by your partners in the Bolivian government.
I assume your letter was intended to make you and your actions sound reasonable to a public audience. If you actually want to have your behavior be reasonable I encourage you to stop spinning misinformation, return what you have taken, reconcile your unpaid bills, and withdraw your demands for $12 million from those so ill-able to afford it. I will share this response publicly, as you have your letter to me.
Sincerely,Jim ShultzExecutive DirectorThe Democracy CenterBolivia: Casilla 5283 Cochabamba, BoliviaUS: P.O. Box 22157, San Francisco, CA 94122 ~Phone: (415) 564-4767 ~Fax: (978) 383-1269
END
International Water Ltd. Responds to Op-Ed By Democracy Center of Bolivia
Note: A copy of Jim Schultz’s Editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle
I would like to clear up misconceptions that Jim Shultz expressed in his April 19 commentary. More than 40 percent of Cochabamba’s population lacks piped water or effective sanitation services. The status quo is inhumane, and the only solution is new and improved infrastructure. The government of Cochabamba invited the private sector to participate in a concession tender, acknowledging that reasonable tariff increases were necessary. The World Bank was never involved and did not exert pressure on Bolivia to make such a move.
A consortium that included our company, which is jointly owned by Bechtel and Edison S.p.A of Italy, was selected by the government on a regulated-return basis to bring a reliable supply of clean water to people who suffer for want of it. Wastewater collection was also part of the mission.
In the first two months of the concession contract, Aguas del Tunari increased supply by 30 percent through repairs and technical enhancements. The consortium convinced the government to revise the rate structure so that people who used more water paid more per unit, engaged the community in a water conservation and education program, and instituted internationally accepted best practices in managing the system.
Water rates were not doubled. The typical rates for water and sewerage services rose 35 percent. Low-income residents were to pay 10 percent more, and the largest hikes (106 percent) were reserved for the highest-volume users, the most affluent.
The uprisings were not, as Mr. Shultz asserts, a response to the Bolivian government’s sale of Cochabamba’s water system. The government did not sell it to anyone. The agreement by which Aguas del Tunari began renting, managing, and improving the system was made months earlier in open fashion amid no discontent.
Protests against higher water rates were fuelled by local political opposition leaders and commercial interests and supported forcefully by several wealthy interests paying poor people – many bussed in from outside the area – to demonstrate against the concession. Most of the unrest stems from other causes. Nationwide water legislation placed restrictions on new wells.
Unemployment and other national economic difficulties created widespread frustration. Higher gasoline prices have taken their toll. New customs regulations and a tough antismuggling policy also increased prices. The government’s crackdown on coca-leaf production have added to the turmoil. The list goes on.
Clearly the violence and resulting deaths are terrible tragedies. Inadequate water and sewerage will unfortunately prolong another kind of agony for many thousands of Cochabambinos.
Didier Quint Managing Director International Water Ltd. London
END
International Water Ltd.’s Response To Jim Schultz
To: Jim Shultz The Democracy Center
Dear Mr. Shultz:
I am writing in response to your e-mail message of April 9. I want to provide you with more comprehensive information than you may have had access to previously, including the nature of the concession held by Aguas del Tunari.
As you certainly know, Cochabamba is the third largest town in Bolivia with an estimated 600,000 people. The city’s rapid increase in population is due mostly to the migration of citizens from the neighboring poor rural areas. This migration has created significant social problems that the city has been unable to address. These problems include the lack of appropriate low cost housing, equal access to education, a growing gap between the rich and the poor, and, generally a lack of access to public services.
These problems are unfortunately extremely common in developing countries. Some of them can also be found in the more developed world.
On a matter I am quite familiar with, many of the cities in the developing world lack an appropriate water distribution network, not to mention wastewater collection and treatment systems. Cochabamba is no exception and the situation is even worse, as the raw water sources have been progressively exhausted. This particular situation is widely acknowledged and many engineering studies have been performed in the last ten years or so to identify various solutions to this pressing problem. To date, no action has been taken as the solutions all carry a very expensive price tag. The municipal authorities have been deferring any action, hoping that some kind of subsidy or state financing could avoid passing on these costs to local ratepayers.
Such an approach is understandable but, unfortunately, has created a difficult situation for the municipal water company (Semapa) from a technical and financial point of view. The Semapa network is barely able to supply partial water coverage to less than 60% of the population. Most of the households have to survive by buying water from truckers at a price several times the official tariffs. In short, water, as delivered by Semapa, is cheap, particularly for large users, but is so scarce that people, predominantly the poor, have to buy it from private entities at a price obviously not regulated. This water, trucked into the city, is mostly drawn from the water table which, unfortunately, cannot be replenished. Needless to say this parallel water market is a very profitable industry and well drillers, truckers and merchants of all kinds have become prosperous by selling a non-sustainable resource at exorbitant prices. A number of government officials over the years have been alarmed by this situation and have tried to figure out how to provide some relief to water-starved Cochabamba. One of the solutions was to identify new sources of water outside the region and build a system to transport this water to the city. To do so would require additional financial resources that the national and local governments do not have. In addition to a new supply of water, it also became obvious to the national government and the local municipality that it was necessary to improve the water system through private management. Such a public/private partnership could help increase operating efficiencies, repair leaks and discourage pilferage. It would also accelerate the implementation of the building program without using national or municipal debt.
A first attempt to find a concessionaire to manage the Cochabamba water distribution system was made in May 1997 by the previous government. An international call for tender was initiated at the same time that the La Paz water privatization was occurring. Unfortunately, the Cochabamba call for tender was cancelled. At that time, the municipality was very much opposed to the tender because it was not taking into account the Misicuni project. This project is a long-standing effort to construct a dam (to store the water during the rainy season) a tunnel, (to carry the water across a mountain ridge) and an aquaduct (to bring the water to the city).
There were other solutions to bring water to Cochabamba, including extracting water from the existing Corani dam, but Misicuni had been supported time after time by the local officials, contractors and people of influence.
After cancelling the tender for the concession, the new government, in a gesture of good will, decided to build a portion of the Misicuni project and negotiated a sole-source contract for the tunnel section with a local contractor and a major European company. This was obviously risky as the financing of the whole project was not secured and there was a high probability that the scheme would remain uncompleted and useless, after the government had spent a large amount of money for tunnel construction. In order to mitigate this risk, the government decided to revive the concession tender and include in its scope not only the distribution system, but also the Misicuni project. The State utilized a financial advisor (Banque PARIBAS) very familiar with water issues to estimate and arrange for the most suitable legal and financial structure. The terms of reference were prepared and the tender was advertised at the beginning of 1999, at approximately the same time that the construction of the tunnel started.
International Water decided to follow the tender and we associated ourselves with Abengoa (of Spain) and four Bolivian companies including ICE, a major Cochabamba contractor and builder of the new airport and Misicuni tunnel. The joint venture, called Aguas del Tunari (AdT), submitted its bid in April 1999. To our great surprise, none of our competitors submitted a bid. Even the two French water giants, Vivendi and Lyonnaise des Eaux, declined to submit a price. We understood that Vivendi, which had to abandon its Tucuman (Argentina) concession a few months before, was very cautious about entering into a potentially similar situation. We never understood why LdE, having won the La Paz concession in 1997, did not submit a bid.
At this point it must be stressed that many international water companies had expressed concerns about the feasibility of the Misicuni scheme that was supported by local municipal and economic interests. The questions were mostly focussing on the feasibility of the dam and possibility of attracting sufficient financing to the project, given the poor records and economic condition of Semapa, the municipal water company.
In Aguas del Tunari’s bid, we also stressed these points and insisted on an alternative, consisting of a later implementation of the dam portion of the project. We were certain that the tunnel could not be built in two years and consequently that the construction of the dam could be deferred by several years. By deferring the construction of the dam, the initial upfront expenditure would have been diminished, thus allowing for a much lower and progressive increase in tariffs. We also proposed to focus our first year’s effort on repairing the existing network, where the leakage factor was in excess of 60%. As a matter of fact, 60% of the water pumped in the network was either lost or pilfered, which means that it was possible to delay the construction of the dam by making better use of the existing raw water supply.
Unfortunately we could not convince the government’s "Negotiating Committee" that this approach was the most reasonable to pursue. The Misicuni dam had become a collective obsession and the municipality (which was participating in all negotiations) insisted that the dam be built during the first two years of our contract. Consequently we used our financial model, under the supervision of the advisory bank, to calculate the tariffs necessary to get financing from the multi-lateral banks (the IDB, IFC, and the CAF) as well as the pension funds in Bolivia, all of whom had already been approached by AdT.
A close examination of these tariffs persuaded us that such a rapid increase would be difficult socially, without modifying the tariff structure. In fact the pre-existing tariff structure of Semapa was not in line with the usual international water agency practices. Generally, in order to protect scarce raw water sources, you try to force consumption down by applying a rising unit cost. This means that the more water you use, the more you pay per unit; consequently commercial and industrial users are driven to save water and the small consumers are charged a nominal amount. Semapa tariffs are the other way around; in a country where water is scarce the more water you use the less you pay per unit. We proposed that the municipality implement a tariff structure that would put no or few increases on poorest citizens and increase substantially the bill for the large users, which happen to be the wealthy. This structure was reluctantly accepted.
During the course of the negotiations, we were unsuccessful in obtaining amendments from the state or the municipality that would have allowed for a lower increase in tariffs. For instance, the municipality wanted us to repay Semapa’s previously accumulated debt and roll that cost into the rate structure. Similarly, the municipality insisted that we sign and execute the construction contract of a treatment plant with OTV (a subsidiary of Vivendi) that we thought excessive in price and not necessary. Also, the state decided that AdT pay for using the tunnel under construction and the municipality decided to charge AdT for the existing Semapa assets. In short, we had to reflect in the tariff increase all the increases that had never been implemented before. When you add these requirements to the early building of the Misicuni project, we estimate they account for more than 50% of the tariff increase, each of these was not necessary and done against our advice.
After several months of negotiation with the municipality and the state, assisted by their financial and legal advisors, the concession contract was finally signed by the State Water Regulator in the presence of the President, the Mayor and all the Ministers in charge. In our contract the tariff structure and the level of services to be delivered by AdT were very precisely defined as well as were all other customary clauses in such a contract. While the main portions of the contract were published in the press, we strongly recommended to the municipality to engage in an information campaign in order to inform the population of the changes that were to be implemented. For reasons beyond our understanding, this action was never taken.
On November 1, 1999, the concession was finally handed over to us. The new tariffs had been made public by the Regulator and were enforceable starting on the first of January 2000, as agreed in the contract. We began to operate, with the immediate goal to reduce the losses in the network and to get as much water as possible from existing sources. This action proved to be effective, as we were able to deliver water to more consumers for more hours of the day and at a higher pressure. Many consumers expressed their satisfaction and our employees were developing a new mode of operation and pride in their work. We were confident that we could implement this program in a shorter period of time than the one required by the contract.
Unfortunately in mid-January, opposition to the contract emerged, first from the Civic Committee and then from a newly created entity, the Coordinadora, presenting itself as the protector of the interests of the people of Cochabamba. Very quickly it became apparent that the Civic Committee wanted a renegotiation of the contract and that the Coordinadora wanted the termination of the contract. It also became apparent that the Coordinadora was mostly composed of people and organizations having an interest in the parallel water market or being part of the most affluent sector of the population. In a sense it was logical to see them strongly against our contract. What was disturbing was to see this group manipulating small farmers from the surrounding countryside and organizing them into violent action against a contract that had nothing to do with them whatsoever. Several wealthy interests paid poor people – many bussed in from outside the area – to demonstrate against the concession.
Moreover, national water legislation (unrelated to the Aguas del Tunari concession) placed restrictions on new wells – particularly unpopular with small farmers and wealthy landowners. Opposition to the proposed new water law also came from coca leaf growers who, the state asserted, were supported by their cocaine connection.
As the demonstrations evolved, we asked the Water Regulator to instruct us on a course of action and he did so by rolling back the tariff to previous levels. While this was a clear beach of our contract, we decided to continue to operate the company in order to allow time for the municipality and the state to find a solution and work with the Civic Committee and the Coordinadora in helping them understand our contract and responsibilities. Unfortunately, neither the municipality nor the state was able to convince the Coordinadora to refrain from misleading the community.
Unfortunately this situation has had a tragic ending. Aguas del Tunari managed the water network until the lives of our employees had been threatened and the concession contract terminated by the Regulator. We can understand why the State, unable to control the violent action of some local and national economic interests, decided to terminate our contract. Nevertheless AdT shareowners have had their property expropriated, the lives of their employees and their families have been threatened and they have been wrongfully held partially responsible for tragic events that have nothing to do with them. Our loss is important but what is more important for us is the sadness of these events and the criticism of all our efforts to find a good and fair solution to the problem of water in Cochabamba. Today, Semapa is back to its previous style of operation. The poorest part of the population will continue to subsidize the wealthiest and the industries. The water truckers have regained their thirsty customers, and nothing has been resolved.
We trust that you will help in avoiding this status quo from continuing and refrain from spreading misinformation about our activities and motives. It may serve your purposes, but it will not help the people of Cochabamba solve their water problem.
Sincerely,
Didier Quint, Managing Director, International Water Ltd.
END
PEACE ACCORDS SIGNED, BUT CONTROVERSY FAR FROM OVER
Violence Continues
by Bolivian Times staff ~ April 20
A peace accord was recently signed by campesino leaders and politicians, calling an end to the nationwide blockades and sending members of the military home to their bases.
Campesino leader Felipe Quispe, however, calls the accord a smoke-screen, and has rallied for renewed protests.
During the week, protests continued at the Universidad Mayor de San Andres, La Paz’s public university, with police firing tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters. The students responded by throwing rocks, their resolve only deepened.
Peace on the Altiplano?
A temporary peace was agreed on Friday after a week of violence and military oppression in the altiplano. But the stability of the agreement has been placed in doubt by executive of the Bolivian Workers and Campesinos Confederation (CSUTB) Felipe Quispe, who has accused the signatories of taking bribes and is demanding renegotiations of the accord.
Meanwhile, in the calm after the storm, altiplano communities and human rights organizations are counting the costs of the deaths and human rights abuses, and are demanding that the perpetrators be brought to justice.
Campesino leader Alberto Apaza (who was representing the CSUTB during Quispe’s detention) and government ministers Wálter Guiteras, Oswaldo Antezana and José Luis Carvajal signed the agreement in front of the representatives of the Catholic Church, the Permanent Assembly of Human Rights (APDHB) and the Defensor del Pueblo.
The campesinos agreed to end the road blockades and to pursue their demands peacefully. The authorities, for their part, agreed to send their forces back to the bases, to free the campesino leaders — in particular Quispe — and to offer compensation to the families of those killed. The government also committed itself to addressing the roads, credit and coca problems.
Apaza stated that if the government had not resolved the demands of the campesinos within 90 days then they would return to their road blocks. But Quispe, upon his release from the San Joaquín military base, denounced the agreement, accusing the signatories of accepting some kind of payment in exchange for a reduction in their demands. He has announced that the signatories will be expelled from the organization and has demanded that the government renegotiate the agreement with the issues of education and low crop prices added to the agenda.
The agreement followed a week of military oppression on the altiplano, perpetrated primarily by the Lanza Regiment, which was occupying areas including Ajllata, Taraco, Cocani, Tiwanaku and Achacachi.
Following the brutal murder of Captain Omar Téllez in Achacachi, a number of campesinos were detained without charge. Some were tortured, others were forced into making statements while being held at military bases. In La Huachaca, one ex-teacher was shot dead.
The military was given free reign to detain and interrogate campesinos without referring to the police or judicial services, a situation described by Sacha Llorentti, secretary general of the APDHB, as one not of siege, but of war.
“The government has given the army a carte blanche,” said Llorentti. “Now the military has more power than the executive.”
Among those detained were a number of minors, including 14-year-old Wilfredo Apaza, who was arrested and interrogated during the funerals of the two campesinos killed 11 days ago in Achacachi. In the town of Ajllata Grande, two other minors aged 12 and 14 were taken from their beds at 4 a.m. without any warrant. According to William Alave from the Defensor del Pueblo, they were then beaten and had guns pointed at them while the military tried to extract the whereabouts of the local leaders.
In total, seven campesinos were arrested in Ajllata Grande. Members of Defensor del Pueblo tried to visit these prisoners but were denied access. The seven were later transferred to Viacha.
Others detainees included campesinos Bartholomé Flores and Edwin Huanca, who were held at the Viacha base without charge. While there, they were subjected to violent torture by the military.
“They were soaked with water and given electric shocks,” said Llorentti. “They were held submerged in water, their heads were covered and soldiers simulated their execution.”
The Defensora del Pueblo Ana Maria Romero has severely criticized the forced detentions and the fact that staff from her office was denied access to the prisoners.
“The staff of the Defensor del Pueblo is legally permitted free access to detention centers, in order that they may guarantee that prisoner’s constitutional rights are respected,” she said.
Romero also went on to criticize the public ministry, the only institution capable of preventing the military from conducting its own justice.
“Until now the public ministry is accomplice [to the actions of the military], because it is not performing its tasks,” she said.
Apart from the detentions, the military also terrorized a number of towns, searching indiscriminately for young men to arrest and interrogate. One woman explained in La Prensa how, on April 11, the army entered the town of Taraco and began a house-by-house search. Most of the men fled to the hills around Lake Titicaca. The soldiers shouted at the women they found and destroyed bicycles; some women who protested were hit. Many of the men stayed in the hills for three or four days, fearing the return of the military.
When questioned about the events of last week, Minister of Defense Jorge Crespo responded, “as head of the sector, I have asked the commander in chief of the armed forces to investigate these accusations.” But questions remain as to the ability of members of the military to investigate themselves.
In a further development, Quispe has appealed to the military to join forces with the campesinos in opposition to the political elites. He claims to have sensed some disquiet among the military at the San Joaquín base, where he was confined for seven days. Quispe made the point that the majority of the soldiers are campesinos. and described the solidarity they felt between them.
“They have problems,” he said. “There is a lot of poverty, their food is abominable.”
Quispe stated that the campesinos would be preparing for more protests. The outcome of new negotiations with the government may be the factor that decides whether Bolivia is brought once again to a standstill in the near future.
END
Banzer, The Siege and The Market in Bolivia
by Alejandro Campos, (IPS) ~ April 21
The end of the government-declared state of siege in Bolivia does not necessarily ensure a definitive social peace in a country whose people have accumulated 15 years of frustration with the market economy model, say political observers. One military and four civilian deaths, 88 people wounded, 21 union leaders arrested and various governmental defeats is the balance after 13 days of siege, lifted yesterday by Pres. Hugo Banzer, though it had originally been set to last 90 days.
Though all forms of protest had been banned, streets and roads were occupied by demonstrators throughout the 13-day siege.
The declaration of a state of siege was Banzer's lowest point in his two years and eight months in the presidency, because not only was it incapable of containing the protests, it deepened existing conflicts and created a general feeling of contempt for the government.
The use of force only helped the sectors caught up in the conflict entrench their demands, and contributed to widespread criticism of Banzer's government, even from some of its political allies.
The government lifted the state of siege after the Catholic Church and trade unions stepped up pressures and when it became apparent that a foreign debt relief program financed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank was in jeopardy. The funding was conditioned on government dialogue with civil society in defining how the resources would be used.
In Bolivia's 15 years of democracy, the three governments preceding Banzer implemented a state of siege five times. In each of those cases, the siege lasted the three months established by the Constitution, but none of them resulted in human deaths.
The 13 days of violence seem to have left warnings, not lessons. Felipe Quispe Huanca, leader of the Union Confederation of Peasant Workers of Bolivia, which organized the largest blockade of national roads in the last two decades, warned that recent events were just a rehearsal.
The peasants have made their stand, an indigenous leader known as Mallku (condor in his native Aymara language) told the press, adding that what occurred this month are the first stones towards taking political power. "Here the Indian question is not an issue of land, it is about power," he announced.
During the state of siege, the peasants won a battle with the government over the controversial Water Act, a law that had forced them to pay for using water from natural springs and wells. Political analysts see the failed siege and the public's discontent as an expression of disenchantment with a democracy that is limited to the electoral sphere.
"Such as it stands, democracy is reaching its limits," warned Erick Torrico, an expert at the Simon Bolivar Andean University, of the Andean Community of Nations (CAN). "The content of recent demonstrations responds to a situation that reveals the inadequacies of a merely (electoral) democracy."
The voting ritual no longer satisfies and the siege is a reflection of the dangerous and unproductive hardening of the system, according to Torrico. The population's patience has reached its limits, agreed sociologist Maria Teresa Segada, a specialist from the government-run Higher University of San Andres.
When the neoliberal economic model was implemented in 1985, government leaders asked the Bolivian people for patience and sacrifice, but now, 15 years later, patience has run out because the model did not meet their expectations, Segada said.
Analyst Rafael Archondo predicted that what occurred during the two-week siege, which was generally disobeyed by the public, is the beginning of the end for government models dictated by the Supreme Decree 21060, which in 1985 initiated the full implementation of the market economy in Bolivia.
To resolve this conflictive situation, the nation's democracy must move beyond being an elected dictatorship and become an authentic process of co-leadership in the social and political spheres, "where there is more society and less State," concluded Archondo.
END
World Bank Head Comments On Water Protest
Bolivian Protest Leader Heads To Washington
April 13, 2000
On Wednesday the director of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, commented irectly on the Bolivia water protests and the World Bank's connection. His comments, provided by a Finnish correspondent, come as thousands prepare to descend on Washington to protest Bank policies in developing nations. According the Finnish reporter who attended the Bank leader’s news conference in Washington, Mr. Wolfensohn´s argued that giving public services away leads inevitably to waste and said that countries like Bolivia need to have a "a proper system of charging". The former Wall Street financier claimed that privatizing the Cochabamba water system, an pressed by the Bank, was by no means directed against the poor.
Reacting to the World Bank President’s characterization of the Bolivian situation, water protest leader, Oscar Olivera, said Thursday in La Paz, "In Mr. Wolfensohn's view, requiring families who earn $100 per month to pay $20 for water may be ‘a proper system of charging’, but the thousands of people who filled the streets and shut down their city here last week apparently felt otherwise."
In it’s June 1999 "Bolivia Public Expenditure Review" the World Bank wrote that "No subsidies should be given to ameliorate the increase in water tariffs in Cochabamba", arguing that all water users, including the very poor, should have bills that reflect the full cost of proposed expansion of the local water system. Water users in the wealthy suburbs surrounding Washington, home to many World Bank economists, pay approximately $17 per month for water, less that what many families were asked to pay after water was privatized in this part of South America’s poorest country.
Olivera announced that, if granted a visa from the U.S. Embassy here, he would travel Friday to Washington, DC to participate in the worldwide meetings and demonstrations scheduled there this weekend to protest World Bank and International Monetary Fund policies in poor countries. Olivera said he also wants to meet with the World Bank President. "I'd like to meet with Mr. Wolfensohn to educate him on how privatization has been a direct attack on Bolivia's poor. Families with monthly incomes of around $100 have seen their water bills jump to $20 per month -- more than they spend on food. I'd like to invite Mr. Wolfensohn to come to Cochabamba to and see the reality that he apparently can't see from his office in Washington DC."
Olivera’s presence is expected to make the past week’s uprisings in Bolivia a leading example of the abuses of international economic policies, including the privatizing public enterprises such as drinking water, and put a spotlight on the actual effects of the three institution’s policies on poor developing nations. Bolivia’s water protests resulted in the breaking Monday of Bolivia’s water privatization contract with a subsidiary of the San Francisco-based Bechtel Corporation.
Note: Reporters interested in speaking with Olivera should contact Jim Schultz or call call 591-4-290-725.
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Army Assassin Who Fired On Water Protesters Went To School Of The Americas
Andean Information Center ~ April 13, 2000
A plain clothed sharpshooter, filmed by a Bolivian television network as e fired bullets into crowds of water protesters here Saturday, has been identified as Captain Robinson Iriarte de La Fuente, a graduate of the controversial U.S. government "School of the Americas". According to the Andean Information Network (AIN), a human rights group here, records show that a Roberto C Iriarte de La Puente participated in a fall 1978 combat weapons course at the Fort Benning, Georgia school. According to AIN, "One of his ex-students identified him immediately from the filmed footage and stated that he was extremely brutal and had fired directly into the crowd during water protests several years ago in a nearby town." La Fuente, who did his shooting Saturday from behind a line of uniformed army soldiers, has been arrested. A 17 year old boy, Victor Hugo Daza, was killed during the protest by a bullet through his face.
According to AIN, Cochabamba is now governed by a President (Hugo Banzer), Governor (Walter Céspedes), and Mayor (Manfred Reyes Villa), each of whom is a graduate of the U.S. school known for training Latin American militaries in assassination and terrorism techniques.
For more information on the School of the Americas please visit: http://www.soaw.org
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Oscar Olivera Member of La Coordinadora To Address IMF/World Bank Demonstrations In Washington
Oscar Olivera is head of the Cochabamba Federation of Factory Workers. A 45-year-old machinist, he says he did not expect to become a national voice against multinational institutions and corporations, but the protests against water-price hikes by the privatized company Aguas del Turani made him a national figure.
Olivera was forced into hiding, escaping detention hours before President Hugo Banzer imposed a state of emergency and rounded up protest leaders. After four days of hopping between safe houses, Olivera emerged Wednesday after verbal assurances we would not be arrested. He traveled Thursday to La Paz to seek a visa to participate on the march on Washington.
The Cochabamba union leader was a member of the "coordinadora," the citizen body that was negotiating with the government and private company and Olivera quickly became the voice of the people. "I think that when the economy is globalized, it is important to globalize the fight for the people," he told the international press while seeking his visa to march on Washington.
Bolivia Returns to Calm
Bolivia has returned to calm, following the government’s agreement late Monday to most of the demands made by the leaders of the week-long water protests. However, President Banzer’s 90 day "State of Emergency" remains in effect, imposing a host or restrictions on civil liberties.
These reports have resulted in coverage throughout the world in the past week, assuring that neither the repression nor the public victory here have gone unnoticed. Many thanks for your patience and interest. I think there is a story here, in itself, about the power of the Internet.
Bechtel And Bolivian Government - War of Words
On Tuesday the San Francisco-based Bechtel Corporation released a formal statement on the controversy concerning it’s Bolivian water subsidiary (Aguas del Tunari) in which, as opposed to confirming its departure, explained that, "We are in urgent discussions with local leaders to determine an appropriate resolution to the water shortage problems facing the Cochabamba region." Shown the statement, Bolivia’s main official for water issues, Luis Uzín, confirmed that the corporate giant’s departure from Bolivia was final, telling reporters, "We don’t have any obligation to communicate with Bechtel about what we have decided because we don’t have any kind of agreement." The water official said that he had talked by phone with the head of Bechtel’s Bolivia subsidiary and both sides had agreed that the contract with the government was no longer in effect.
New Zealand Protesters Hose Down Bolivian Consulate
An activist group known as "The Water Pressure Group" staged a wet emonstration Wednesday in Auckland New Zealand, protesting the state of siege in Bolivia by driving a bright red fire truck to the local Bolivian consulate and hosing it down while holding signs aloft such as, "Bolivia, The World is Watching You". Protest leader, Jim Gladwin, said, "This was a symbolic gesture of water being basic to all communities, and that the icket was to demonstrate contempt for the Bolivian Government and military authorities, while offering support to Bolivian citizens." The group also shared other messages it has received in support of their Bolivia actions from Australia, Pakistan and elsewhere.
END
BLAME THE BECHTEL CORP. NOT NARCOTRAFFICKERS FOR BOLIVIA UPRISING
Jim Shultz, Executive Director, The Democracy Center, April 12, 2000
Published: Syndicated by Pacific News Service, April 12, 2000
Bolivia, that landlocked country high in the Andes, which few in the U.S. ever think about, has been in the news. A week of enormous, often violent, civil uprisings here left at least seven people dead, more than a hundred others injured and flashed pictures of the nation abroad that made government leaders here very nervous for their and the nation’s foreign image. Quick to put blame in the easiest place possible, government spokesman, Ronald MacLean, told the few international reporters here Monday, “I want to denounce the subversive attitude absolutely politically financed by narcotraffickers.”
For reporters and editors who have never been here it may be an easy line to swallow, but it would take about two minutes on the ground to figure out how big a lie the Bolivian government seeks to spin. The issue in the past week’s uprisings had nothing to do with drugs, it was about water. The culprits weren’t narcotraffickers hiding out in the jungle but the well-tailored executives of the Bechtel Corporation sitting smugly in their downtown San Francisco offices a hemisphere away.
The roots of the uprisings here began last year when, under heavy pressure from the World Bank, the Bolivian government sold off Cochabamba’s public water system to a Bechtel subsidiary, “Aguas del Tunari”. The details of the deal are secret, with the company claiming the numbers are confidential “intellectual property”. What is very clear, however, is that Bechtel’s people here were intent on getting as much as they could as fast as they could out of the people’s pockets in South America’s poorest country. Within weeks of hoisting their new corporate logo over local water facilities the Bechtel subsidiary hit local water users with rate hikes of double and more. Families earning a minimum wage of less than $100 per month were told to fork over $20 and more, or have the tap shut off.
Tanya Paredes, a mother of five who supports her family as a clothes knitter was hit with an increase of $15 per month. For Bechtel’s CEO, Riley Bechtel, that’s snack money at Fisherman’s Warf. For Parades it’s her family’s food budget for a week and a half.
It should have come to nor surprise to Riley Bechtel or the Bolivian government that increases like these would send people into the streets, which it did. In January Cochabambinos shut down their city for four straight days with general strikes and transportation stoppages. The Bolivian government promised to force rates down to put, seeking to end the protests, promises broken within a few weeks. When thousands tried to march peacefully here on February 4th, President Hugo Banzer (Bolivia’s Pinochet-style dictator for most of the 1970s) returned to his old ways, calling out the police and hammering people with two days of tear gas that left 175 injured and two youths blinded.
After months of promises made and broken by the government and Bechtel’s company, the people of Cochabamba made it clear they’d had enough. In a popular survey of more than 60,000 residents last month, 90% said it was time for Mr. Bechtel’s subsidiary to go and return the water system to public control. When residents here staged a final city shutdown starting last Tuesday, the Bolivian government came to the corporation’s rescue, saying the company must not leave.
When the protest, overwhelmingly supported by people here, refused to back down after four days the Bolivian government declared a “state of siege” arresting protest leaders from their beds in the dark of night, shutting radio stations down in mid-sentence, and sending soldiers into the street with live bullets. On Saturday afternoon when 17 year old Victor Hugo Daza was killed by a shot through his face it had finally come to the ultimate penalty for challenging Bechtel’s control of local water - death. As protest leader Oscar Olivera said in a statement afterwards, “The blood spilled in Cochabamba carries the fingerprints of Bechtel.”
It is true that the strength and international attention of Cochabamba’s water protests did embolden, and become linked with, other protests around the country, marches by people in the countryside over a new law taking away control of rural water systems, a police strike in the capital city of La Paz, complaints about unfinished highways in other areas of the country. But when people marched 70 miles on foot from small towns to joint the protest, when women came door to door in my neighborhood gathering food donations to cook and take to the people at the conflict’s center, narcotrafficking had about as much to do with it as Elian and Fidel.
In the middle of the protest, the mayor of a small town outside of the city explained to me, “This is a struggle for justice, and for the removal of an international business that, even before offering us more water, has begun to charge us prices that are outrageously high.” Late Monday it appeared that Bolivians had gotten their way, as government officials released a letter it had sent to company executives, accusing them of fleeing the country and therefor nullifying the contract they signed last year.
Tuesday morning Bechtel released a statement of its own. Like the Banzer government, Bechtel sought the pin the blame on anything but themselves. “We are also dismayed by the fact that much of the blame is falsely centered on the government's plan to raise water rates in Cochabamba,” said the $12 billion per year corporation, “when in fact, a number of other water, social and political issues are the root causes of this civil unrest.” Bolivians may be mad about a lot of things, but it was Bechtel’s greed and Bechtel’s price hikes that was the centerpiece of the protests this past week, and the damage and death left behind. If Riley Bechtel has any doubt about that he can come here. There are about 100,000 angry Bolivian mothers who would love nothing better than to steer him straight.
Jim Shultz, executive director of The Democracy Center (www.democracyctr.org) lives in Cochabamba, Bolivia.
END
ARMY SHOOTERS IN CIVILIAN CLOTHES FIRE ON CROWDS
Tom Kruse, April 12, 2000
Sources Include: Los Tiempos (Cochabamba), 12 April 2000.
In the Water War in Cochabamba, Bolivia, the government of former dictator Hugo Banzer has been pulling out all the dirty tricks practiced and refined during the dictatorship. (Banzer came to power via a violent coup in 1971 and ruled until 1978; in 1997 he came to power via elections in which his party got only around quarter of the votes cast.)
Even before the declaration of the state of emergency Friday April 7th, houses were ransacked, leaders illegally detained, with no charge filed, defamation campaigns waged, etc.
Most disturbing are recent revelations of military personnel in civilian clothes shooting into crowds from behind Military Police lines. In the three nearby pictures, you can see a captain Robinson (or Roberto) Iriarte dressed as a civilian, walking behind Military Police lines as they were shooting tear gas into crowds, crouching down, and firing live ammunition in the crowds of protesters.
Robinson (or Roberto) Iriarte is captain in the Bolivian Army, and was using a standard Bolivian Army issue FAL rifle. Gen. José Antonio Gil, the commanding officer of the Seventh Division, from within whose ranks Iriarte was firing, claims he has no idea what Iriarte was doing among his troops, and that he gave no order for him to be there.
The commander of the Armed Forces, admiral Jorge Zabala at first tried to cover up and deny the evidence, later only reluctantly accepting the obvious. The leader of the Banzer's ruling ADN party, Guillermo Fortún commented simply, "hay esas cosas en la vida [in life these things happen]."
The images were captured by a local PAT television film crew, which has subsequently received numerous death threats. There has been serious denunciations by local press and civil organizations, who are calling for the dismissal of the Minister of Defense Jorge Crespo.
Today's press (12 april) have placed this Robinson (or Roberto) Iriarte Lafuente at the same time (16:15 on Saturdary 8 April) and within a 100 meter straight line of where Richard Ledezma fell wounded by a rifle fire. Richard remains in a coma.
There are reports of other sharpshooters in civilian clothes, and all local commentators have agreed that they could not have acted without orders from higher up. Old dictators never die, it seems, they just change clothes and shoot into crowds.
END
WHILE BOLIVIA SAYS BECHTEL AGREEMENT IS BROKEN BECHTEL SAYS ITS STAYING
Jim Shultz, Executive Director, The Democracy Center, April 11, 2000
The week long civil unrest sparked by water privatization that paralyzed much of Bolivia began to come to an end Tuesday morning following a signed agreement between protest leaders and the government. However, that agreement is now in dispute due to a communication just released by Bechtel and it’s London partner, International Waters Limited.
Central to that agreement is a Monday letter from Bolivia’s Superintendent of Basic Sanitation, Luis Guillermo Uzín Fernández, to Geoffrey Thorpe, the head of Bechtel’s subsidiary, "Aguas del Tunari". The letter states that, because Thorpe and other company officials have now left Bolivia the government is retaking control over Cochabamba’s water system and "I communicate to you that said contract [between the company and the government] is rescinded."
However, early Tuesday Bechtel released a statement vie e-mail, to the hundreds of people who have written to the corporation demanding its departure from Bolivia. That statement, referring people to a release from its London partner, International Waters Limited, does not refer in any way to the company leaving Bolivia. To the contrary, the statement declares, "We are in urgent discussions with local leaders to determine an appropriate resolution to the water shortage problems facing the Cochabamba region. We remain flexible in our approach and hopeful that the government and community can reach consensus on a solution that allows the water delivery system to be expanded and improved."
Much of the turmoil of the past week has been caused by promises made by government officials about the water company’s departure, followed by reversals of those promises later. If that happens again, additional civil resistance could easily break out again, for the fourth time in as many months.
NOTE TO REPORTERS: Contact the Bechtel Corporation’s corporate headquarters in San Francisco [415-768-1234] and ask about this direct conflict in the corporation's public statements and that issued late yesterday by the Bolivian government. Please send me copies of anything you write and any additional information you obtain, to be shared with reporters in the Bolivian press following this story.
END
TEXT OF STATEMENT BY BECHTEL CORPORATION
Released: April 11, 2000
In response to your e-mail message about Cochabamba, we provide the following statement issued Tuesday morning, the 11th, by International Water Ltd., a water development company owned by Bechtel Enterprises and Edison S.p.A. Edison S.p.A., an affiliate of Group Montedison, is Italy's largest private energy services company. Aguas del Tunari, mentioned below, is the IWL-led consortium that negotiated the Cochabamba water concession. If you have further questions or comments, please contact IWL's London headquarters at (44-171) 766-5100. Alternatively, you may send e-mail to mail@iwltd.com
We are saddened by the violence that has occurred in Bolivia this past week.
We are also dismayed by the fact that much of the blame is falsely centered on the government's plan to raise water rates in Cochabamba, when in fact, a number of other water, social and political issues are the root causes of this civil unrest. Several of these factors have all led to the tensions on display throughout the country:
proposed water legislation (unrelated to the Aguas del Tunari concession) that requires farmers and others to obtain permits for water extraction
unemployment and other economic difficulties facing Bolivian citizens
a government crackdown on coca-leaf production
and police protests over salaries.
We are in urgent discussions with local leaders to determine an appropriate resolution to the water shortage problems facing the Cochabamba region. Currently more than 40% of the region's citizens have no direct access to water resources. We were invited by the government to participate in a privatization program to develop long-term solutions to provide safe and affordable water and wastewater services. During the past several months we have been part of a number of meetings with government and community leaders to identify acceptable options to ease the transition from public to private management. We remain flexible in our approach and hopeful that the government and community can reach consensus on a solution that allows the water delivery system to be expanded and improved.
International Water
11 April 2000
END
PROTESTS AND VIOLENCE CONTINUES IN BOLIVIA AS SIDES SEEK AGREEMENT TO END CRISIS
Jim Shultz, The Democracy Center, April 10th, Cochabamba
Cochabamba, Bolivia: As many as six thousand protesters continued to pour into the city’s central plaza Monday on the widespread public unrest continues to bring normal life throughout the nation to a near halt. The enormous uprising here was sparked initially by a public battle in Cochabamba over the selling of the region’s public water system to an affiliate of the San Francisco-based Bechtel Corporation, but the strength of the water protests here sparked parallel protests across the nation including a police strike in La Paz, the nation’s capital, and marches by farmers regarding water, roads and other local issues.
Those leaders of the Cochabamba water protest who were not arrested and jailed over the weekend came out of hiding today to begin a new round of negotiations with secondary level officials of the national government.
Late this afternoon details of an accord were released to the media and public which includes, among others, the following components:
a) an agreement that the Bechtel affiliate, Aguas del Tunari, will leave the country;
b) that the dozens of civic leaders arrested over the weekend will be released;
c) the government will approve reform of the national water law that is the object of rural protests over maintaining local water control;
d) financial compensation for the families of at least six people killed in the past week and scores of others injured.
The Bolivian official who negotiated the accord claimed on television here that it had the support of Bolivian President Hugo Banzer. However, given the turn of events Friday, in which a similar agreement over the water company’s departure was promised by officials and then rescinded, protest leaders appear to be taking a wait and see attitude before calling off the general strike and transportation blockages and asking protesters to go home. There has been no written agreement or direct statement by Banzer as of yet, nor from Bechtel's affilate here. The thousands gathered in Cochabamba’s plaza appear to be growing more angry as each day passes without a believable accord. Many have walked to the city on foot from as far as 70 miles away.
Meanwhile, human rights groups tonight are expressing deep concern about the possible escalation of government repression Monday night, as government officials state publicly that they are preparing to more aggressively enforce the "state of emergency" restrictions on civil liberties declared here on Saturday by President Banzer. Sweeps late Friday night through private homes in the city resulted in the arrest and jailing of more than a dozen civic leaders, most of whom were then transported by air to a remote prison in Bolivia’s jungle.
President Banzer has appointed the second new Governor for the state of Cochabamba in three days, Army General Walter Cispedes. Cispedes is most known here for being at the head of the army’s violent repression of civil protest in the Chapare region in April 1998 which left many dead and injured. The Cochabamba Permanent Assembly on Human Rights reported this afternoon that at unknown number of people who have been arrested in the past three days are now unaccounted for and not present in any of the jails or prisons in Cochabamba.
In addition, there are army troops posted at various entrances to the city, just outside highway blockades erected and protected by hundreds of peasants farmers from the rural areas outside the city. A confrontation at a similar blockade near La Paz over the weekend resulted in the deaths of at least two farmers and one soldier. Meanwhile, throughout most of the city blockaded streets remained calm as children idle from closed schools played stickball and soccer in the street. Women from various neighborhoods went door to door gathering food and cooking for the thousands of protesters in the plaza.
END
STATE OF SIEGE STIIL IN EFFECT WHILE REPRESSIVE MEASURES OF POLITICAL CONTROL ARE HEAVILY IMPLEMENTED
Asamblea Permanente de los Derechos Humanos de Cochabamba - APDHC ~ April 9
The state of siege is still in effect. There were violent confrontation north of La Paz after which the Monsenor Jesus Jarez declared that 4 people have died. In Cochabamba it has been announced that Aquas de Tunari has decided to leave Bolivia but this announcement was not believed by the crowds in the street and the citizens who have been blocking all the major arteries into and out of the city.
The Coordinadora, the coalition of civil organization leading the actions, are in hiding. They have announced that resistence should continue until they receive concrete conformation of the agreement reached with Aquas de Tunari. The national government says they will send a delegation to Cochabamba tomorrow morning (April 10th) meanwhile the APDHC [Cochabamba Permanent Assembly on Human Rights] has heard that military troops are heading toward Cochabamba from as far away as the Beni (the northeastern part of the country).
The APDHC concerns at this moment are the following:
1) That the 17 people arrested in the early hours of Saturday are released and returned to their points of orIgin. They are being held in an isolated region of the country, San Joaquin.
MEMBERS OF THE COORDINADORA DETAINED AND TAKEN TO SAN JOAQUIN:1. Gabriel Herbas, Presidente del Foro Cochabambino del Medio Ambiente; 2. Walter Antezana, Ejecutivo de la Central Obrera Departamental; 3. Emilio Sejas, Ejecutivo de Transporte Pesado de Cochabamba
OTHER LEADERS DETAINED AND TAKEN TO SAN JOAQUIN:1. Ascencio Picha, Dirigente del Tropico de Cochabamba; 2. Angel Claure; 3. Sacarias Pereira 4. Victor Cossio; 5. Francisco Partis; 6. Santiago Gareca; 7. Victor Nina; 8. Enriqueta Imaca; 9. Emilio Rodriquez; 10. Filomeno Rivera; 11. Felipe Flores; 12. Osvaldo Toco; 13. Juan Yapura; 14. Pedro Soto.
2. That the state siege be lifted and those leaders who have gone underground be allowed to return to their homes and families. In particular, we are concerned that their personal safety is at risk at this moment. We have seen unmarked police cars circulating the city.
We strongly believe that the following leaders are at risk and ask International human rights groups to send a letter immediately to the addresses listed below. The message should inform that you are aware of the persecution of leaders in Cochabamba and are monitoring the situation:
Oscar Olivera, Ejecutivo de Federacion de Fabriles; Gonzalo Maldonado, Diputado National; Evo Morales, Diputado National; Samuel Soria, Miembro de Colegio de Economistas de Cbba.; Omar Fernandez, Dirigente Campesino de Regantes; Moises Torrez, Ejecutivo de la Federacion de Campesinos; Carmen Paredo, Dirigente de Regantes; Jose Luis Nunez, Secretario de la Central Obrera Departamental; Guillermo Lora, Ejecutive de la Federacion de Maestros.
AS WELL MEMBERS OF THE APDHC ARE IN DANGER.APDHC, April 9, 2000-------------------------------------------------------------PLEASE, SEND YOUR MESSAGES TO:Secretaria Privada de la Presidencia de la RepúblicaPatricia Banzer de VallePalacio de Gobierno, La PazTfno.: +591-2-359779Fax: +591-2-391216Sr. Walter GuiterasMinistro de GobiernoAv. Arce No. 2409 esq. Belisario Salinas, La Paz,Tfno.: +591-2-371334 ó 440466Sr. Jorge Crespo VelascoMinistro de Defensa NacionalAv. 20 de Octubre esq. P.Salazar P. 6Tfono: +591-2-431183 ó 431364Fax: +591-2-433159Sr. Juan Antonio Chahín LupoMinistro de Justicia y Derechos HumanosAv. 16 de Julio No. 1769, El PradoTfno.: +591-2-373620 ó 361037Fax: +591-2-392982Sra. Ana María de CamperoDefensoría del Pueblo de BoliviaLa PazTfno./Fax: +591-0811-3538Mailto: "mailto:delpueblo@defensor-bo.net" (Oficina Central La Paz)Mailto: "mailto:defcb@comteco.entelnet.bo" (Cochabamba)---------------------------------------------------------------------FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:Asamblea Permanente de los Derechos Humanos de Cochabamba - APDHCTfno./Fax: +591 42 52835 ó +591 42 91533, Mailto: "mailto:apdhc@albatros.cnb.net" oMailto: "mailto:lee@albatros.cnb.net" ó Mailto: "mailto:rebci@comteco.entelnet.bo"---------------------------------------------------------------------
END
Situation In Bolivia Under Martial Law
Jim Shultz, The Democracy Center
Sunday, April 9th, Cochabamba, Bolivia
The situation here in Bolivia remains critical. Since the declaration of martial law yesterday at least three people have been killed, including a 17 year old boy shot by soldiers with live ammunition here in Cochabamba. More than 30 people in Cochabamba alone have been injured from conflicts with the military. Respected leaders of the water protests have been jailed, some flown to a remote location in Bolivia’s jungle. Soldiers continue to occupy the city’s center. However, there is now something very real and straightforward you can do to help.
The massive protests that prompted the declaration of martial law here were prompted by the sale of Cochabamba’s public water system to a private corporation (Aguas del Tunari, owned by International Water Limited) which then doubled water rates for poor families that can barely afford to feed themselves. It turns out that that the main financial power behind that water corporation in the Bechtel Corporation, based in San Francisco.
The people of Bolivia have made it very clear that they want Bechtel out. The Bolivian government is so committed to protecting Bechtel that it has declared martial law and killed its own people. While some in the government here are saying this afternoon that Bechtel will leave, given the government's reversal on the same promise Friday the statement has no credibility here ansent a written agreement and end to martial law. It is critical that pressure be brought to bear directly on Bechtel in the US.
You can help, here’s how:
1) Send an e-mail, letter, fax or make a phone call to:
Riley Bechtel, Chairman and CEO, Bechtel Corp
E-mail: northame@bechtel.com
Tel: (415) 768-1234
Fax: (415) 768-9038
Address: 50 Beale Street, San Francisco, CA 94105
2) The Message:
"Bolivians have made it absolutely clear that they want Bechtel’s water company, Aguas de Tunari, out of Bolivia, through a week of huge protests that have nearly shut down the country. To protect Bechtel, the Bolivian government has now put the country under martial law, leaving many dead and wounded. Bechtel has a responsibility to honor the wishes of Bolivians and bring the crisis to an end by immediatley signing an agreement to turn the water system back over to Bolivians."
3) Please send this information as far and wide as you can. More than 1,000 other are receiving this message today. Even 100 e-mails ro calls to Bechtel Monday will make an enormous difference.
To give you some additional context on events here I am including below an article, which I published in Saturday’s San Jose Mercury News. The article went to press just before the government reversed position and declared martial law.
Executive Director
Bolivia: Casilla 5283 Cochabamba, Bolivia
US: P.O. Box 22157, San Francisco, CA 94122 (415) 564-4767 ~ Fax: (978) 383-1269
END
Jim Shultz, The Democracy Center ~ April 9, 2000
As of 10 am Saturday morning Bolivia was declared under martial law by President Hugo Banzer. The drastic move comes at the end of a week of protests, general strikes, and transportation blockages that have left major areas of the country at a virtual standstill. It also follows, by just hours, the surprise announcement by state officials yesterday afternoon that the government would concede to the protests' main demands, to break a widely-despised contract under which the city of Cochabamba's public water system was sold off to foreign investors last year. The concession was quickly reversed by the national government, and the local governor resigned, explaining that he didn't want to take responsibility for bloodshed that might result.
Banzer, who ruled Bolivia as a dictator from 1971-78, has taken an action that suspends almost all civil rights, disallows gatherings of more than four people and puts severe limits on freedom of the press. One after another, local radio stations have been taken over by military forces or forced off the air. Reporters have been arrested The neighborhood where most of the city's broadcast antennas are located had its power shut off at approximately noon local time.
Through the night police searched homes for members of the widely-backed water protests, arresting as many as twenty. The local police chief has been instated by the President as governor of the state. Blockades erected by farmers in rural areas continue across the country, cutting off some cities from food and transportation.
Large crowds of angry residents, many armed with sticks and rocks are massing on the city's center where confrontations with military and police are escalating.
Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia
TelFax: (591-4) 248242, 500849 ~ TelCel: 017-22253
END
BOLIVIAN PROTESTERS WIN WAR OVER WATER
Jim Shultz, The Democracy Center, COCHABAMBA, April 9
In a stunning concession to four days of massive public uprisings, the Bolivian government announced late Friday afternoon that it was breaking the contract it signed last year that sold the region's water system to a consortium of British-led investors.
A general strike and road blockades that began Tuesday morning in Cochabamba shut down the city of half a million, leaving the usually crowded streets virtually empty of cars and closing schools, businesses and the city's 25-square-block marketplace, one of Latin America's largest.
The government's surprise agreement to reverse the water privatization deal follows four months of public protest. It came just as it appeared that President Hugo Banzer Suárez was preparing to declare martial law, possibly triggering fighting in the streets between riot police and the thousands of angry protesters who seized control of the city's central plaza.
Greater meaning
While rumors are surfacing that the government might backtrack on their promise, for Bolivians the popular victory apparently won over water has much wider meaning. "We're questioning that others, the World Bank, international business, should be deciding these basic issues for us,'' said protest leader Oscar Olivera. "For us, that is democracy.''
The selling-off of public enterprises to foreign investors has been a heated economic debate in Bolivia for a decade, as one major business after another -- the airline, the train system, electric utilities -- has been sold into private (almost always foreign) hands. Last year's one-bidder sale of Cochabamba's public water system, a move pushed on government officials by the World Bank, the international lending institution, brought the privatization fight to a boil.
In January, as the new owners erected their shiny new "Aguas del Tunari'' logo over local water facilities, the company also slapped local water users with rate increases that were as much as double. In a city where the minimum wage is less than $100 per month, many families were hit with increases of $20 per month and more.
Tanya Paredes, a mother of five who supports her family as a clothes-knitter, says her increase, $15 per month, was equal to what it costs to feed her family for 1 1/2 weeks. "What we pay for water comes out of what we have to pay for food, clothes and the other things we need to buy for our children,'' she said.
Public anger over the rate increases, led by a new alliance, known here as "La Coordinadora,'' exploded in mid-January with a four-day shutdown of the city, stunning the government and forcing an agreement to reverse the rate increases.
In early February, when the promises never materialized, La Coordinadora called for a peaceful march on the city's central plaza. Banzer (who previously ruled as a dictator from 1971-78) met the protesters with more than 1,000 police and an armed takeover of La Cochabamba's center. Two days of police tear gas and rock-throwing by marchers left more than 175 protesters injured and two youths blinded.
February's violent clashes forced the government and the water company to implement a rate rollback and freeze until November, and to agree to a new round of negotiations.
Deal scrutinized
Meanwhile, La Coordinadora, aided by the local College of Economists, began to scrutinize both the contract and the finances behind the water company's new owners. While the actual financial arrangements remain mostly hidden, the city's leading daily newspaper reported that investors paid the government less than $20,000 of upfront capital for a water system worth millions.
Amid charges of corruption and collusion in the contract by some of the officials who approved it last year, La Coordinadora announced what it called la última batalla (the final battle), demanding that the government break the contract and return the water system to public hands. The group set Tuesday as the deadline for action.
Government water officials warned that private investors were needed to secure the millions of dollars needed to expand this growing region's water system. They argued that breaking the contract would entitle the owners to a $12 million compensation fee, and pleaded for public patience to give the new owners time to show the benefits of their experience.
Among the vast majority of Cochabamba water users, however, that patience had run out. Two weeks ago, an inquiry surveyed more than 60,000 local residents about the water issue and more than 90 percent voted that the government should break the contract. During one of the marches this week protesters stopped at the water company's offices, tearing down the new "Aguas del Tunari'' sign erected just three months ago.
Tuesday, city residents took to the street with bicycles and soccer balls -- only a few cars moved across town to take advantage of the day off from work and school. By Wednesday, armies of people from the surrounding rural areas, fighting a parallel battle over a new law threatening popular control of rural water systems, began arriving, reinforcing the road blockades, and puncturing car and bicycle tires. Thursday night, with another day of wages lost and no sign of movement from the government, public anger started to erupt.
Protesters arrested
A crowd of nearly 500 surrounded the government building where negotiations, convened by the Roman Catholic archbishop, were taking place between protest leaders and government officials. In the middle of negotiations, the government ordered the arrest of 15 La Coordinadora leaders and others present in the meeting.
"We were talking with the mayor, the governor, and other civil leaders when the police came in and arrested us,'' said Olivera, La Coordinadora's most visible leader. ``It was a trap by the government to have us all together, negotiating, so that we could be arrested.''
In response, thousands of city and rural residents filled the city's central plaza opposite the government building, carrying sticks, rocks and handkerchiefs to help block the anticipated tear gas. Television and radio reports speculated all day that the president would declare martial law, and there were reports of army units arriving at the city's airport.
Freed from jail early Friday morning, the leaders of water protests agreed to a 4 p.m. meeting with the government, called by the archbishop. At 5 p.m., government officials still had not arrived and the plaza crowd waited tensely for the expected arrival of the army.
Suddenly and unexpectedly, the archbishop walked into the meeting and announced that the government had just told him that it had agreed to break the water contract. Jubilant La Coordinadora leaders crossed the street to a third-floor balcony, announcing the victory to the thousands waiting below, many waving the red-green-and-yellow Bolivian flag, as the bells of the city's cathedral echoed through the city center.
"We have arrived at the moment of an important economic victory," Olivera told the ecstatic crowd.
END
Bechtel and Edison Reach Agreement on Edison's Acquisition of a 50% Stake in International Water Limited
(Article from The Bechtel Website)
November 9, 1999—Bechtel Enterprises Holdings, Inc. and Edison S.p.A. announced that they have finalized an agreement for Edison to acquire a fifty percent interest in International Water Limited (IWL), a major international water development services company owned by Bechtel Enterprises.
Founded in 1996, IWL, on its own and through its sponsor companies, offers a full range of development, financing, engineering, construction and operations & maintenance services in the water and wastewater market. With its partners, it is presently providing water and wastewater services to nearly six million customers in the Philippines, Australia, Scotland, and Bolivia and completing negotiations on agreements in India, Poland, and Scotland for facilities that will serve an additional one million customers.
For Bechtel, the involvement of Edison as a fifty-percent partner in IWL marks the extension of a well-defined approach to developing successful infrastructure businesses by teaming with global industry leaders. In addition to the water area, Bechtel is teaming with major partners in the power, pipeline, transportation and telecommunications sectors. "We are extremely proud of IWL’s accomplishments to date. This new partnership is the next step in our plan for IWL to become a major force in the global water and wastewater services market," said Tim Statton, Executive Vice President and Managing Director of Bechtel Enterprises.
For Edison, this agreement represents a major investment in the global water development business. "Joining the IWL team allows us to extend our integrated utility strategy into the water sector," said Giulio Del Ninno, Chief Executive Officer of Edison. "This venture provides us with new opportunities, particularly in the Italian water market, where privatization is gaining increased attention and focus. We expect to play a leading role, together with IWL, in our market."
IWL has a well-established strategic alliance with United Utilities International (UUIL) whereby they bring their complementary skills together to target this growing international market. It is the strong intention of all three companies that the partnership between IWL and UUIL will continue to develop in the future. Gordon Waters, Managing Director of UUIL, confirmed that "UUIL looks forward to a strengthening of our relationship with IWL under its new ownership structure, as we continue to increase our joint investments in water and wastewater projects around the world."
For IWL, the agreement represents an opportunity to enhance its ambitious expansion plans. "We are excited about adding one of Europe’s leading private utility companies to our partnership. Combining their resources and expertise with Bechtel, one of the world’s foremost development, engineering and construction companies, and United Utilities , one of the world’s premier water operators, we are positioned to compete aggressively in the water services market," said Didier Quint, Managing Director of IWL. IWL will continue to function as a separate company, with its current management reporting to a board of directors comprised of representatives of the shareholders. IWL will continue to maintain its strategic alliance with UUIL, through which UUIL will support project development efforts, take equity positions, and provide operating and maintenance services for many IWL projects.
IWL is located in London, with main regional offices in Warsaw, Prague, Cairo, Sao Paulo and Manila.
Background
The Bechtel organization of San Francisco is one of the world’s premier development engineering, construction, and project management companies. It has completed more than 19,000 projects in 140 countries on all seven continents, including more than 300 water and wastewater facilities throughout the world. Bechtel Enterprises, its development, financing and ownership subsidiary, has developed 46 privatized infrastructure projects with a total constructed value exceeding $18 billion. Since 1990, it has participated in arranging more than $15 billion in project financings. In 1998, Bechtel had revenues of $12.6 billion.
Edison S.p.A., an affiliate of Group Montedison, is Italy’s largest private energy services company. In the power sector, it owns 34 power facilities with a total installed capacity of approximately 3600MW (both hydroelectric and thermoelectric). In the hydrocarbons sector, Edison owns 53 concessions, 43 exploration permits, 2 gas storage fields, and thousands of kilometers of high and low pressure natural gas pipelines. Abroad, Edison operates in the gas sector, with particular success in Egypt, where significant gas reserves have been found in the Nile delta offshore and where a 400-kilometer pipeline is under construction. In 1998, Group Edison had net revenues of over 1.5 billion dollars.
United Utilities International is the international arm of United Utilities PLC, one of the UK’s largest multi-utilities with extensive interests in water and wastewater, power supply and distribution, telecommunication and facility management. It has existing investments in water and power in the U.S., Canada, Scotland, Australia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Mexico, Scotland and Argentina.
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A BOLIVIAN BABY TURNS ONE IN JAIL - C/O THE US WAR ON DRUGS
Jim Shultz, The Democracy Center
THE DEMOCRACY CENTER ON-LINE - Volume 28 - AUGUST 2, 1999
One morning, just over a month, ago the teenage daughter of one of our closest friends here came to our house, hysterical in tears. Her mother, our friend Adela, had just been put into jail, with her one year old baby Josue still in her arms. Her story is a brazen example of how easily the poor and the innocent are trapped and victimized by the US-financed "war on drugs" here. Below you will find an article I wrote on Adela's case that was published in yesterday's Sacramento Bee newspaper.
I ask you, as friends and colleagues, to read the article and to forward it on to as many people as possible. But I also ask you to do more than this - to take action. If you are a journalist I ask that you pass this information on to those at your paper or station who might pick up the story. For all of you I ask that you take a short moment to send a note, via e-mail (addresses below), to the US Embassy in Bolivia and the US State Department in Washington - making two points clear.
First, you want the Embassay to investigate the case of Adela Rojas Rodriguez being held in the FELCN jail in Cochabamba. Second, that you object to the United States government financing a justice system that overtly violates one of our own Constitution's most basic rights - the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
Write to: Ambassador Donna J. Hrinak
c/o Public Information Office
U.S. Embassy, La Paz Bolivia
cc: Robert C. Ward
Human Rights Officer for South America
END
WHEN THE WAR ON DRUGS BECOMES WAR ON THE POOR: YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK
Jim Shultz, The Democracy Center
(Published in the Sacramento Bee August 1, 1999)
Josue celebrated his first birthday last month, on the Fourth of July. We were going to have a party for him. Instead the bright-eyed boy with a thick mop of black hair spent his birthday in a Bolivian jail cell with his mother, our friend Adela. While Americans celebrated the birth of justice and freedom, here Adela and Josue sat in an overcrowded jail cell, innocent victims of a "guilty until proven innocent" law that is a staple of the U.S. "War on Drugs".
Our family has known Adela for eight years. A tiny woman who stands barely five feet tall, she worked as a cook in the religious retreat house where we once lived. We came to admire her most as a mother, who was raising four warm and caring daughters, and then Josue. She has now been in jail for six weeks. Her daughters are able to visit her for just two hours a day. Her case is emblematic of the cruel turn the U.S. anti-drug effort has taken here in Bolivia.
A CASE WITHOUT EVIDENCE
Adela and Josue's nightmare journey into jail began June 23, with a birthday party for Adela's mother. Adela and her children went to her mother's house to make a special meal and a cake. At 4:00 in the afternoon there was a knock at the door. A cousin, whom she had met only twice before, arrived in a taxi, saying he'd come to pick up two large plastic bags in a storage room. The cousin entered, retrieved the bags and left, all in the space of less than five minutes.
Two hours later there was another knock at the door, this time officers from the FELCN, Bolivia's feared anti-narcotics police. Adela's cousin, she was told, had been arrested with two large bags of marijuana and had given the police a false name. They insisted that Adela come to the jail to identify him. With Josue in her arms, she went with the police to identify the cousin. But instead of allowing them to leave, the police locked both mother and child into 6 x 12 foot concrete cell, which they share with a dozen other women and their children and infants.
No one in the case has alleged that Adela knew what was in the bags or had anything to do with their presence in the house. According to the prosecutor's own filings with the court, the evidence against her consists of only this: the same cousin who lied to police about his name also claimed that Adela, not he, carried the bags from the house to the taxi. In the eyes of U.S.-financed prosecutors, that is evidence enough to put her in jail -- for years.
"I've always accepted that I am poor, that I wear old clothes," said Adela. "I never chose to do anything illegal to change that. Never in my life did I think I would be here."
"GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT"
Like all those accused of a drug-related crime here, Adela is being prosecuted under Bolivia's notorious "Law 1008", a Draconian statute under which all those accused are presumed guilty and held in jail until trial. According to Bolivian human rights groups, that wait often takes years. More than 1,000 of the nearly 1,400 prisoners jailed in Cochabamba have never been sentenced, never had the chance to defend themselves at trial. The situation is so desperate that last April a hunger strike protest swept though all five local jails. Four women inmates sewed their mouths shut with heavy needles and thread. Ten others crucified themselves to a jail balcony.
"The law gives the police the power to decide who is guilty and who goes to jail," says Gloria Rose Marie de Achá, a Bolivian attorney who specializes in criminal law. "That is supposed to be decided by judges, but not here."
US FINGERPRINTS
U.S. involvement in the drug war and with the "guilty until proven innocent" law runs deep. How much of a hand U.S. officials had in writing the law is subject to debate.
"It is a law that was written first in English," claims Hugo Montero Lara, an attorney with the Permanent Assembly on Human Rights. In 1988 the Reagan administration froze 50 percent of U.S. aid until the Bolivian Congress approved the law. While U.S. Embassy officials deny that they dictated the specifics of the anti-drug law, U.S. officials have also long praised it.
"What is Draconian?," argued then U.S. Ambassador Richard Bauer in a 1994 Bolivian press interview. "I have read the law, I know it well and it is a very good law."
Regardless of the American role in the origins of Law 1008, today the U.S. government is clearly the chief financier of its implementation. The special drug prosecutor who decided to prosecute Adela, Graciela Thompson Aguilar, receives a special salary bonus from the U.S. Embassy. A local newspaper refers to her by her nickname, "Made in USA".
The special drug police, the same ones who tricked Adela into the jail, also receive direct funding from the U.S. government. "The U.S. dictates how the war on drugs is fought in Bolivia," says Kathryn Ledebur, co-coordinator of the Andean Information Network, a human rights group that monitors the impact of anti-narcotics programs here.
THE GAME OF ARREST STATISTICS
In exchange for this U.S. cash, drug prosecutors and police need something to show their financiers, and what they use are arrest statistics. Twice each year the special drug police forces release a report trumpeting increases in arrests.
These arrest rates are then echoed by U.S. officials in their reports to Congress. "Arrests are up by 42 percent," brags the report on Bolivia released by the State Department last February. But who is getting arrested, the innocent or the guilty?
Too many of the cases are just like Adela's: the innocent and the poor tossed in jail to make good arrest numbers, along with the smallest of operators with the tiniest amounts of drugs in their possession. While arrests jumped by half, drug seizures stayed flat, more evidence that the drug net is catching is somebody other than drug kingpins. Documentation by human rights groups explains the real story behind the numbers: passengers on a bus arrested and jailed because someone else's bag with narcotics was found under their seats; taxi drivers jailed for years because they picked up a fare on the street who turned out to be carrying narcotics. Says attorney, de Achá, "What they want is the largest number of arrests. They don't care who's innocent and who's not."
It is also clear immediately, when you enter the jail where Adela and Josue are held, that the people who get trapped in the anti-drug net are Bolivia's poor. Those with resources are usually able to buy their way out, either with well-financed defenses or, according to many, with payments to police under the table. The very few people of means who do get arrested are treated like royalty. In the Cochabamba jails, cash will buy you a private cell with carpeting, cable television, a cell phone and police willing - for a price - to bring everything from alcohol to women. The poor sleep on cold patios, unless they can come up with $300 (a half year's salary here) to buy a bed-sized cell.
Today the U.S. Embassy here says that it supports legal reforms under development in the Bolivian Congress, reforms aimed to reduce some of the injustices under current law. "But what is going to happen to the hundreds of people already in jail under the anti-drug law?" asks Ledebur. "That remains completely unclear". And while the reforms are in process (implementation may still be more than a year away), the cases like Adela's continue and the U.S. funds for the police and prosecutors keep on flowing.
Meanwhile, at the jail, the winter nights left Josue with a lung infection and Adela had to send her still-nursing baby to a hospital in the hands of her teenage daughters. As a parent, I try to imagine what those few days must have been like: having one of my children fall ill, and finding myself locked away, unable even to speak to the doctor.
When we visit, Adela's daughters are also there, sometimes in good spirits, sometimes in tears with their mother. We all know that her wait in jail could last years.
"I am suffering here inside, but so are my daughters and I can't do anything," Adela tells me. "I only hope that someone, somewhere can do something to help, a miracle from God, something."
___________________________________________________________________
Newspapers and periodicals interested in reprinting or excerpting material in the newsletter should contact The Democracy Center at "info@democracyctr.org".
SAN FRANCISCO: P.O. Box 22157 San Francisco, CA 94122, Phone: (415) 564-4767
BOLIVIA: Casilla 5283, Cochabamba, Bolivia, Fax: FAX: (978) 83-1269
E-MAIL: info@democracyctr.org
END
SEWING SHUT THEIR MOUTHS IN ORDER TO BE HEARD
Jim Shultz, The Democracy Center, Cochabamba, Bolivia
THE DEMOCRACY CENTER ON-LINE, Volume 26 - June 8, 1999
The San Sebastian women's jail is a decaying brick and adobe building that sits across the street from a palm tree-lined plaza filled with the sound of passing traffic. Behind its entrance of two broken wood doors ready to fall off their hinges live 270 women. Late last April four of them picked up heavy sewing needles and thread and stitched their upper and lower lips together until their mouths were sewn completely shut. Ten others crucified themselves with their hands and feet tied to the iron bars of a second floor balcony. Unanimously, the women of San Sebastian joined in an angry hunger strike that had also swept through Cochabamba's three men's jails.
"GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT"
Of the 1,380 men and women imprisoned here, more than a 1,000 have no official sentence, have never had their day in court, and have no idea when they might be released. More than eight of ten have been jailed on some sort of charge related to the political and police war against Bolivia's coca leaf crop. A typical offense is to be found transporting kerosene (an ingredient in the process that turns the coca leaf into cocaine) and accused of being a narcotrafficer. "But the police are so corrupt here," says Hugo Montero Lara, a lawyer with the Cochabamba Assembly on Human Rights, "that you might just as easily be carrying gasoline for your car." All accusations related to drugs here are prosecuted under a draconian law ("Ley 1008") in which the accused are presumed guilty and jailed automatically until trial, a rare event which at best takes years. The law stands in direct violation of both the Bolivian Constitution and the UN Charter on Human Rights. It is also widely assumed here that the statute came right out of the US Embassy and its "War on Drugs" pressure on the Bolivian government. Says Montero Lara, "It is a law that was written in English."
Many of the thousand plus prisoners who incarcerated without sentence often do not go to jail by themselves. In the women's jail alone more than 200 children live as inmates with their parents, the product of having no where else to go and the dedication by inmates to keep their families together. These families live under conditions that most people in the US would find unimaginable. Actual jail cells are a luxury, going only to those who can afford to pay for them. The purchase price for a wooden cell barely the size of a bed is $300, about a third of an annual salary for many families here. Most prisoners sleep on mats in small winter-chilled concrete courtyards. The government provides less than $11 per month per inmate for food, health care and other basics, far less than what it costs to survive. "If you are poor, a campesino, without someone on the outside moving things for you," says an ex-prisoner named Antonio, "you are forgotten."
THE WAIT FOR PROMISES TO BE KEPT
Hunger striking prisoners presented judicial officials with a list of ten specific demands, with two basic themes - swift action from the courts to release those who were imprisoned without sentence and improvements in the inhumane conditions under which prisoners are forced to live. Prisoners swore to carry out their hunger strike, "hasta las ultimas consequencias", to their deaths if need be. Startled officials begged for time and prisoners agreed to a month. On the deadline date for action at the end of May (Mothers Day here) prisoners were presented with a draft agreement negotiated by officials, human rights groups and the Catholic Church. The agreement promised some of the legal reforms demanded but as lawyer Montero Lara notes, "The Government never does what it says it will do." At a meeting on May 29, prisoners agreed to give officials one more month to act on their promises. If they don't, "we'll start our hunger strike again, immediately" one prisoner at the San Sebastian men's jail told me, "we're not going to any more meetings."
Just up a long hill from the jail where the women wait for those promises to be kept stands one of the city's most famous monuments, the statue of "Las Heroinas" (the Heroines). The monument commemorates a battle in 1812 in which Cochabamba's women and children waged a heroic last stand against invading Spaniards. On June 29 the women and children of San Sebastian may well be forced to take up their own battle once more, over such radical demands as the presumption of innocence, the right to a day in court and a safe, decent place to sleep while they wait for that justice to move forward.
___________________________________________________________________
Newspapers and periodicals interested in reprinting or excerpting material in the newsletter should contact The Democracy Center at "info@democracyctr.org".
SAN FRANCISCO: P.O. Box 22157 San Francisco, CA 94122, Phone: (415) 564-4767
BOLIVIA: Casilla 5283, Cochabamba, Bolivia, Tel/Fax: (978) 83-1269
E-MAIL: info@democracyctr.org
END
RESOURCES ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN BOLIVIA
- Human Rights in Bolivia: reports, information and resolutions by international bodies.
- La Impunidad en Bolivia. Por Waldo Albarracín, APDH / Impunity in Bolivia, by Waldo Albarracin, from the Permanent Assembly on Human Rights, La Paz. [ESP/SPA]
- Bolivian graduates at the School of the Americas
- Amnesty International annual report on Bolivia, 1999 [ENG/ING]
- Historia de los Movimientos Indígenas en Bolivia / History of indigenous movements in Bolivia [ESP/SPA]
- Final report on the question of the impunity of perpetrators of human rights violations economic, social and cultural rights), prepared by Mr. El Hadji Guisse, Special Rapporteur, pursuant to Sub-Commission resolution 1996/24. [E/CN.4/Sub.2/1997/8]
- Question of the impunity of perpetrators of human rights violations (civil and political). Revised final report prepared by Mr. Joinet pursuant to Sub-Commission decision 996/119. [E/CN.4/Sub.2/1997/20/Rev.1 ]
- Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials (Adopted by the Eighth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, Havana, Cuba, 27 August to 7 September 1990.)
- An Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control. By Scientific and Technological Options Assessment - STOA
List Provided by Nizkor International Human Rights Team. Nizkor is a member of the Peace and Justice Service-Europe (Serpaj), Derechos Human Rights (USA) and GILC (Global Internet Liberty Campaign). Mailbox: Desenganho, 12 - 5 Piso - 28004 - Madrid - Espanha. Telephone: +34.91.526.7502 Fax: +34.91.526.7515.
In Spanish only Mailto: "mailto:nizkor@derechos.org"
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