Thank you for visiting this page to see how you can support 1world communication. During our first year and a half of operation, we have been supported by a few friends, some small grants, many hours of volunteer time, and through the use of personal financial resources. During this period, we needed to prove that 1world was not just some thing that we thought was a good idea, but that it was indeed a service people wanted.
We decided to launch 1world because of the fact that there is little international news or perspective available in the western media unless it concerns a large-scale war or major catastrophe. Rarely is analysis or background provided to help people understand the context in which these events take place. It is even more difficult to find stories written by people from the countries affected. 1world communication was founded to provide a voice for people from the global south.
We are committed to allowing people to relate their own stories. We accomplish this through our news and information web site, located at www.1worldcommunication.org, and by producing documentaries. In the fall of 1999, we released Fiction of War, which concerns the human rights situation and plight of the displaced in Colombia. During the summer of 2000, we released our second documentary, Children at Work, which focuses on the horrific practice of child and bonded labor in India. In the fall of 2000, we completed our latest documentary, The Water Is Ours, Damn It!, concerning the civil conflict arising out of the privatization of water in Cochabamba, Bolivia. At present we have distributed over 300 copies of our documentaries. They are now in at least 30 states and 6 countries. Our documentaries are made available to organizations and institutions at a low price, so they can be viewed by the broadest possible audience.
We have been heartened by the thousands of people who have come to use our pages as a source for news and information about events around the world.
We continue to expand our contacts with organizations and individuals around the world so we can bring present alternative perspective on contemporary issues from activists and journalists in Africa, Asia, Central & South America, and the Caribbean. Our web site has special sections on Aceh, Bolivia, Brazil, Chechnya, Colombia, East Timor, Ecuador, the Kurdish Nation, Mexico, Middle East, Palestine, Puerto Rico, and Tibet. It also contains sections on children's rights, the impact of globalization, labor news, and an urgent actions page. People can also sign on to our ListServer to receive urgent action alters and updates on fast developing stories.
Over the next year, in addition to continuous promotion and distribution of our documentaries and keeping up with news worldwide, we will be begin work on a new documentary on the Reparation Movement in Southern Africa and launch an initiative to create a Progressive Communication Infrastructure in Bolivia.
We want to take this opportunity to encourage you to please continue to utilize this site as an informative source for international news and information from a rarely heard perspective.
If you find the service we offer to be useful, please consider supporting us. If you would like to read a more detailed description of our work and review our budget please follow this link. If you have questions or would like additional information, please feel free to call us at 413-323-7629 or write to oneworld@igc.org.
Please mail your contributions to: 1world communication, P. O. Box 2476, Amherst, MA 01004 (USA)
Please Note: Please make checks payable to: EarthAction
Funding Proposal
Proposal Cover Sheet
Fiscal Year 2001
(July 1, 2000 - June 30, 2001)
Organization: 1world communication
Contact Person: Ravi Khanna, Director
Contact Information:
1world communication
P. O. Box 2476, Amherst, MA 01004
Phone: 413-253-1960
Fax: 413-253-1961
Cell Phone: 413-530-9640
E-mail: oneworld@igc.org
Website:http://www.1worldcommunication.org
Progressive Communication Infrastructure in Bolivia
Proposal Summary
There is little international news or perspective available from the media unless it concerns a large-scale war or major catastrophe. Rarely is analysis or background provided to help people understand the context in which these events take place. It is even more difficult to find stories written by people from the countries affected. 1world communication was founded to provide a voice for people from the global south.
We are committed to allowing people to relate their own stories. We accomplish this through our news and information web site, located at www.1worldcommunication.org, and by producing documentaries. In the fall of 1999, we released Fiction of War, which concerns the human rights situation and plight of the displaced in Colombia. During the summer of 2000, we released our second documentary, Children at Work, which focuses on the horrific practice of child and bonded labor in India. In the fall of 2000, we completed our latest documentary, The Water Is Ours, Damn It!, concerning the civil conflict arising out of the privatization of water in Cochabamba, Bolivia. At present we have distributed over 300 copies of our documentaries. They are now in at least 30 states and 6 countries.
Over the next year, in addition to continuous promotion and distribution of our documentaries and keeping up with news worldwide, we will be begin work on a new documentary on the Reparation Movement in Southern Africa and launch an initiative to create a progressive communication infrastructure in Bolivia.
Other 1world's accomplishments include:
Voices From the Global Village web site
Our web site is gaining a reputation for in-depth coverage and analysis on, about and by social movements around the world. Our international contacts frequently allow us to release information before it reaches conventional press or alternative media. The site includes a special focus on 13 countries, and sections on labor issues, including child labor, globalization, and world news. The site has received close to 20,000 visits in its initial year and a half. In just six months of starting a listserve, 325 people have signed-up to receive urgent action alerts and be updated on critical issues.
Conferences/Workshops/Special Events
In the spring of 2000, Ravi served on the planning committee of the National Network of Grantmaker's conference "Globalization: Why Should We Care?". 1world also organized two workshops for the conference.
1world helped facilitate the participation of Oscar Olivera, a leader and spokesperson for the Coalition in Defense of Water and Life of Cochabamba, Bolivia, in the Washington DC mobilization against the IMF and World Bank in April of 2000. Oscar spoke at a number of important forums, attended several private meetings with key labor and activist organizations, and gave dozens of press interviews.
1world also co-sponsored a U.S./Canada tour in October 2000, against corporate globalization with Trevor Ngwane from South Africa and Oscar Olivera from Bolivia. We presented the film Two Trevors Go to Washington and our new documentary, The Water is Ours, Damn It!, to generate discussion about globalization processes in the south as experienced in South Africa and Bolivia.
In our continuing effort to bring voices from the global south, 1world also co-sponsored two other speakers from South America this year.
Carlos Rosero and Oscar Gamboa who were on tour in the US and Canada to speak about the human rights situation of Afrocolombians and their strategic agenda for peace and social inclusion. Carlos is one of the founding members of the Black Community Process -Proceso de Comunidades Negras (PCN), which is one of the most important and creative autonomous movements of Colombia and Latin America. Oscar is the Executive Director of the Pacific Coastal Mayor's Federation, which accounts for 45 municipalities in western Colombia. Mr. Gamboa and 45 Mayors have set up a proposal to demilitarize the Colombian Pacific coastal zone, called "Pacifico Territorio de Paz" - Pacific Coast: Territory of Peace.
Proposal
Voices from the Global Village
Our web site continues to grow in content and number of visits. The site is updated several times a week to bring the latest development in the struggle for justice in the global south.
Our focus shifts depending upon unfolding events. Recently we have been devoting considerable time and space on our web site to the Al Aqsa Intifada in Palestine. We post, on the average, 25 new stories on the uprising each week; we receive at least 4 times that many. Our sources include LAW (The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment), Media Monitors Network, The Network of Activists for Human Rights, A Jewish Voice for Peace, The Alternative Information Center, Palestine Right to Return Coalition, Defense for Children International/Palestine Section and several individuals who report on their personal experiences and encounters with the Israeli Defense Forces and the economic toll of closures of towns and villages in the West Bank.
We also reported on the recent indigenous uprising in Ecuador which led to a 23 point agreement signed between the government and president of three major indigenous organizations to the shouts of "Long live Indian unity," "We won! We won!"
We continue to monitor the world-wide movement against genetically modified seeds, mega "development" projects that displace hundreds of thousands of people, workers' fight for just compensation and the right to organize, the conflicts in Aceh and Chechnya, and the continuing fight against globalization, which is robbing countries of their resources and concentrating them in the hands of a few multi-national corporations and local elites.
Through the various listservers we participate in, we have access to over 3,000 organizations, individual activists and journalists throughout the world.
Progressive Communication Infrastructure In Bolivia
The impoverished in Bolivia have been under intense pressure from two of the most powerful forces in the world, the U.S. government's war on drugs and the privatization policies of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. During the late 1980s, Bolivia's mining sector was privatized, leading to large-scale layoffs. This precipitated a trend of highland to lowland and rural to urban migration as laid-off miners left the mining centers in search of alternative work. Many of these migrants settled in the fertile Chapare region, within the department of Cochabamba, and began to grow coca, a robust cash crop that enabled these new migrants and their families to subsist. The Bolivian government, under pressure from the U.S. which threatened to cut foreign aid unless efforts were made to eradicate coca cultivation, began an aggressive anti-narcotics campaign, the brunt of which has been born by poor coca farmers. (read more on Bolivia)
Coca
This past year, president Hugo Banzer Suarez announced that the government has finally met its goal, zero coca growth by the end of 2000. The price of this policy has been an overall increase in poverty in and militarization of the region. In spite of what has been hailed in World Bank circles as progress, Bolivia remains one of the poorest and most indebted countries in the world.
Thousands of small farmers are fighting against the eradication of their coca crops. The government, under pressure from the U.S. and under the aforementioned goal claims to have met its target. This came at a heavy price however. In September of last year coca growers paralyzed the Chapare with roadblocks of all major and secondary roads.
During this 2 week period, military troops were dispatched to sweep away the road blocks, resulting in numerous conflicts between the two groups. Many peasant farmers died, as well as a few military personnel; dozens of people, including elderly persons and children, sustained severe injuries. Coca growers have asserted they will continue to plant new crops and defend their right to subsist through reliance on coca farming, particularly in the absence of other viable alternatives.
Water
Over the last two decades Bolivia has sold off its railways, telecommunications systems, airline, the majority of it's oil and gas reserves, and its oil pipelines. Last year, under pressure from the World Bank, the Bolivian government privatized the potable and waste water system of the country's third largest city, Cochabamba, and its surrounding communities. The government sold the city's water concession to Aguas del Tunari, a subsidiary of the California based Bechtel Corp. This included appropriation of rural water irrigation systems such as canals, wells, and community spigots constructed and shared by peasant farmers years prior to the presence of Bechtel's subsidiary.
Aguas del Tunari took possession of the water concession in November 1999. Consumers immediately noted an increase in rates, and by January the company had increased some water rates by an average of 200%. For many, the new water tariffs constituted as much as a quarter of their monthly income. Many families were unable to pay and began to publicly question the privatization deal. Thus, a coalition of workers, peasants, environmentalists, professionals, students and others, under an alliance known as La Coordinadora de Defensa del Agua y de la Vida (the Coalition in Defense of Water and Life), was formed. After having made several attempts from November 1999 - April 2000 to engage the government in dialogue over the privatization plan, the Coalition led a grassroots movement that paralyzed the city in April. In spite of a declared "state of siege" and government efforts to repress the protests through military and police intervention, Cochabambans refused to back down. Finally, after months of protests, the Bolivian government was forced to nullify the contract and modify the water law that had made possible the commercialization of Cochabamba's water resources.
The people of Cochabamba, through the Coalition, not only achieved revocation of the privatization but also the recuperation of control over the water authority. The Coalition is now developing a proposal for the water company's operation that is being consulted and discussed in all of the communities that depend on the central water distribution system.
At the same time, SEMAPA, the company recovered from the hands of Bechtel's subsidiary, last October inaugurated a new water distribution systems in many poor communities which, up until now, have had to buy their water from distribution trucks. This has been made possible through the direct participation of neighbors and lay persons in the task of installing the residential network.
Last fall small farmers also rebelled against new taxes being levied on land and the use of water and teachers went on strike demanding better wages.
The Bolivian government has met some of these demands but this has only been made possible after many protests, conflicts, and sustained pressure from diverse sectors. In any event, the demands are increasingly greater and the number of sectors presenting new demands is growing.
Progressive Communications Infrastructure in Bolivia
The Need
All of these movements and demands correspond to and are a direct consequence of the structural adjustment programs that the government has been implementing in the country since the beginning of the 1980s.
The communications infrastructure in Bolivia is controlled by powerful groups which, in certain cases, are directly related to the government. This was most vividly illustrated last year when it was discovered that the publisher of Bolivia's major English daily (The Bolivian Times) and the AP correspondent from Bolivia was also a consultant to a company that was pressuring the government to allow it to export water from Bolivia to Peru. This exposure created such a stir in Bolivia and the U.S. journalism community that the man was forced to resign.
Bolivia has been highlighted frequently over the past year as an example of what a detrimental impact global neo-liberal policies and northern political imperatives can have on developing countries. A populist resurgence across Bolivia has ignited demand for justice and accountability from the government, as well as a response to the declining economic conditions in which many people now live as a result of neo-liberal economic reforms, civil and state-sponsored violence, and natural disasters.
In spite of periodic reports and articles from a small group of people in Bolivia, and some foreign nationals, information is slow in reaching the international public and often bereft of local voices. In other instances, this type of news does not interest the common media.
Furthermore, while some of this reporting is independent and uncensored, there is a great deal of reporting colored by the political agendas of those reporting or of those supplying information and access to information. The reality of Bolivia, then, if and when exposed, is often presented as a watery version of what is in fact true. There is presently no viable vehicle through which individual citizens and communities can make their voice heard.
Although Bolivia technically has a free press, there is very little investigative reporting conducted by the national media. This may in part be attributed to the government's proven readiness to side-step Constitutional provisions that protect freedom of the press, as it did earlier this year for a brief period during the April conflicts. Allegations of bribery, pay-offs and political partisanship further put into serious question the objectiveness of the national media. Documented government corruption and aggressive partisan politicking also raise doubts about the reliability of government reports on conditions throughout Bolivia without third-party independent confirmation. Here are some examples:
APRIL CONFLICTS - FREEDOMS CURTAILED
In April 2000, Cochabamba erupted in violent protests and conflict between civilians, the military, and police in reaction to government lethargy in addressing grievous complaints about privatization of the area's municipal potable and waste water systems. During part of this period, the government severed almost all communication lines for radio and television media and harassed reporters attempting to solicit information or footage of the conflict. In September, when conflict resumed, military troops were reported to have harangued and/or physically assaulted reporters and other media-related professionals while investigating reports of violent conflict in the Chapare.
SEPTEMBER CONFLICTS- ECONOMICS FIRST
In a review of national reporting on conflicts during September 2000, a clear theme emerges: the economic impact of the blockades and strikes is of greater reporting priority or interest than the human cost to these activities. Greater and fuller coverage was given in all domestic print media to the economic tally of losses and financial investment implications resulting from the roughly three week long concerted action. Information on the human toll, including the number of deaths, injuries, detentions, job losses and even environmental damage associated with the period of conflict was minimal and lacked detail. Certain events in remote communities were not reported on at all in the public media, having been confirmed only by word of mouth or investigation and dissemination by civil society organizations involved in the disputes.
MASSACRE AT PAROTANI
During the early hours of the morning on September 21, a convoy consisting of two trucks and a bus left Cochabamba for Oruro, carrying travelers that had been stranded in Cochabamba since the beginning of the roadblocks and chickens destined to supply the depleted markets outside of the city. This was a portion of a safe-transport deal negotiated between the Prefect of Cochabamba and the Coalition for Defense of Water and Life through the Bolivian Permanent Assembly on Human Rights. According to the arrangement, the Coalition agreed to facilitate the safe passage of the convoy through blockade points along the route. However, as the convoy approached the community of Parotani, a small farming community roughly 25 km outside of the city of Cochabamba, over 200 military troops descended from the trucks and bus. According to witnesses, the troops immediately began firing on the people assembled at the blockade point, launching tear gas, pellets and live ammunition. Two civilians were killed and numerous injured. Although this incident received some attention in the local media, first-hand accounts of what transpired, including precise details, are limited. Furthermore, there has been little follow-up in the media on the impact this event had on the community, including the health of those injured in the assault, physical damage inflicted on the community's infrastructure, reparations (if any), or legal repercussions for the party's involved in planning and execution of the assault, etc.
The Proposed Plan
These problems suggest that an alternative media communications system is needed within Bolivia. The best means of achieving greater, more reliable and timely coverage of events is through direct communication with and between the inhabitants of Bolivian communities. The best representation of the people and the events that affect them is, of course, the people themselves. This alternative must respect their authentic voice and role in serving as witness to the events and conditions that shape their lives.
Given that, one of the greatest needs identified by activists in Bolivia is the need for a progressive communications infrastructure. This year 1world will work with Signus, a Mexico City based social communications organization to provide media training for activists around the country and to set up a communications office in Bolivia to gather and disseminate the news and information in the country and around the world.
We will also utilize the information to build an international network of informed individuals and organizations to support Bolivians in their fight against the privatization of water and other such grassroots initiatives. Our specific strategies include:
Helping Bolivians develop organizational and communications capacity to gather and disseminate the latest news and information from activists to international organizations and journalists.
Establish a local office in Bolivia, staffed initially by one Bolivian national, who will facilitate training of citizen journalists and dissemination of their reporting through traditional and non-traditional media sources. The Coordinator will also provide on-going communications support and training.
Organize communications trainings in Bolivia for activists around the country in partnership with Signus, to improve the flow of information to and from isolated communities.
Create a mechanism by which the government and military are encouraged to be accountable for their actions through local reporting by citizens on government or military sponsored activities, particularly in remote areas.
Expand our data base of organizations and develop one of journalists to ensure the widest possible distribution of this information in country and around the world. We have already had some discussions with the director of Global Information Network as a possible distributor for the news from Bolivia.
We will be coordinating our activities in Bolivia with the Coalition for Defense of Water and Life, the Cochabamba Federation of Factory Workers and the Federation of Traditional Water District Committees.
The events that occurred in Cochabamba were an inspiration to activists around the world. Too often we are involved in fighting the "good fight" with little hope of victory because we believe it is the right thing to do. Using Bolivia as a model, we hope to show that it is possible to take on the world's largest institutions and multinational corporations and be victorious. In coming years, we plan to expand our communications network to other countries.
Constituencies We Work With
As an organization dedicated to bringing voices from the global south we work primarily with local and national activist organizations. We have not seen our role as that of an organizing organization but rather as one that provides resource to organizers.
We collaborated with the Center for Economic Justice and Jobs with Justice on the National US/Canada on the Challenging Globalization from the Grassroots Tour. We continue to work with various Global Action Networks to provide information on anti-globalization struggles in the South and to support and publicize their actions in the U.S. and Canada. This spring we will be working with members of the northeast network to sponsor a tour of Colombians and Bolivian to speak on the impact of Plan Colombia.
Our other constituencies are campus based organizations and professors who have been the largest purchasers of our documentaries and use them as organizing tools or in their classes on a broad range of topic including human rights, the global economy, history, Latin America and, Labor Issues.
Please Note: Please make checks payable to: EarthAction
