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A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
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hello every one.
here's a report from a guy called Bob Oslen
(he's a major activist!), regarding the water c
risis in Bolivia.
just a reminder:
the bolivian government sold her water company to
the foreign Bechtel company, after a while the
company had more then doubled the price per
family for water, the poor Bolivian who could not
stand the prices started revolting and finally
kicked Bechtel out!!!
R.
Cochabamba, Bolivia
Thursday - April 13, 2000
Dear Friends:
It has been one hell of a week here in Cochabamba. Humble Bolivians,
led by a 45 year old machinist, kicked the Bechtel Corporation out
of the country after one of the world's largest companies tried to
pick their pockets over water. I'd like to see a consumer revolt
in my homestate of California match that. The people stood down
President Banzer and martial law. Some did not survive what happened
here, including Victor Hugo, the 17 year old killed by an army
bullet here Saturday. Those people we mourn and honor.
I am in awe, as well, at what we were able to accomplish together,
all across the globe, using the Internet. Hacking away at this
keyboard in a corner of the Andes that few ever think about, the
news of what happened here went out to thousands and thousands of
people. In a matter of hours, with a little research and a lot of
support, we took the Bechtel Corporation and turned it from being
"the invisible hand" behind the scenes to a corporation on the hot
seat. Hundreds upon hundreds of e-mails forced the corporate giant
to respond, with a hedging P.R. statement that became headlines in
Bolivia and forced the Bolivian government to say once and for all,
Bechtel's water company isn't coming back.
The solidarity and support expressed around the world was utterly
amazing, messages from Mexico, England, Canada, Iceland, India,
Pakistan, Egypt, Nepal, Australia, all over the U.S. and elsewhere,
giving people here heard that the whole world was indeed watching.
And how can I ever forget those amazing New Zealanders who cared
so much about the people here that they drove a bright red fire
truck, adorned with protest banners, to the Bolivian consulate in
Auckland and hosed the place down (story below). God I love that!
And we made the powerful speak. This morning I received an e-mail
from a Finnish journalist in Washington alerting me that some
enterprising reporter (who probably got our material from one of
you) asked the President of the World Bank Wednesday about Bolivia,
giving him a public chance to stick his foot properly in his mouth
(see below).
I am grateful, very grateful, to all of you who became citizens of
the world, spreading these alerts and requests like wildfire and
demanding that reporters cover the story across the world. Gathering
and confirming the facts was no small challenge in the midst of
press censorship and key sources having to go into hiding. I want
to thank Tom Kruse, Lee Cridland, Kathryn Ledebur, and Theo Roncken
for their incredible help in getting the facts. I want to thank as
well my family, Lynn, Elizabeth, Miguel and Simone the dog for
their patience as I neglected them entirely for ten days.
Even though the formal "state of emergency" is still in effect (see
below) I knew life was returning to normal Tuesday morning when
the doorbell rang early, our friend who had left his bus in our
driveway (stuck by the barricades days earlier) had come to claim
it. In the street our neighbors were running off to work. Once
again our biggest problem was the neighbor's dog sneaking in to
chase the cat.
Thanks for your patience and interest in all these messages. I
promise to be quiet for a while. Despite it all, Bolivia is still
is the most peaceful place I know.
Despite the end of national protests over water and other issues,
the 90 day "state of emergency" declared by President Banzer is
still in effect here, including an evening curfew, limits on public
meetings, and the ability to arrest without warrant. While it is
unclear how much of these rules will be enforced, labor, human
rights and civic groups have demanded that it be lifted. People in
the U.S. can help by contacting the Bolivian Embassy in Washington
to demand that it be ended: Tel: 202-483-4410; Fax: 328-3712.
RLD BANK HEAD COMMENTS ON WATER PROTEST AS BOLIVIAN PROTEST LEADER
HEADS TO WASHINGTON
On Wednesday the director of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn,
commented directly 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 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, and 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
[EMAIL PROTECTED] of call 591-4-290-725.
MY ASSASSIN WHO FIRED ON WATER PROTESTERS WENT TO "SCHOOL OF THE
AMERICAS"
A plain clothed sharpshooter, filmed by a Bolivian television
network as he 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 Cspedes), 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.
Photographic evidence of the assassin in action is available at:
http://www.americas.org
For more information on the School of the Americas see:
http://www.soaw.org
CHTEL 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 Uzn, 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.
W ZEALAND PROTESTERS HOSE DOWN BOLIVIAN CONSULATE
An activist group known as "The Water Pressure Group" staged a wet
demonstration 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 picket 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.
Note: Photos of the New Zealand hose action can be viewed at:
http://www.geocities.com/manuka2/bolivia.html
NZER, BECHTEL AND WORLD BANK RESPONSIBLE FOR WATER PROTESTS, NOT
NARCOTRAFFICKERS
(Syndicated by Pacific News Service - Wednesday, April 13)
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
narco-traffickers."
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 narco-traffickers
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, narco-trafficking 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.
********
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