Latest Bolivian Water Revolt Takes Dramatic Turn

The public revolt against water privatization taking place this week in the city of El Alto took a dramatic turn today – the announcement by the Bolivian government that it is canceling the private water contract, and the rejection of that offer by citizen groups. Below is an article I am syndicating to the US and other foreign press. Stay tuned to this Blog for more updates.

As Public Strikes Mount, Bolivian Government Announces It Will End Contract with Foreign Water Company in El Alto

Neighborhood Organizations Reject Offer as Too Ambiguous

Cochabamba, Bolivia – As the city of El Alto finished the second day of a citywide general strike, demanding ouster of the multinational corporation that controls its water, the Bolivian government announced that it has decided to cancel the company’s water contract. Neighborhood organizations, however, rejected the government’s offer Tuesday night, claiming that it included no firm date for the company’s departure and no real guarantee that the company would leave.

El Alto’s public water system was privatized in 1997 after the World Bank made water privatization a condition of a loan to the Bolivian government. The private company, Aguas del Illimani, is owned by a consortium led by the French water giant, Suez, the World Bank, and others. Public protests against the company charge that it has failed to extend water and sewage service to tens of thousands of families in the city’s impoverished outskirts and that hook-up costs exceed more than half a year’s income at the Bolivian minimum wage.

“The Bolivian Government will initiate the termination of the concession contract of Aguas del Illimani in a coordinated way through a legal process,” wrote the Bolivian Minister of Public Services, in a letter to the groups Tuesday. The Minister also requested that community groups in El Alto refrain from any action against employees or facilities of the company that could form the basis of a legal demand against the government by the company.

At a community assembly Tuesday night, neighborhood organizations voted overwhelmingly to reject the government’s offer. “The letter is ambiguous,” said Julian Perez, an advisor to the Federation of El Alto Neighborhoods. “There are no dates set for the company’s departure. What we want is a decree from the President that Aguas del Illimani will leave El Alto immediately.”

The neighborhood organizations leading the general strike announced that they would abide by a twenty-four hour break Wednesday to allow the government to respond to their demand. If the government failed to change its position, they warned, the groups would begin a mass march and an indefinite general strike starting Thursday.

The company could not be reached for comment Tuesday night but previously corporate officials told The Democracy Center that it intended to stay in El Alto, denied that residents there were dissatisfied with water service, and threatened legal action if any of its facilities were taken over by the community groups.

El Alto’s public strike over water privatization is taking place simultaneously with huge, nationwide public protests against the government’s hike in gasoline prices the first of the year. These protests have put Bolivia in its most severe state of political turmoil since massive protests over a proposed gas export deal to the US led to the ouster of former President Gonzalo Sànchez de Lozada in October 2003. In an address Sunday night, the man who succeeded him, President Carlos Mesa, warned that if the current protests turned violent he would resign.

The citywide uprising against water privatization in El Alto also comes exactly five years after the launch of the revolt against water privatization in Bolivia’s third largest city, Cochabamba. The Cochabamba water revolt ended with the ouster of a multinational consortium led by the Bechtel Corporation of San Francisco. Bechtel’s company later filed a $25 million legal action against Bolivia in a closed-door trade court operated by the World Bank. Under heavy international pressure Bechtel has reportedly agreed to drop its action and an end to the case awaits an equivalent concession from one of Bechtel’s co-investors, the Abengoa Corporation of Spain.