The Cochabamba Water War,[2] also known as the Bolivian Water War, was a series of protests that took place in Cochabamba, Bolivia's fourth largest city, between December 1999 and April 2000 in response to the privatization of the city's municipal water supply company SEMAPA. The wave of demonstrations and police violence was described as a public uprising against water prices.[3]
The tensions erupted when a new firm, Aguas del Tunari (a joint venture involving Bechtel), was required to invest in construction of a long-envisioned dam (a priority of mayor Manfred Reyes Villa), so they had drastically raised water rates. Protests, largely organized through the Coordinadora (Coalition in Defense of Water and Life), a community coalition, erupted in January, February, and April 2000, culminating in tens of thousands marching downtown and battling police. One civilian was killed. On 10 April 2000, the national government reached an agreement with the Coordinadora to reverse the privatization. A complaint filed by foreign investors was resolved by agreement in February 2001.[citation needed]
Economic background of Bolivia
The restoration of civilian rule to Bolivia in 1982 ended decades of military dictatorships, but did not bring economic stability. In 1985, with hyperinflation at an annual rate of 25 thousand percent, few foreign investors would do business in the country.[4] The Bolivian government turned to the World Bank as a last resort against economic meltdown. For the next 20 years, successive governments followed the World Bank's provisions in order to qualify for continued loans from the organization.[4]
World Bank
The World Bank said that "poor governments are often too plagued by local corruption", similarly the World Bank stated that "no subsidies should be given to ameliorate the increase in water tariffs in Cochabamba".[5]The New Yorker reported on the World Bank's motives, "Most of the poorest neighborhoods were not hooked up to the network, so the state subsidies and water utility went mainly to industries and middle-class neighborhoods; the poor paid far more for water of dubious purity from trucks and handcarts. In the World Bank's view, it was a city that was crying out for water privatization."[4]
In a 2002 publication the World Bank acknowledges that one of its loans, the "Major Cities Water and Sewerage Rehabilitation Project", included a condition to privatize the La Paz and Cochabamba water utilities. The privatization was required to allow a two-year extension of the project that was due to close in 1995. The World Bank project that began in 1990 had covered three cities, leading to sharply diverging outcomes: Access increased and service quality improved in Santa Cruz de la Sierra where a successful cooperative provided services, which enjoyed, according to the World Bank, "the reputation as one of the best-managed utilities in Latin America." However, results were mixed in La Paz and poor in Cochabamba. In the latter, access to piped water had actually decreased from 70% to 60%, water losses had remained high at 40% and water supply had remained unreliable at about four hours a day despite the funds made available by the World Bank to support the public utility. The World Bank did not include a conditionality to privatize water in Santa Cruz where the local utility had been able to improve services, but only in the cities where the utilities had failed to improve services.[6]
The World Bank acknowledges that it provided assistance to prepare a concession contract for Cochabamba in 1997. However, its involvement with water in Cochabamba ended in the same year. At that time the bidding process for the concession had been declared void by the Supreme Court in response to a legal challenge by the municipality of Cochabamba. In the same year the World Bank project in the three cities ended. The World Bank thus was not included any more in the subsequent phase of the privatization.[6]
The Misicuni dam project was later pursued by Evo Morales when he became President of Bolivia nine years later. It was justified through its benefits for hydropower generation and irrigation in addition to potable water supply for Cochabamba.[7] Construction began on the dam in June 2009 and was completed in September 2017.
Aguas del Tunari consortium
Prior to privatization the water works of Cochabamba were controlled by the state agency SEMAPA. After pressure from the World Bank, Bolivia put SEMAPA up for auction for privatization but not capitalization. Only one party was willing to bid on the project.[8] This was Aguas del Tunari, a consortium between the British firm International Waters (55 percent) - itself a subsidiary of the construction giant Bechtel (USA) and United Utilities (UK) - the engineering and construction firm Abengoa of Spain (25 percent) and four Bolivian companies including Befesa/Edison, Constructora Petricevic, Sociedad Boliviana de Cemento (SOBOCE), Compania Boliviana de Ingenieria and ICE Agua y Energia S.A., all involved with the construction and engineering industry. The water network that they envisioned was projected to provide drinking water to all the people of Cochabamba. This was set to double the existing coverage area and also introduce electrical production to more of the region.[9]
Without regard for its weak bargaining position, the Bolivian government under President Hugo Banzer agreed to the terms of its sole bidder Aguas del Tunari and signed a $2.5 billion, 40-year concession "to provide water and sanitation services to the residents of Cochabamba, as well as generate electricity and irrigation for agriculture."[4][8] Within the terms of the contract the consortium was guaranteed a minimum 15% annual return on its investment, which was to be annually adjusted to the United States' consumer price index.[4] The implementation of Aguas del Tunari's program was set to correlate with a government plan to present a $63 million rural development package to peasants with funds for crop diversification, and extending electric and telephone services to remote areas.[10]
Law 2029
To ensure the legality of the privatization the Bolivian government passed law 2029, which verified the contract with Aguas del Tunari. To many people, the law appeared to give a monopoly to Aguas del Tunari over all water resources. Many feared that this included water used for irrigation by peasant farmers (campesinos), and community-based resources that had previously been independent of regulation.[8] The law was seen as "enabling the sale of water resources that had never really been a part of SEMAPA in the first place."[8] Many became worried that independent communal water systems which had yet to be connected with SEMAPA would be "summarily appropriated by the new concession."[8] By Law 2029, if Aguas del Tunari had wanted to, not only could it have installed meters and begin charging independently built communal water systems, but it could have also charged residents for the installation of those meters.[4] The broad nature of Law 2029 led many to claim that the government would require a license be obtained for people to collect rainwater from their roofs.[11] The first to raise concerns over the scope of the law was the new Federación Departamental Cochabambina de Regantes (FEDECOR) and its leader Omar Fernandez.[8] FEDECOR was made up of local professionals, including engineers and environmentalists.[4] They were joined by a federation of peasant farmers who relied on irrigation, and a confederation of factory workers' unions led by Oscar Olivera.[4] Together these groups formed Coördinator for the Defense of Water and Life, or La Coordinadora which became the core of the opposition to the policy.[4][8]
Law 2029 was one of the primary points of disagreement between protestors and the government. The initial intent of the law was to introduce concessions and licenses for the supply of potable water for cities with more than 10,000 inhabitants.[12][13] For many Bolivians, the implementation of law 2029 and the concessions that accompanied it symbolized all the issues of the neoliberal development strategy—its obvious lack of concern for equity, its rejection of the role of the state, and in a country with a very long tradition of anti-imperialist rhetoric, the law represented a preferential attitude to foreign capital over the national interest.[14] This opposition expressed by the community arose from across the political spectrum. The traditional left claimed that the transfer of state property to private enterprises was unconstitutional while the right opposed the denationalization of enterprises that it considered vital and strategic.[15]
Rate hike
As a condition of the contract Aguas del Tunari had agreed to pay the $30 million in debt accumulated by SEMAPA. They also agreed to finance an expansion of the water system, and began a much needed maintenance program on the existing deteriorating water system.[4] Dider Quint, a managing director for the consortium, said "We were confident that we could implement this program in a shorter period than the one required by the contract. [To accomplish this] We had to reflect in the tariff increase all the increases that had never been implemented before."[4]
On top of this, in order to secure the contract, Aguas del Tunari had to promise the Bolivian government to fund the completion of the stalled Misicuni dam project.[4] The dam was purportedly designed to pipe water through the mountains, but the World Bank had deemed it uneconomic. While the consortium had no interest in building the dam, it was a condition of their contract, as it was backed by an influential member of Banzer's mega-coalition, the mayor of Cochabamba, Manfred Reyes Villa.[4] An attempt to privatize the water system had been made without the condition of building the dam in 1997, but Reyes Villa had used his influence to quash the deal.[4] Critics of Reyes Villa held that the dam was a "vanity project" which would profit "some of his main financial backers".[4]
The officials in Bolivia for Aguas del Tunari were mostly engineers lacking marketing training.[4] They were also foreigners unaware of the intricacies of Bolivian society and economics.[4] Upon taking control, the company raised water rates an average of 35% to about $20 a month. While this seemed minuscule in the developed nations that the Aguas del Tunari staff had come from, many of their new clients only earned about $100 a month and $20 was more than they spent on food.[11] In complete ignorance of the reality of his situation, a manager for the consortium, Geoffrey Thorpe simply said "if people didn't pay their water bills their water would be turned off."[4] The poor were joined in their protest by January 2000, when middle-class homeowners and large business owners stripped of their subsidies saw their own water bills increase.[4] As anger over the rates mounted, Reyes Villa was quick to distance himself from Aguas del Tunari.[4]
Protests and state of emergency
Starting in early January 2000 massive protests in Cochabamba began with Oscar Olivera among the most outspoken leaders against the rate hikes and subsequent water cut-offs.[16] The demonstrators consisted of regantes (peasant irrigators) who entered the city either under village banners, or carrying the wiphala; they were joined by jubilados (retired unionized factory workers) under the direction of Olivera,[4] and by Bolivian citizens.[4] Young men began to try to take over the plaza and a barricade across incoming roadways was set up.[4] Soon they were joined by pieceworkers, sweatshop employees, and street vendors (a large segment of the economy since the closure of the state-owned tin mines).[4]Anarchists from the middle-classes came from the University of Cochabamba to denounce the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and neoliberalism.[4] The strongest supporters of the demonstration were drawn from the city's growing population of homeless street children.[4]
Protesters halted Cochabamba's economy by holding a general strike that shut down the city for four days. A ministerial delegation went to Cochabamba and agreed to roll back the water rates; still the demonstration continued.[4] On 4 February 2000, thousands marching in protest were met by troops and law enforcement from Oruro and La Paz.[4] Two days of clashes occurred with the police using tear gas. Almost 200 demonstrators were arrested; 70 protesters and 51 policemen were injured.[4]
Throughout March 2000 the Bolivian hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church tried to mediate between the government and the demonstrators. In the meantime, the Coordinadora made their own referendum and declared that out of fifty thousand votes, 96% demanded the contract with Aguas del Tunari be cancelled.[4] The government's reply was that "There is nothing to negotiate."[4]
In April 2000, demonstrators again took over Cochabamba's central plaza. When the leaders of the Coordinadora (including Óscar Olivera) went to a meeting with the governor at his office they were arrested. Though they were released the following day, some, fearing further government action, fled into hiding. More demonstration leaders were arrested, with some being transferred to a jungle prison in San Joaquin, a remote town in the Amazon rainforest on the border with Brazil.[4][17] The demonstrations spread quickly to other areas including La Paz, Oruro, and Potosí as well as rural areas. The protesters also expanded their demands calling on the government to resolve unemployment and other economic problems.[16] Soon demonstrators had most of the major highways in Bolivia barricaded.[4] The protest even inspired officers in four La Paz police units to refuse to leave their barracks or obey superiors until a wage dispute was settled.[17]
State of emergency
The Bolivian Constitution allows the President (with the support of his Cabinet) to declare a 90-day state of siege in one or more districts of the nation as an emergency measure to maintain public order in "cases of serious danger resulting from an internal civil disturbance".[18][19] Any extension beyond 90 days must be approved of by the Congress.[19] Anyone arrested at this time must be released after 90 days unless criminal charges are brought against them before a court.[18] With the roads cut off and fearing a repeat of past uprisings, President Banzer on 8 April 2000 declared a "state of siege".[4] Banzer said, "We see it as our obligation, in the common best interest, to decree a state of emergency to protect law and order."[4] Information Minister Ronald MacLean Abaroa described the rationale for the decree, saying "We find ourselves with a country with access roads to the cities blocked, with food shortages, passengers stranded and chaos beginning to take hold in other cities."[17] The decree suspended "some constitutional guarantees, allowing police to detain protest leaders without a warrant, restrict travel and political activity and establish a curfew."[16] Meetings of over four people were outlawed, and the freedom of the press was curtailed with radio stations being taken over by the military and some newspaper reporters being arrested. The police moved in to enforce the policy with nighttime raids and mass arrests.[11][16] At one point 20 labor union and civic leaders were arrested.[16] The police's tear gas and rubber bullets were met by the protesters' rocks and Molotov cocktails.[17] Continuing violent clashes between the demonstrators and law enforcement led to internal exile, 40 injuries, and five deaths.[11][16] International Human Rights Organizations decried the "state of siege" declaration.[18][20] This was the seventh time since Bolivia returned to democracy in 1982 that the "state of siege" decree had been employed.[17]
On April 9, 2000, near the city of Achacachi, soldiers met resistance to removing a roadblock and opened fire, killing two people (including a teenage boy) and wounding several others. Angry residents overpowered soldiers and used their weapons against military leaders. They wounded Battalion commander Armando Carrasco Nava and army captain Omar Jesus Tellez Arancibia. The demonstrators then found Tellez in hospital, dragged him from his bed, beat him to death and dismembered his body.[21]
Also, on April 9, 2000, 800 striking police officers fired tear gas at soldiers (to which the soldiers then fired their weapons in the air).[21] In response the government gave a 50% pay raise to the La Paz police to end the strike. This brought their monthly income up from the equivalent of $80 to $120.[21] The police then returned to enforcement procedures against those still demonstrating.[21] A group of soldiers soon demanded their own raise, declaring that there was racial discrimination in the pay scale. Police in Santa Cruz, the nation's second largest city, also went on strike demanding a raise.[21]
Government view of the demonstrators
The coca growers of Bolivia led by then-Congressman Evo Morales (later elected President of Bolivia in December 2005) had joined the demonstrators and were demanding an end to the United States-sponsored program of coca eradication of their crops (while coca leaf can be heavily refined and made into cocaine it is used legally by many in Bolivia for teas and for chewing). Seeing the involvement of the coca growers, the Bolivian government claimed that the demonstrators were actually agents or pawns of drug traffickers.[4] Ronald MacLean Abaroa, the Minister of Information, told reporters the demonstrations were the work of drug traffickers trying to stop the government program to eradicate coca fields and replace them with cotton, pineapples, and bananas. He said that "These protests [were] a conspiracy financed by cocaine trafficking looking for pretexts to carry out subversive activities. It is impossible for so many farmers to spontaneously move on their own."[16] MacLean said President Hugo Banzer was worried because "political groups and traffickers are instigating farmers to confront the army."[16] Felix Santos, a leader of the farmers rejected such claims, saying "We are protesting because of higher gasoline and transportation prices and a law that will charge us for the use of water."[16]
Protesters' demands expand
Teachers of state schools in rural areas went on strike calling for salary increases (at the time they made $1,000 a year). In the capital city of La Paz students began to fight with police. Demonstrators put up roadblocks of stones, bricks and barrels near Achacachi and Batallas, and violence broke out there as well (one army officer and two farmers were killed and dozens injured). Soldiers and police soon cleared most of the roadblocks that had cut off highways in five of the country's nine provinces.[16]
Resolution
After a televised recording of a Bolivian Army captain, Robinson Iriarte de la Fuente, firing a rifle into a crowd of demonstrators, wounding many and hitting high school student Víctor Hugo Daza in the face, killing him, intense anger erupted.[4] The police told the executives of the consortium that their safety could no longer be guaranteed. The executives then fled from Cochabamba to Santa Cruz.[4] After coming out of four days of hiding, Oscar Olivera signed a concord with the government guarantee the removal of Aguas del Tunari and turning Cochabamba's water works over to La Coordinadora. Detained demonstrators were to be released and Law 2029 repealed.[5] The Banzer government then told Aguas del Tunari that by leaving Cochabamba they had "abandoned" the concession and declared the $200 million contract revoked. The company, insisting that it had not left voluntarily but been forced out, filed a $40 million lawsuit in the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, an appellate body of the World Bank, against the Bolivian government, "claiming compensation for lost profits under a bilateral investment treaty."[11] On the day following Víctor Hugo Daza's funeral, Óscar Olivera climbed to his union office's balcony and proclaimed victory to the exhausted crowd.[4] The demonstrators declared that they would not relent until Law 2029 was changed. To get a quorum to amend the law the government even rented planes to fly legislators back to the capital. In a special session on 11 April 2000 the law was changed.[21]
Aftermath
World Bank and continuing protests
On 12 April 2000 when asked about outcome in Bolivia, World Bank President James Wolfensohn maintained that free or subsidized delivery of a public service like water leads to abuse of the resource; he said, "The biggest problem with water is the waste of water through lack of charging."[5]
In Washington, D.C., on the 16 April 2000 IMF and World Bank meetings, protesters attempted to blockade the streets to stop the meeting. They cited the Water Wars in Bolivia as an example of corporate greed and a reason to resist globalization. Oscar Olivera attended the protests, saying, "The people have recaptured their dignity, their capacity to organize themselves - and most important of all, the people are no longer scared."[5]
On 23 April 2002 Oscar Olivera led 125 protesters to the San Francisco headquarters of Bechtel, the only member of Aguas del Tunari located in the Americas. Olivera said "With the $25 million they are seeking, 125,000 people could have access to water." Bechtel officials agreed to meet him.[5]
The victory gained the cocalero and campesino groups international support from anti-globalisation groups.[11] Oscar Olivera and Omar Fernandez have become sought after speakers at venues discussing how to resist resource privatization and venues critical of the World Bank. Congressman Evo Morales's actions in the Water Wars raised his profile, and he was elected President of Bolivia in 2005. Omar Fernandez joined Morales' Movement for Socialism and became a Bolivian senator.[22]
On 19 January 2006, a settlement was reached between the Government of Bolivia (then under the Presidency of Eduardo Rodriguez Veltze) and Aguas del Tunari, it was agreed (according to the Bechtel press release) that "the concession was terminated only because of the civil unrest and the state of emergency in Cochabamba and not because of any act done or not done by the international shareholders of Aguas del Tunari". With this statement the shareholders withdrew any financial claims against Bolivia.[23]
Iriarte case
When no sitting judge would hear the case against Captain Robinson Iriarte, it was transferred to a military tribunal (that had final jurisdiction over which cases it hears). In March 2002, Captain Iriarte was acquitted by the tribunal of any responsibility for the death of Víctor Hugo Daza. After Iriarte's acquittal, he was promoted to the rank of major.[4][5]
Continued lack of water in Cochabamba
In the end, water prices in Cochabamba returned to their pre-2000 levels with a group of community leaders running the restored state utility company SEMAPA. As late as 2005, half of the 600,000 people of Cochabamba remained without water and those with it only received intermittent service (some as little as three hours a day). Oscar Olivera the leading figure in the protests admitted, "I would have to say we were not ready to build new alternatives."[24] SEMAPA managers say they are still forced to deal with graft and inefficiencies, but that its biggest problem is a lack of money (it can not raise rates, and after Aguas del Tunari was forced out, other international companies are unwilling to give them more loans).[24] Luis Camargo, SEMAPA's operations manager in an interview with The New York Times said they were forced to continue using a water-filtration system that is split between "an obsolete series of 80-year-old tanks and a 29-year-old section that uses gravity to move mountain water from one tank to another."[24] He stated that the system was built for a far smaller city and worried about shrinking aquifers. A system to bring water down from the mountains would cost $300 million and SEMAPA's budget is only about $5 million a year.[24]
The New Yorker reports "in Cochabamba, those who are not on the network and who have no well, pay ten times as much for their water as the relatively wealthy residents who are hooked up", and with no new capital the situation can not be improved.[4] A local resident complained that water-truck operators "drill polluted water and sell it. They [also] waste a lot of water."[4] According to author Frederik Segerfeldt, "the poor of Cochabamba are still paying 10 times as much for their water as the rich, connected households and continue to indirectly subsidize water consumption of more well-to-do sectors of the community. Water nowadays is available only four hours a day and no new households have been connected to the supply network."[25] Franz Taquichiri, a veteran of the Water War and an SEMAPA director elected by the community, said "I don't think you'll find people in Cochabamba who will say they're happy with service. No one will be happy unless they get service 24 hours a day."[24] Another Cochabamba resident and activist during the unrest summed up her opinion of the situation by saying, "afterwards, what had we gained? We were still hungry and poor."[26]
Aguas de Illimani
Similar protests took place in La Paz over Aguas de Illimani, a subsidiary of the French multinational Suez. Aguas de Illimani's contract with the state was broken after allegations were made by the Bolivian government that it did not respect all the clauses of the contract. According to the Bolivian ambassador Pablo Solón Romero, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank Group, was a share-holder of Aguas de Illimani. The ambassador pointed out that since the case was brought before the ICSID, which is an arm of the World Bank, a conflict of interest arose in this affair.[27]
In popular culture
Even the Rain (Spanish: También la lluvia) is a 2010 Spanish drama film directed by Icíar Bollaín about filmmaker Sebastian (Gael García Bernal) who travels to Bolivia to shoot a film about the Spanish conquest of America. He and his crew arrive in 2000 during the tense time of the Cochabamba water crisis.
The Cochabamba protests were featured in the 2003 documentary film The Corporation.[28]
Hugo Banzer Suárez was a Bolivian politician and military officer who served as the 51st president of Bolivia. He held the Bolivian presidency twice: from 1971 to 1978 as a military dictator; and then again from 1997 to 2001, as a democratically elected president.
Bechtel Corporation is an American engineering, procurement, construction, and project management company founded in San Francisco, California in 1898, and headquartered in Reston, Virginia. As of 2022, the Engineering News-Record ranked Bechtel as the second largest construction company in the United States, following Turner Construction.
Cochabamba, from Quechua qucha or qhucha, meaning "lake", pampa meaning "plain", is one of the nine departments of Bolivia. It is known to be the "granary" of the country because of its variety of agricultural products from its geographical position. It has an area of 55,631 km2. Its population in the 2024 census was 2,005,373. Its capital is the city of Cochabamba, known as the "City of Eternal Spring" and "The Garden City" because of its spring-like temperatures all year.
Cochabamba is a city and municipality in central Bolivia in a valley in the Andes mountain range. It is the capital of the Cochabamba Department and the fourth largest city in Bolivia, with a population of 630,587 according to the 2012 Bolivian census. Its name is from a compound of the Quechua words qucha "lake" and pampa, "open plain." Residents of the city and the surrounding areas are commonly referred to as cochalas or, more formally, cochabambinos.
Water privatization is short for private sector participations in the provision of water services and sanitation. Water privatization has a variable history in which its popularity and favorability has fluctuated in the market and politics. One of the common forms of privatization is public–private partnerships (PPPs). PPPs allow for a mix between public and private ownership and/or management of water and sanitation sources and infrastructure. Privatization, as proponents argue, may not only increase efficiency and service quality but also increase fiscal benefits. There are different forms of regulation in place for current privatization systems.
The Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia is a national representative organization of the Bolivian indigenous movement. It was founded in October 1982 in Santa Cruz de la Sierra as the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of the Bolivian East, with the participation of representatives of four indigenous peoples of the Bolivian East: Guarani-Izoceños, Chiquitanos, Ayoreos and Guarayos.
Water politics, sometimes called hydropolitics, is politics affected by the availability of water and water resources, a necessity for all life forms and human development.
Water supply and sanitation in Chile were once considered efficient and equitable but in 2022 Chile struggled to reliably provide water throughout the country. Chile's water resources have been strained by the Chilean water crisis, which was partially caused by a continuing megadrought that began in 2010, along with an increased demand for agricultural and other commercial interests.
Social unrest in Cochabamba involved violent clashes between supporters and opponents of Cochabamba Prefect Manfred Reyes Villa in the departmental capital city of Cochabamba, Bolivia, reaching their peak on January 11 and 12, 2007. The policies of the President Evo Morales and the agenda of his Movement towards Socialism (MAS) party in the Constituent Assembly were opposed by politicians in other political parties, notably Reyes Villa. The prefect's opposition to Morales' policies angered the President's supporters, and early in 2007 demonstrations in Cochabamba escalated into violent clashes between Reyes Villa's civic movement and urban and rural social movements who called for his ouster. During the violence, coca farmer Juan Tica Colque and the young student Christian Urresti (17) were killed. Coca farmer Luciano Colque (48) was mortally wounded by blows from civic movement protesters and died of cranial trauma on February 27. Some 200 people were wounded in the clashes.
Bolivia's drinking water and sanitation coverage has greatly improved since 1990 due to a considerable increase in sectoral investment. However, the country continues to suffer from what happens to be the continent's lowest coverage levels and from low quality of services. Political and institutional instability have contributed to the weakening of the sector's institutions at the national and local levels. Two concessions to foreign private companies in two of the three largest cities—Cochabamba and La Paz/El Alto—were prematurely ended in 2000 and 2006 respectively. The country's second largest city, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, relatively successfully manages its own water and sanitation system by way of cooperatives. The government of Evo Morales intends to strengthen citizen participation within the sector. Increasing coverage requires a substantial increase of investment financing.
Abengoa, S.A. was a Spanish multinational company in the green infrastructure, energy and water sectors. The company was founded in 1941 by Javier Benjumea Puigcerver and José Manuel Abaurre Fernández-Pasalagua, and was based in Seville, Spain. Its current chairman is Gonzalo Urquijo Fernández de Araoz. After repeated bankruptcies and rescues, it declared insolvency in February 2021 amid various regulatory and financial charges against the board and management, the second-largest corporate collapse in Spanish history.
Oscar Olivera Foronda is a Bolivian union leader who was one of the main leaders of the protesters against the water privatization in Bolivia. The result of these protests was an event known as the Cochabamba Water War. He was also one of the main leaders of the protests in the Bolivian gas conflict. He is also the head of a confederation of factory workers' unions.
The privatization of water supply and sanitation in Bolivia took place during the second mandate of Bolivian President Hugo Banzer (1997–2001) in the form of two major private concessions: one in La Paz/El Alto to Aguas del Illimani S.A. (AISA), a subsidiary of the French Suez in 1997; and a second one in Cochabamba to Aguas del Tunari, a subsidiary of the multinationals Biwater and Bechtel in 1999.
Bolivia’s government considers irrigated agriculture as a major contributor to "better quality of life, rural and national development." After a period of social unrest caused by the privatization of water supply in Cochabamba and La Paz, the government of Evo Morales is undertaking a major institutional reform in the water resources management and particularly in the irrigation sector, aimed at: (i) including indigenous and rural communities in decision making, (ii) integrating technical and traditional knowledge on water resources management and irrigation, (iii) granting and registering water rights, (iv) increasing efficiency of irrigation infrastructure, (v) enhancing water quality, and (v) promoting necessary investment and financial sustainability in the sector. Bolivia is the first country in Latin America with a ministry dedicated exclusively to integrated water resources management: the Water Ministry.
Bolivia has traditionally undertaken different water resources management approaches aimed at alleviating political and institutional instability in the water sector. The so-called water wars of 2000 and 2006 in Cochabamba and El Alto, respectively, added social unrest and conflict into the difficulties of managing water resources in Bolivia. Evo Morales’ administration is currently developing an institutional and legal framework aimed at increasing participation, especially for rural and indigenous communities, and separating the sector from previous privatization policies. In 2009, the new Environment and Water Resources Ministry was created absorbing the responsibilities previously under the Water Ministry. The Bolivian Government is in the process of creating a new Water Law – the current Water Law was created in 1906 – and increasing much needed investment on hydraulic infrastructure.
Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory is a protected area and Native Community Land in Bolivia situated between the north of the Cochabamba Department and the south of the Beni Department. It protects part of the Bolivian Yungas ecoregion. The indigenous people living within the park belong to the Tsimané, Yuracaré, and Mojeño-Trinitario peoples. The southern portion of the park has been colonized by agricultural settlers, primarily coca farmers, since the 1970s. The Bolivian government estimates that 10% of the park has been deforested by their presence.
The history of Bolivia since 1982 begins with the restorations of democracy after the rule of the military junta of 1982. Evo Morales held the presidency from 2006 to 2019. A new constitution was enacted in 2009. Bolivia's population has roughly doubled over this period, from 5 million in 1980 to 10 million as of 2012.
The Villa Tunari Massacre was a 27 June 1988 mass murder committed by UMOPAR troops in response to a protest by coca-growing peasants (cocaleros) in the town of Villa Tunari in Chapare Province, Bolivia. The cocalero movement had mobilized since late May 1988 in opposition to coca eradication under Law 1008, then on the verge of becoming law. According to video evidence and a joint church-labor investigative commission, UMOPAR opened fired on unarmed protesters, at least two of whom were fatally shot, and many of whom fled to their deaths over a steep drop into the San Mateo River. The police violence caused the deaths of 9 to 12 civilian protesters, including three whose bodies were never found, and injured over a hundred. The killings were followed by further state violence in Villa Tunari, Sinahota, Ivirgarzama, and elsewhere in the region, including machine gun fire, beatings, and arrests.
Even the Rain is a 2010 drama film directed by Icíar Bollaín and written by Paul Laverty.
The Villa Tunari – San Ignacio de Moxos Highway, also known as the Cochabamba–Beni Highway is a road project in Bolivia connecting the towns of Villa Tunari and San Ignacio de Moxos. It would provide the first direct highway link between the two departments. The project has an expected overall cost of $415 million and extends 306 kilometres (190 mi), divided into three segments: Segment I from Villa Tunari to Isinuta, Segment II from Isinuta to Monte Grande, and Segment III from Monte Grande to San Ignacio de Moxos. Opposition to the highway by local indigenous communities, environmentalists, as well as shifting relations between the Bolivian government and the project's builders and funders interrupted construction of Segment I from October 2011 until October 2013, indefinitely delayed Segment II, and postponed construction of Segment III until June 2015. Segment II will proceed after the government has promised to raise living standards in the area.
↑ Asseis, Willem (May 2003). "David versus Goliath in Cochabamba: Water Rights, Neoliberalism, and the Revival of Social Protests in Bolivia". Latin American Perspectives. 30 (3): 14–36. doi:10.1177/0094582X03030003003. JSTOR3185034. S2CID144673266.
↑ Nickson, Andrew; Vargas, Claudia (January 2002). "The Limitations of Water Regulation: The Failure of the Cochabamba Concession in Bolivia". Bulletin of Latin American Research. 21 (1): 99–120. doi:10.1111/1470-9856.00034. JSTOR3339551.
↑ Spronk, Susan (Spring 2007). "Roots of Resistance to Urban Water Privatization in Bolivia: The "New Working Class," the Crisis of Neoliberalism, and Public Services". International Labor and Working Class, Inc. 71 (71): 8–28. doi:10.1017/S0147547907000312. JSTOR27673068. S2CID153385781.
↑ Petersen, Arthur; Pardo-Guerra, Juan Pablo (2005). 2005 Isyp Yearbook on Science and World Affairs: International Student/Young Pugwash Yearbook 2005. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Transaction Publishers.
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