Cochabamba: the People versus Bechtel Corporation:

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The Cochabamba Water Revolt, Ten Years Later

Ten years ago these streets felt very different than the festive atmosphere this week. Under pressure from the World Bank, Bolivia's conservative government signed a 40-year lease, putting the city's water system into the hands of the San Francisco-based engineering giant, Bechtel. Within weeks of taking over, Bechtel raised water rates by an average of 50 percent, much higher in many cases. People from the countryside, concerned that their water systems were next, joined the city in a series of massive protests that were met with repression at the hands of a dictator-turned-president, Hugo Banzer. A 17-year-old boy, Victor Hugo Daza, was killed by an Army sharpshooter.

But in the end the people of Cochabamba prevailed. The government finally caved in and Bechtel was forced to leave, its contract canceled. A year later Bechtel sued the people of Cochabamba in a trade court operated by that same World Bank, seeking a payment of $50 million after making investments in Cochabamba of less than $1 million. A huge international campaign--ranging from legal petitions to direct action at Bechtel's San Francisco headquarters--forced Bechtel to settle for a token payment of thirty cents....

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For Bolivia, the Water Revolt was the spark that changed everything. Emboldened by their ability to fight and win against guns and conglomerates, Bolivians took to the streets over and over again, winning more victories for economic self-determination. In February 2003, the people of La Paz and El Alto led protests that forced the government to drop a plan to tax the poor, part of an IMF-induced belt-tightening package. Later that year, nationwide protests stopped another plan by the government to sell off the nation's gas at bargain prices through Chile to the U.S....

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/04/21-5

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1. LOL! the un-rec squad has swooped in; who would un-rec this on a 'dem' public forum?

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2. Bolivia's Morales: Capitalism Is to Blame for Global Climate Change

Bolivian President Blames Capitalism for Global Warming

COCHABAMBA, Bolivia - Bolivian President Evo Morales said capitalism is to blame for global warming and the accelerated deterioration of the planetary ecosystem in a speech today opening an international conference on climate change and the "rights of Mother Earth."

Bolivian President Evo Morales addresses indigenous, environmental and civil society delegates. 'We all have the ethics and the moral right to say here that the central enemy of Mother Earth is capitalism,' he said. (Photo courtesy ABI)More than 20,000 indigenous, environmental and civil society delegates from 129 countries were in attendance as President Morales welcomed them to the conference at a soccer stadium in the village of Tiquipaya on the outskirts of the city of Cochabamba.

"The main cause of the destruction of the planet Earth is capitalism and in the towns where we have lived, where we respected this Mother Earth, we all have the ethics and the moral right to say here that the central enemy of Mother Earth is capitalism," said Morales, who is Bolivia's first fully indigenous head of state in the 470 years since the Spanish invasion.

Morales is the leader of a political party called Movimiento al Socialismo, the Movement for Socialism, which aims to give more power to the country's indigenous and poor communities by means of land reforms and redistribution of wealth from natural resources such as gas.

"The capitalist system looks to obtain the maximum possible gain, promoting unlimited growth on a finite planet," said Morales. "Capitalism is the source of asymmetries and imbalance in the world."

The Bolivian president called this conference in the wake of what he considered to be failed United Nations climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December.

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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/04/21