Bolivia Considers Nationalizing Power Grid

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Agence France-Presse

Bolivia Considers Nationalizing Power Grid
2-9-09 7:29 PM EST

LA PAZ (AFP)--Leftist President Evo Morales Monday said he was considering nationalizing the country's power grid, currently run by Spanish, U.K. and French companies, billing it as the next move on his socialist agenda.

"They've asked me to nationalize (electricity)," he told a farmers' meeting in western Oruro department.

"I want more information on whether or not to nationalize the power grid. It would be the next issue we do battle on," the socialist leader added.

Bolivia's first indigenous president and a close ally to Cuba and Venezuela, Morales, 49, has taken over several companies in Bolivia's important gas and oil industry, as well as others in telecoms and mining, since taking power in January 2006.

New Energy Minister Oscar Coca said he inherited a blueprint for nationalizing the power industry from his predecessor Saul Avalos, who in turn told reporters the plan included all power generating and distributing facilities formerly owned by Bolivia's National Electricity Co., or ENDE, which was privatized in the early 1990s.

Read more: http://news.morningstar.com/newsnet/ViewNews.aspx?article=/DJ/200902091929DOWJONESDJONLINE000565_univ.xml

[Judi Lynn]

1. Montanan at center stage in Bolivian dispute

Montanan at center stage in Bolivian dispute
By The Associated Press

The man at the center of Bolivia's land wars is an improbable figure: a tall, folksy Montanan whose vast holdings have been ordered confiscated on the grounds he treated workers as virtual slaves.

Ronald Larsen, 64, calls the claims unfounded and vows not to give up without a fight. For four decades, he said, he has fed and clothed workers who would otherwise live in squalor - even educating their children.

"They've singled me out as an American," Larsen told The Associated Press on Saturday. "We're not just going to walk away like a bunch of sheep."

~snip~
Human rights groups say an estimated 4,000 Guarani still live in "virtual slavery" in the Chaco, tending cattle or working corn, peanuts and sugarcane for wages as low as $40 a year. Tribal leaders last year claimed that 12 families on Larsen's ranch lived in servitude.

Larsen insists he is not among the abusers, and alleges that former workers accusing him of indentured servitude signed statements under duress.

"We're way over the minimum wage" of $81 a month, he said in a telephone interview from the eastern city of Santa Cruz.

Because of the ranch's highly remote location, where telecommunications are scarce, the AP was unable to quickly reach any of Larsen's accusers or employees. Officials plan to present evidence against Larsen today, National Institute of Agricultural Reform secretary-general Juan de Dios Fernandez said Sunday.

More:
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2009/02/09/news/state/40-montanan.txt

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Former "Peace Corps" worker, Ronald Larsen, and son, Duston

http://1.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_GEDUTlyzpkI/SCSenUaRReI/AAAAAAAAAVs/deIeCWubL7c/s320/DUSTON_LARSEN_MT19_001.jpg

Son, Duston, Mr. Bolivia, and Montana university fraternity guy

The face of white separatism in Bolivia
April 27, 2008

This is not a new story, and in the context of repressive oligarchy it’s frankly a really old one. What is new, is that this may be the only readable English translation of the report that originally appeared at Bolpress on April 5, 2008. Democratic Underground was all over the story, but had to rely on a Google translation.

There are several interesting aspects to the story. One is that in the version that appeared in the mainstream press, Ronald Larsen claimed that Bolivia’s Vice Minister for agrarian reform showed up at his ranch at 3 in the morning, drunk, and because Larsen didn’t know who he was, he shot out the tire on the Vice Minister’s car to “shut him up.” Of course this fanciful version leaves out a few details, such as the 24 foot trailer he parked on the road (among other things) to block the Vice Minister’s entrance, and the brazen attack on the 80 or so people who accompanied the Vice Minister. Larsen may have to go back to Montana and see if he can figure out how to make a living when he has to pay his “employees” a living wage.

Which brings us to the second interesting aspect. There are reportedly 12 Bolivian families living on Larsen’s pleasure ranch. Depending on the source, they are either indentured servants with no hope of escape, or happy little Bolivian campers. Judging by the nature of a boss who settles arguments at gunpoint, Machetera will leave you to draw your own conclusions. Certainly one has to wonder about what Larsen didn’t want the Vice Minister to see.

His connection with the CIA Peace Corps is naturally a bit foggy. This report associates him rather directly with the Peace Corps, albeit 40 years ago. Other reports claim that his first trip to Bolivia in 1968 was in the company of a former Peace Corps volunteer who he’d known at the University of Montana. His son, Duston (sic) who is a large landowner in his own right, won the Mr. Bolivia beauty pageant in 2004, which speaks volumes about those who are in a position to judge such things.

More:
http://machetera.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/the-face-of-white-separatism-in-bolivia/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
U.S. Rancher in Bolivia Showdown
By Jean Friedman-Rudovsky/La Paz Friday, May. 02, 200

~snip~
Both the autonomy and land-reform issues have sparked violent unrest over the past year, pitting the largely white farmers and ranchers of Bolivia's more affluent lowland east against the impoverished indigenous majority who back Morales, himself an Aymara Indian and the nation's first indigenous President. Little surprise, then, that a national furor has erupted over a confrontation involving government officials and Larsen, 64, who along with his two sons, owns 17 properties totaling 141,000 acres throughout Bolivia, three times as much land as the country's largest city. (Larsen insists his holdings amount to less than 25,000 acres.)

Last month, when Almaraz and aides tried to pass through Larsen's Santa Cruz property — they insist it was the only route by which to reach to nearby indigenous Guarani residents to whom they were delivering land deeds — witnesses say the caravan was fired on by Larsen and his son Duston, 29. The incident was followed by two weeks of rancher roadblocks and violent protests that left 40 indigenous people injured.

Larsen, who arrived in Bolivia in 1968, told a La Paz newspaper that Almaraz's vehicle had entered his property at around 3 a.m. Almaraz, he said, "had not presented any identification. He was drunk and being abusive ... I quieted him with a bullet to his tire. That's the story." But the government insists this wasn't Larsen's first run-in with Almaraz: the rancher is accused of kidnapping the vice minister for eight hours in February. The two alleged incidents prompted the government to file a criminal complaint of "sedition, robbery and other crimes" against Larsen and his son two weeks ago. Prosecutors have yet to decide whether to press formal charges. Neither father nor son has responded publicly to the accusations, and neither responded to repeated requests by TIME for comment.

U.S.-educated Duston Larsen, referring to Morales' efforts to empower Bolivia's indigenous, wrote on his MySpace page in 2007, "I used to think democracy was the best form to govern a country but ... should a larger more uneducated group of people (70%) be in charge of making decisions, running a country and voting?" The fact that Duston, in 2004, won the Mr. Bolivia beauty pageant, in the eyes of many government supporters, puts him in the company of the country's European-oriented elite. (That same year, Miss Bolivia, Gabriela Oviedo, also from the country's east, suggested Bolivia shouldn't be considered an indigenous nation: "I'm from the other side of the country. We are tall, and we are white people, and we know English.") Morales backers say it is precisely this disdain for the indigenous that is driving what they call the secessionist agenda behind Sunday's autonomy referendum — which is not legally sanctioned by the National Electoral Court or recognized by the Organization of American States. But autonomy supporters say they're only seeking states' rights on questions such as taxation, police and public works. "This is a historic demand based on long-standing differences with a La Paz-based central government," says Edilberto Osinaga, managing director of the Chamber of Eastern Farmers.

More:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1737244,00.html

[MrModerate]

2. Good luck with that nationalization thing . . .

They tried it with the water system about 10 years ago and it was a frakkin' disaster. Maybe the bureacracy under Morales is substantially less corrupt, greedy, and stupid than the generation of apparatchiks that preceded them . . . but I don't think so.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Sorry, MrModerate, you need to go back to the books on this. It was the PRIVATIZATION of water

which broke the backs of Bolivian citizens who found they could no longer afford the meagerest use of Bolvia's water, and the last straw was the claim by the controlling company that they should be made to PAY FOR RAIN WATER THEY COLLECTED.

Here's an article written during the hideous conflict in Cochabamba, Bolivia, which THE PEOPLE WON:

Bolivia's Water War Victory
by Jim Schultz
Earth Island Journal, Autumn 2000

At 10am, President Hugo Banzer places Bolivia under martial law. This drastic move concludes a week of protests, general strikes and transportation blockages that have jerked the country to a virtual standstill, and follows the surprise announcement of government concession to protesters' demands to break a $200 million contract selling Cochabamba's public water system to foreign investors.

The water system is currently controlled by Aguas del Tunari, a consortium led by London-based International Water Limited (IWL), which is itself jointly owned by the Italian utility Edison and US-based Bechtel Enterprise Holdings. Upon purchasing the water system, the consortium immediately raised rates by up to 35 percent. That untenable hike sparked the protests.

In January, "Cochabambinos" staged strikes and blocked transit, effectively shutting their city down for four straight days. The Bolivian government then promised to lower rates, but broke that promise within weeks. On February 4, when thousands tried to march in peaceful protest, President Banzer had police hammer protesters with two days of tear gas that the 175 people injured and two youths blinded.

Ninety percent of Cochabamba's citizens believed it was time for Bechtel's subsidiary to return the water system to public control, according to results of a 60,000-person survey conducted in March. But it seems that the government has come to Bechtel's rescue, insisting the company remain in Bolivia. President Banzer, who ruled Bolivia as a dictator from 1971-78, has suspended almost all civil rights, banning gatherings of more than four people, and severely limiting freedom of the press. "We see it as our obligation, in the common best interest, to decree a state of emergency to protect law and order," Banzer trumpeted.

Local radio stations have been closed or taken over by military. News paper reporters have been arrested. Police conducted nighttime raids searching homes for water protesters and arresting as many as 20 people.
The local police chief has been installed as state governor. The "emergency government" now consists of a president (Hugo Banzer), a governor (Walter Cespedes) and a mayor (Manfred Reyes Villa), each of whom is a graduate of the notorious School of the Americas in Ft. Benning, Georgia (infamous for training foreign military personnel in terror and assassination techniques).

Rural blockades erected by farmers have cut some cities off from food and transportation. Large crowds of angry residents armed with sticks and rocks are massing in the city centers, where confrontations with military and police escalate.

Tear gas has engulfed thousands of demonstrators in downtown Cochabamba, while a large military operation is mobilizing to clear the highways in five of the nation's nine provinces.
All this puts Cochabamba on the front-line in the battle against a globalization of water resources. The Coordiadora de Defense de Aguay la Vida (CDAV, Coalition in Defense of Water and Life), a broad-based collaborative including environmental groups, economists, lawyers, labor unions and local neighborhood organizations, spearheads the campaign to prevent loss of local control over water systems. Its leaders either have been arrested or driven underground.

More:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/South_America/Bolivia_WaterWarVictory.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bechtel Surrenders in Bolivia Water Revolt Case

Engineering giant sought $50 million, settles for thirty cents

January 19, 2006

A Revolt Over Water

In 1997, the World Bank made privatization of the public water system of Bolivia’s third largest city, Cochabamba, a condition of the country receiving further aid for water development. That led, in September 1999, to a 40-year concession granted to a company led by Bechtel. Within weeks of taking over the city’s water, Bechtel’s Bolivian company, Aguas del Tunari, raised rates by more than 50 percent and in many cases much higher.

Bechtel’s price hikes were met with fierce public protest. Cochabamba, a city with a population of more than half a million, was shut down by general strikes three times. In an effort to protect the Bechtel contract, the Bolivian government declared a state of martial law and began arresting protest leaders at their homes in the middle of the night. An unarmed 17 year-old boy was shot and killed by an army sharpshooter. Hundreds of others were injured. In April 2000, Bechtel was forced to leave the country and the water company was returned to public ownership.

In November 2001, Bechtel and its associates filed their case with ICSID at the World Bank. The ICSID process bars the public and media from being present at its proceedings or even disclosing who testifies. For four years citizen groups on five continents waged a global campaign to pressure Bechtel to drop the case. Protesters closed down Bechtel’s San Francisco’s headquarters twice. Company officials were bombarded by e-mails. Citizen groups from 43 nations endorsed a legal petition to the World Bank demanding that the case be opened to public participation. The case also earned substantial notoriety in the international media.

“This is the first time that a major corporation like Bechtel has had to back down from a major trade case as the result of global citizen pressure,” said Jim Shultz, executive director of The Democracy Center in Cochabamba, and a leader of the global effort. “It should signal to corporations contemplating similar legal actions that they should be prepared to defend those actions in the court of global public opinion, not just behind closed doors at the World Bank.”

“This settlement demonstrates the power of public participation,” said Martin Wagner of Earthjustice. “Unfortunately, hundreds of foreign investor challenges against developing countries remain pending and more will be filed as the United States and others continue to force governments to give foreign corporations special privileges. We must continue to tear down the walls of secrecy and exclusivity in international commercial arbitrations like this one.” Wagner drafted the 2002 legal petition on behalf of Bolivian civil society leaders demanding public participation in the Bechtel case.

http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press/006/page.jsp?itemID=27533393

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Timeline: Cochabamba Water Revolt
September 1998
IMF Loan to Bolivia Requires Privatization

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) approves a $138 million loan for Bolivia to help the country control inflation and bolster economic growth. In compliance with IMF-drafted "structural reforms" for the nation, Bolivia agrees to sell off "all remaining public enterprises," including national oil refineries and Cochabamba's local water agency, SEMAPA.

June 1999
World Bank Discourages Water Subsidies
In its Bolivia Public Expenditure Review, an economic report prepared for the country, the World Bank maintains that "no subsidies should be given to ameliorate the increase in water tariffs in Cochabamba." Countries receiving loan assistance from the World Bank and the IMF are often discouraged from heavily subsidizing public services, as such expenditures counteract IMF and World Bank formulas for reducing debt, controlling inflation and attracting foreign investment.

September 1999
Bolivia Leases Cochabamba Water System to Multinational Consortium
After closed-door negotiations, the Bolivian government signs a $2.5 billion contract to hand over Cochabamba's municipal water system to Aguas del Tunari, a multinational consortium of private investors, including a subsidiary of the Bechtel Corporation. Aguas del Tunari was the sole bidder for the privatization of Cochabamba's water system.

October 1999
Aguas del Tunari Announces Its Plans; Bolivia Legalizes Water Privatization
On October 11, Aguas del Tunari officially announces that it has been awarded 40-year concession rights to provide water and sanitation services to the residents of Cochabamba. The consortium also announces that it will generate electrical energy and irrigation water for the region's agricultural sector. The major shareholder of Aguas del Tunari, Bechtel subsidiary International Water Ltd., claims that water delivery coverage and sewage connection will increase by at least 93 percent by the fifth year of private water management in Cochabamba. That same month, the Bolivian parliament passes Law 2029 (the Drinking Water and Sanitation Law), which allows for the privatization of state drinking water and sewage disposal services. In effect, the law would make residents pay full cost for water services in Cochabamba.

January 2000
Rising Water Prices Spark Cochabamba Protests
Cochabamba protesters shut down the city for four days, going on strike and erecting roadblocks throughout the city. Residents protest the privatization of their municipally run water system and Aguas del Tunari's rate hikes, which have doubled and tripled their water bills. Aguas del Tunari had informed Bolivian officials that water rates would increase only by 35 percent, to cover the cost of expanding water delivery and to upgrade the city's water infrastructure.

February 4-5, 2000
Peaceful Protests Turn Violent
Fed up with government inaction, The Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life (La Coordinadora), led by union organizer and antiglobalization activist Oscar Olivera, makes a peaceful demonstration march to Cochabamba's city plaza.The march is marred by violence for 2 days -- riot police meet demonstrators with tear gas, injuring an estimated 175 and blinding two.
February 8, 2000

Word of the"War Over Water" Hits Western Press
"A War Over Water," an "on-the-scene" report on the clash between riot police and protesters in Cochabamba, is published by Pacific News Service correspondent Jim Shultz, who also serves as executive director of the Cochabamba-based The Democracy Center. Shultz will come to play a major role in educating the public and the Western media about events in Cochabamba by helping to expose the Bechtel Corporation's involvement and organizing a mass email-writing campaign directed to Bechtel's CEO, Riley Bechtel, to protest the company's actions.

March 22, 2000
La Coordinadora Holds Unofficial Referendum - 96 Percent Want Out
La Coordinadora holds an unofficial referendum in which an overwhelming majority -- 96 percent of 50,000 voters -- disapproves of water privatization and Aguas del Tunari's water contract in Cochabamba. Government officials refuse to consider terminating the contract.

April 3, 2000
Protests Spread Beyond Cochabamba Borders
Protests originating in Cochabamba's central plaza spread to La Paz and other cities and outlying rural communities. Thousands clash with riot police, erect roadblocks, and protest not only the water-rate hikes but the country's overall economic malaise and high unemployment.

April 6, 2000
La Coordinadora Leader Arrested
In what water protest leader and La Coordinadora spokesperson Oscar Olivera claims was a "trap," Olivera and his colleagues agree to meet with government officials in Cochabamba about the water-rate hikes. Police descend upon the meeting with Cochabamba's mayor, the governor and other civic leaders, briefly arresting Olivera and other coalition activists present at the talks.
April 8, 2000

State of Siege: 17-Year-Old Boy Shot Dead
President Hugo Banzer declares a "state of siege," a condition similar to martial law, which can be enacted for 90 days under the Bolivian constitution. It allows for the arrest and detention of individuals without warrants and the enforcement of curfews and travel restrictions. A 17-year-old boy, Victor Hugo Daza, is shot dead by a Bolivian Army captain who opened fire into a crowd of demonstrators. In March 2002, the captain -- allegedly trained by the School of the Americas, a U.S. military academy that has trained tens of thousands of Latin American soldiers, intelligence officers and law enforcement officials in combat tactics -- would be acquitted by a military tribunal.

April 9, 2000
Ammunition, Tear Gas, Injuries and Deaths
Riot police continue to assault protesters with live ammunition and tear gas. Police mutiny in La Paz and Santa Cruz to protest low wages. The April protests will leave six dead and dozens injured and forcibly detained by authorities.

April 10, 2000
Bolivian Government Changes Course - Gives Control to La Coordinadora
The latest wave of protest-related violence culminates in a historic victory for the residents of Cochabamba and their supporters. After four days in hiding, Oscar Olivera signs an agreement with the Bolivian government that guarantees the withdrawal of Aguas del Tunari, grants control of Cochabamba's water to La Coordinadora (the grassroots coalition led by Olivera), assures the release of detained protesters, and promises the repeal of water privatization legislation. Legislation that would have charged peasants for water drawn from local wells is also removed.

More:
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/bolivia/timeline.html

~~~~~~~~~~~

http://1worldcommunication.org.nyud.net:8090/CochabambaShooter.jpg

Sharpshooter brought in by the government to gun down protesters
during water protests in Cochabamba, Bolivia, as they protested
privatization and exploitation by a subsidiary of the Bechtel Corp.

[MrModerate]

4. My bad . . . what I meant to say was . . .

"Good luck with that seizure of assets thing," because regardless of how inept and corrupt the current electrical generation consortium is, the change of ownership will actually put rapacious bureaucrats in effective control and they'll be unable to either distribute electric power efficiently or prevent each other from stealing anything that's not nailed down.

A la Cochabama.

I garbled the term "nationalization" because Cochabama failed not solely because of the foreign investors (although they behaved in phenomenally stupid ways that cost lots of them their jobs), but because provincial and national officials with the power to deform the deal insisted on insane terms for the handover, under the mistaken impression that it would fill their pockets faster.

Now -- maybe -- those folks are gone. Certainly Morales has painted them as the enemy since he emerged. But their brothers and cousins are still around, and in that sense "nationalization" of the electric grid will be indistinguishable from "privatization."

[Peace Patriot]

5. Morales nationalized the gas industry and DOUBLED the revenues from $1 billion/yr

to $2 billion/yr (!)--profit that is being used to benefit the extremely poor majority--with education, medical care, pensions for the elderly, infrastructure development and land reform. President Lula da Silva of Brazil (one of the Bolivia's chief gas customers) praised the Morales government's management of the gas industry for efficiently delivering the gas, even in the face of a U.S. (Bushwhack) supported fascist insurrection this last September (aimed at splitting off the gas/oil provinces into fascist mini-states in control of the resources).

I think you underestimate the Morales government, and the revolution that it represents. It is comparable to the "New Deal" in busting up the corrupt power cabals of the previous era, and bringing fresh talent into the government who are inspired to do things right on behalf of the people. Yeah, any government and any political system can become corrupt. That's why democracy is such a great idea. It structures the potential for change (fresh talent, new ideas, entry of the non-corrupt) into the system.

I think you should take note of the last phrase in this paragraph from the article: "New Energy Minister Oscar Coca said he inherited a blueprint for nationalizing the power industry from his predecessor Saul Avalos, who in turn told reporters the plan included all power generating and distributing facilities formerly owned by Bolivia's National Electricity Co., or ENDE, which was privatized in the early 1990s."

Nationalization of essential resources and their delivery to the people and/or sale of some of it for profit has been a common occurrence in Latin America (and, indeed, in many other places--in both developed and un-developed countries). This is not new and it is not communism. It is most often a socialist measure for the good of the country in a mixed socialist/capitalist economy. But what happened in the 1990s, with Clinton, "free trade," NAFTA, the World Bank/IMF and "neo-liberalism," is that, in a "shock and awe" economic regime imposed by the World Bank and the U.S. on third world countries, these national assets were sold to multinational corporations dirt cheap, by political elites in the various countries that were quite as corrupt as our extremely corrupt, two-party Demorepublican system.

Enter Evo Morales, and the grass roots movement for Bolivian sovereignty, and the water war with Bechtel. Morales was elected to reverse neo-liberalism, and to restore the country's sovereign control of its resources. That is his mandate, along with equal rights, at long last, for Bolivia's indigenous majority (--inflicted with slavery, extreme poverty, bigotry and exclusion, by the rich white minority in Bolivia, which created one of the poorest, most backward countries in the hemisphere, due in part to the exclusion of all that potential talent and energy). Morales and his supporters on on fire for reform the way the New Deal was (which arguably created the most sustained non-corrupt government the U.S. has ever seen). They are viscerally opposed to corruption--the way the New Dealers were. They will renew the country--and are renewing it, and setting it on a good course. They've already attracted big and practical support from Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Venezuela. Chile just granted the Morales government access to the sea--ending a 100+ year old dispute that had left Bolivia landlocked. Brazil and Venezuela are funding a new highway from Brazil's Atlantic coast all across the continent, through Bolivia, to the Pacific, which will turn Bolivia into a major trade route. The Morales government is doing everything right, and they are fired up with good ideas and love for their country. And they are being helped by new regional cooperation--formalized last year in the new South American 'common market,' UNASUR, which promises to transform South America into a powerhouse economic block, if they stick together and watch each other's backs (as UNASUR did for Morales, when the U.S.-Bushwhacks tried their fascist coup, recently).

These are fresh new people running South American countries--in Bolivia, in Venezuela, in Ecuador, in Paraguay, in Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, Chile. I see friendships among these leaders of the kind that militate against corruption due to peer pressure. (They get scrutinized by each other; they don't want to be seen as corrupt--just the opposite; they have high ideals of public service.) They are all in power in strong democratic systems that subject them to public scrutiny. And they are all popular--and the more leftist they are, the more popular they are. Really, they are very like New Dealers--in this and other ways, including attracting intelligence, competent people into government service. There are a lot of failsafes in place against corruption, that were not present in previous eras/regimes--also failsafes against U.S. interference (which always results in corruption and worse). As I said, any political system can be corrupted, and the old corruption is not entirely purged as yet. There are still pockets of it everywhere. But it sure is amazing to watch real democracy at work--with new leadership, good goals and many new forms of cooperation.