From the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature
Living river on Market St celebrate Bolivian revolt against Bechtel water grab
Date:
Tuesday, April 23, 2002
Time:
3:00 PM
-
6:00 PM
Event Type:
Protest
Organizer/Author:
Location Details:
Assemble 3 PM, City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B Goodlett Place (on Polk, between
McAllister & Grove), San Francisco; 3:30 PM Procession down Market; 5 PM,
Rally and Press Conference, Bechtel HQ, 50 Beale St. (between Market &
Mission), San Francisco.
LIVING RIVER down Market to Protest Water Privatization!!!!
Join Oscar Olivera, the hero of the people's successful revolt against
Bechtel's privatization of the water utility in Cochabamba, Bolivia!!!! Now
Bechtel has filed a $25 million lawsuit against Bolivia for lost future
profits. ***We will be forming a LIVING RIVER with yards of blue cloth that
will flow down Market Street and engulf Bechtel's corporate headquarters,
letting them know that water is a basic human right, not a commodity!!!!****
Assemble 3 PM, City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B Goodlett Place (on Polk, between
McAllister & Grove), San Francisco; 3:30 PM Procession down Market; 5 PM,
Rally and Press Conference, Bechtel HQ, 50 Beale St. (between Market &
Mission), San Francisco. Feel free to be creative: WEAR BLUE! Come as a
MERMAID, WATER NYMPH, TURTLE, or FISH ! BRING A VIAL of water for a WATER
RITUAL! Contact 415-731-7924 chalicenew@earthlink.net to volunteer or for
more info!
San Francisco Bay Guardian
April 17, 2002
Opinion
By, Antonia Juhasz
Bechtel v. Bolivia
Bechtel Corp. celebrated one of the most profitable years in its
100-plus-year history by suing one of the poorest countries in the
world: Bolivia. After raking in $14 billion - nearly double Bolivia's
entire gross domestic product - San Francisco's own multinational
giant is suing the government of Bolivia for $25 million. For its
part, Bolivia celebrated the new year with $3 billion in external
debt and with two thirds of its population living in poverty.
The reason why Bechtel is suing Bolivia is probably familiar
to most readers. How they are doing it is probably not. As a
reminder: In 1999, at the behest of the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund, Bolivia's third-largest city,
Cochabamba, privatized its water system. There was just one bidder:
a consortium called Aguas del Tunari, whose controlling partner was
International Water, a British firm that was then wholly owned by
Bechtel (an Italian company later bought a half interest). Taking
control of Cochabamba's water was part of Bechtel's plan to position
itself as an international leader in water privatization, which also
includes forming partnerships with other global water giants and
investing billions of dollars to acquire interests in water
privatization companies around the world. Bechtel is already a
partner on many U.S. municipal water projects, including managing the
reconstruction of San Francisco's infrastructure.
After privatizing Cochabamba's water, Aguas del Tunari raised
fees. In a country where the minimum wage was less than $60 a month,
many users received water bills of $20 a month and more. Families
that had built and used their water wells or irrigation systems for
decades suddenly had to pay Aguas del Tunari for this water. The
people of Cochabamba united to cancel the contract.
One of their leaders, Oscar Olivera, will be in San Francisco
next week to receive a belated Goldman Environmental Prize and join a
protest at Bechtel's headquarters Tuesday, April 23. After attempts
at discourse with the government and the water company were ignored,
the citizens non-violently shut down the city. The government
declared a state of siege, sending more than 1,000 soldiers into the
streets armed with live ammunition, which resulted in the death of a
17-year-old boy, Victor Hugo Daza. Eventually the people prevailed,
and the government agreed to end its contract with Aguas del Tunari
and Bechtel. Most important, the workers, citizens, and local
officials of Cochabamba are now running the water system themselves,
while not perfectly, far more equitably and universally than before.
This could be our happy ending, but Bechtel wants its due.
So it is using a Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) to achieve its
goal. The BIT is the predecessor to the investment chapter, Chapter
11, of the North American Free Trade Agreement. It is under Chapter
11 that the state of California is being sued for trying to protect
our water from a cancer-causing chemical, MTBE, produced by the
Canadian Methanex Corp.
Because the Free Trade Area of the Americas is not yet law
(and hopefully we'll keep it this way), Bechtel has no equivalent
means to get at Bolivia. Fortunately for the company, it happens to
have a holding company in the Netherlands, and the Netherlands just
happens to have a BIT with Bolivia. Also conveniently, the BIT is
argued at the World Bank's own International Court for the Settlement
of Investment Disputes. Remember that it was the World Bank that
opened the door for Bechtel's entry in to Bolivia in the first place.
Negotiations to include similar investment provisions at the World
Trade Organization are currently underway. Bechtel's suit gives us
just one more reason to fight those agreements. Given the small
amount of money involved in this suit - at least for Bechtel - we can
only assume that it is meant as a warning to the people of the world,
including San Francisco, not to follow the lead of Cochabamba's
"water warriors." Are we going to listen?
Antonia Juhasz is project director at the San Francisco-based
International Forum on Globalization. To learn more go to
http://www.ifg.org or e-mail her at ajuhasz@ifg.org.
=========================================
"The future will have no pity for those who, possessing the
exceptional privilege to speak words of truth to the oppressor,
instead take refuge in cynical indifference and cold complicity." --
Frantz Fanon
Pessimism is a luxury that must be saved for better times.
Antonia Juhasz
Project Director
International Forum on Globalization
1009 General Kennedy Avenue #2
San Francisco, CA 94129
phone: 415-561-3490
fax: 415-561-7651
http://www.ifg.org
WHEN SPIDERS UNITE, THEY CAN TIE DOWN A LION -- Ethiopian Proverb
Added to the calendar on Tue, Feb 3, 2004 10:24AM
Add Your Comments
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!
Get Involved
If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.
Publish
Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.
Topics
More
Search Indybay's Archives
Advanced Search
►
▼
IMC Network