Here in this small Andean nation of 10 million people, the glaciers are melting, threatening the water supply of the largest urban area in the country, El Alto and La Paz, with 3.5 million people living at altitudes over 10,000 feet. I flew from El Alto International, the world\u2019s highest commercial airport, to the city of Cochabamba.<\/p>\n
Bolivian President Evo Morales calls Cochabamba the heart of Bolivia. It was here, 10 years ago this month, that, as one observer put it, \u201cthe first rebellion of the 21st century\u201d took place. In what was dubbed the Water Wars, people from around Bolivia converged on Cochabamba to overturn the privatization of the public water system. As Jim Shultz, founder of the Cochabamba-based Democracy Center, told me, \u201cPeople like a good David-and-Goliath story, and the water revolt is David not just beating one Goliath, but three. We call them the three Bs: Bechtel, Banzer and the Bank.\u201d The World Bank, Shultz explained, coerced the Bolivian government, under President Hugo Banzer, who had ruled as a dictator in the 1970s, to privatize Cochabamba\u2019s water system. The multinational corporation Bechtel, the sole bidder, took control of the public water system.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, I walked around the Plaza Principal, in central Cochabamba, with Marcela Olivera, who was out on the streets 10 years ago. I asked her about the movement\u2019s original banner, hanging for the anniversary, that reads, in Spanish, \u201cEl agua es nuestra, carajo!\u201d\u2014\u201cThe water is ours, damn it!\u201d Bechtel was jacking up water rates. The first to notice were the farmers, dependent on irrigation. They appealed for support from the urban factory workers. Oscar Olivera, Marcela\u2019s brother, was their leader. He proclaimed, at one of their rallies, \u201cIf the government doesn\u2019t want the water company to leave the country, the people will throw them out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marcela recounted: \u201cOn the 4th of February, we called the people to a mobilization here. We call it \u2018la toma de la plaza,\u2019 the takeover of the plaza. It was going to be the meeting of the people from the fields, meeting the people from the city, all getting together here at one time\u2026. The government said that that wasn\u2019t going to be allowed to happen. Several days before this was going to happen, they sent policemen in cars and on motorcycles that were surrounding the city, trying to scare the people. And the actual day of the mobilization, they didn\u2019t let the people walk even 10 meters, and they started to shoot them with gases.\u201d The city was shut down by the coalition of farmers, factory workers and coca growers, known as cocaleros.<\/em> Unrest and strikes spread to other cities. During a military crackdown and state of emergency declared by then-President Banzer, 17-year-old Victor Hugo Daza was shot in the face and killed. Amid public furor, Bechtel fled the city, and its contract with the Bolivian government was canceled.<\/p>\n The cocaleros<\/em> played a crucial role in the victory. Their leader was Evo Morales. The Cochabamba Water Wars would eventually launch him into the presidency of Bolivia. At the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen, he called for the most rigorous action on climate change.<\/p>\n After the summit, Bolivia refused to support the U.S.-brokered, nonbinding Copenhagen Accord. Bolivia\u2019s ambassador to the U.N., Pablo Solon, told me that, as a result, \u201cwe were notified, by the media, that the United States was cutting around $3 million to $3.5 million for projects that have to do with climate change.\u201d Instead of taking U.S. aid money for climate change, Bolivia is taking a leadership role in helping organize civil society and governments, globally, with one goal\u2014to alter the course of the next major U.N. climate summit, set for Cancun, Mexico, in December.<\/p>\n Which is why more than 15,000 people from more than 120 countries have gathered here this week of Earth Day, at the People\u2019s World Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. Morales called for the gathering to give the poor and the Global South an opportunity to respond to the failed climate talks in Copenhagen.<\/p>\n Ambassador Solon explained the reasoning behind this people\u2019s summit:<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are asking me how this is coming from a small country like Bolivia. I am the ambassador to the U.N. I know this institution. If there is no pressure from civilian society, change will not come from the U.N. The other pressure on governments comes from transnational corporations. In order to counteract that, we need to develop a voice from the grass roots.\u201d<\/p>\n ____________________<\/em><\/p>\n Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.<\/em><\/p>\n Amy Goodman is the host of \u201cDemocracy Now!,\u201d a daily international TV\/radio news hour airing on more than 800 stations in North America. She is the author of \u201cBreaking the Sound Barrier,\u201d recently released in paperback and now a New York Times best-seller.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a9 2010 Amy Goodman<\/em><\/p>\n Distributed by King Features Syndicate<\/em><\/p>\n Bolivian President Evo Morales calls Cochabamba the heart of Bolivia. It was here, 10 years ago this month, that, as one observer put it, \u201cthe first rebellion of the 21st century\u201d took place. In what was dubbed the Water Wars, people from around Bolivia converged on Cochabamba to overturn the privatization of the public water system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5010\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"