When a large U.S. corporation privatized water supplies in Bolivia and tripled water prices, the country’s 90-percent indigenous population exploded into action. The “water war” was the beginning of a new movement for indigenous autonomy.
From the heights of the mountain called Alto Cochabamba you can see over the entire city of Cochabamba in the subtropical central region of Bolivia.
The inhabitants of this South American city have become famous for their “Water War.” The conflict saw them and the many surrounding indigenous Quechua farmer communities successfully challenge big business takeover of local water systems.
As I stood among community members, it wasn’t difficult to imagine the streets below filled with angry protestors. I could picture the road blockades that had shut down the region and paralyzed the country several times earlier this year.
Local community leader Don Rogelio turns to me and explains, “We have always had control over our water systems. We still live according to our traditional practices and ‘the water is ours, damn it!” he says, repeating the slogan that had lead the protests.
The struggle against the privatization of natural resources is nothing new for indigenous peoples across the continent, who have seen their lands stolen, plundered and “industrialized” since colonial times. It continues unabated, as multinational companies look to exploit “untapped” markets. In Bolivia, water is the present target and First Peoples are leading the fight against it.
Water is life and life is not for sale
Below the neighbourhood water tank, the discussion among community members moves from Quechua to Spanish. They talk about the work brigades that are rebuilding rotten water pipelines. A public worker arrives to check the water level. The water is low – but spirits are high. Don Rogelio says, “People are proud. Everyone is participating in local water committees and assemblies to solve the problem.”
In 1995, under pressure from the World Bank to “restructure” the economy, the Bolivian government passed a law to reform all water systems. Under the new water resource law, a tax was imposed on water extraction.
This legal manoeuver paved the way to moneymaking ventures. In late 1999, public water facilities in the city of Cochabamba were sold off to one of the world’s leading companies in water commercialization – San Francisco-based Bechtel Enterprises and its British-Spanish partners. (Yes, that’s the same Bechtel that was involved in the James Bay hydro-electric project.)
A bylaw was passed obliging the entire region to hook up to Bechtel’s pipelines. Company shares were divvied out to local politicians. Another monopoly was consolidated; once again the people were disenfranchised.
In the countryside, access and control over water are vital to many communities that have their own irrigation co-operatives for farming. Out of a population of 8 million, 90 percent of Bolivians are First Peoples. Most eke out a living as subsistence farmers or cash-crop migrant workers.
The two main peoples are the Quechua (30 percent of the population) and the Aymara (25 percent). They mainly inhabit the Andean highlands in western Bolivia and span into the central area were Cochabamba is located in a fertile region rich in fruits and vegetables.
The eastern tropical regions of Amazon jungle are home to many groups. The major linguistic group are the Guarani (5 percent of the population). A small black population, descendents from the colonial slave trade, lives in an area near the Amazon jungle.
For several years, the indigenous organization called the Federation of Irrigation Cooperatives (La Federación de Regantes) has actively opposed the confiscation of their water systems by the state. The federation, which represents over 10,000 communities in the Cochabamban region, says the new water legislation violates First Peoples ancestral jurisdiction recognized by international law and threatens indigenous autonomy.
The communities also protested the environmental destruction caused by international companies coming into the area to drill for new water supplies to service urban areas. Community wells were drying up and the earth was collapsing.
From the rural communities the alarm over water quickly spread to city neighbourhoods. Most poor neighbourhoods (typically indigenous people who come to the city to find work) get water only sporadically, twice a day or as little as twice a week. Some neighbourhoods don’t get any city service at all; people there are forced to buy barreled water
from street-vendors. On the other hand, wealthy neighborhoods can rely on a 24-hour water supply.
The sale of the city’s water system to Bechtel & Co. brought a whopping 300-per-cent hike in rates for the same service. Especially amazing was that Bechtel paid a minuscule $20,000 U.S. for the water system. Meanwhile, the contract guaranteed the company $25 to 45 million in compensation for profit loss in case of termination!
A Quechua woman active in Alto Cochabamba’s water committee said, “People said, ‘How long are we going to let them get away with this?’… Everyone knew that the government and the multinationals wanted to take our water from us. But it’s ours.”
But the governing elite and their financial backers didn’t expect the immense resistance that would explode into widespread uprisings. The protests, which continue today, put Bolivia in the international spotlight.
A strong alliance between rural indigenous people and city residents gave birth to a grassroots Coordinating Committee for the Defense of Life and Water (La Coordinadora). The group represents indigenous organizations, neighbourhood citizens’ groups, trade unions, environmental groups and students’ associations.
La Coordinadora launched into action at the beginning of this year with a successful four-day general strike. The action shut down Cochabamba and surrounding rural areas in January. Angry protestors occupied the streets, blocked off highways and invaded the city’s central plaza with popular assemblies. The government was forced to the negotiating table. But subsequent talks between La Coordinadora’s spokespeople and government representatives broke down, and La Coordinadora announced a popular mobilization for February 4.
As I listened to the story, a young man in the group proudly announced to me, “La Coordinadora raises the voice of the people to defend our rights and our wishes.” It was clear that La Coordinadora is widely respected.
On the way to Alto Cochabamba, the taxi driver was chatting with my companion, Oscar Olivera, a spokesperson for La Coordinadora and a trade unionist.
“I was playing soccer with my son on the blockaded streets when we got news that people needed food. We went to the big commercial supermarket and started taking out food to give to people,” said the taxi driver, as both men reminisced about the complete shutdown of the region that had made food scarce.
Everywhere I visited in the city of Cochabamba, people identified with La Coordinadora. The recognition it commands is not only based on the results of successful protest actions, but is due to the grassroots democratic process it embodies.
Its inclusive horizontal structure works through consultations with the people and finding consensus, a process directly influenced by indigenous culture.
“The backbone of La Coordindaora is the Federation of Irrigation Cooperatives of the Quechua communities,” explained Oscar Olivera, the La Coordinadora spokesperson.
“The Aymara-Quechua culture is rooted in deliberation and discussion. So the conditions for everyone to participate in the decision-making process and the action are important. We continue to build on this as neighbourhood assemblies meet to deal with local problems and needs.”
The success of the Water War is tightly linked to the Aymara-Quechua struggle for self-determination, which has grown into a national movement over the last two decades. Until recently, the Left has dominated most of Latin America’s resistance movements in this century. But this dominance has now given way to a strong assertion of First Peoples’ cultural identity and communal power.
The indigenous movement offers an alternative way to organize, challenging the very existence of the state system. La Coordinadora effectively merged the ideas of the indigenous self-determination movement with popular outcry against water privatization.
In so doing, it tapped into a long history of indigenous resistance that goes back hundreds of years.
A different concept of power
Historically, the Aymara and Quechua have been organized and militant since colonial domination first took root in the Andean region. During the 1780s, the two peoples fought under the command of anti-colonialist warriors Tupac Katari and the well-known indigenous woman leader T’alla Bartolina Sisa.
By the 1930s, landless indigenous people were enslaved on large plantations and in dangerous tin mines; they continued the struggle under the motto “the land belongs to those who work it.”
A revolution in 1952 forced the state to adopt measures to quell popular rebellion. The government gave indigenous people citizenship, the right to vote, the right to education and passed a land reform that handed them back some plantation lands. The state also created labour and peasant unions, which were used to organize and control the majority of the population.
Today, well-organized actions and coordinated campaigns have strengthened the political leverage of the First Peoples to confront the state on issues of indigenous rights and self-determination. Although there are differences over how to achieve self-determination, the strength of the movement lies in the indigenous cultural concept of power and authority.
A person of authority in Aymara and Quechua cultures is called a Mallku, translated i as “condor.” A community leader explained to me that a Mallku “serves his people at his own expense… There are obligations one must fulfil, different tasks that you perform when you lend yourself to the community. You’re not living off the people like politicians of the state.”
Community authorities are chosen based on a rotating system, earning their way through a series of community duties. If community members are not satisfied with the performance of the individual, the person relinquishes their tasks.
The Water War made an important link between First Peoples’ struggles and Bolivians who fight against injustices. La Coordinadora drew from past lessons and adopted strategies used in the struggle for territorial recognition.
One of the highlights of this struggle was the 1990 March of the Century for Territory and Dignity. This march brought together the Highland and Amazonian peoples in a massive march for the first time in Bolivian history.
The action made First Nations demands visible to Bolivian society as they marched from all corners of the country to descend on the seat of parliament in La Paz. Mass mobilizations, hunger strikes and roadblocks were useful pressure tactics to bring the government to the bargaining table and put First Peoples’ demands on the political agenda.
One of the main demands is rebuilding the traditional territorial organization of the 4 Aymara and Quechua peoples. The territory of Bolivia used to go by the name of Qullasuyu in the language of the indigenous peoples. Several associated communities made up a regional unit called an Ayllu; several ayllus made up a Marka; and several markas constituted the suyu.
Aymara and Quechua land used to cover parts of Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Chile and Argentina.
The Water War
When indigenous resistance culminated in the Water War this year, the Bolivian government reacted harshly.
On February 4, President Banzer sent more than 1,000 army and police officials to “protect the public” from the violence of so-called “fringe” protestors. Banzer was well-known as an ex-general in Bolivia’s brutal military dictatorship during the 1970s.
The demonstration was declared illegal, but thousands of people defiantly marched toward police lines, rocks in hand. They were met with tear gas and rubber bullet attacks. More than 175 protesters were injured and two youths blinded.
Government officials, reluctant to break the contract with Bechtel, tried to avoid a settlement. In the end, the protests forced the Bolivian government to promise lower water prices, change the water law and review the contract with Bechtel.
But there was a lack of concrete results in ensuing months. La Coordinadora was spurred to declare an indefinite blockade and general strike on April 4 that would later be famously dubbed the ‘Water War.” The protestors wanted the multinationals out and were determined to succeed.
In the city of Cochabamba, people bought supplies to prepare for the days ahead. People in the countryside tried to finish harvesting crops. Road blockades went up everywhere and the streets of Cochabamba filled with protestors once again.
“We set up the barricades and sat chatting all day long,” a Quechua woman remembers. “At night others would come to relieve us. Women would weave and men would play soccer. The soldiers just looked at us. I think they were scared.”
The blockades were also a place for assemblies. People would gather to define action plans and announce updates on events throughout the region.
Everyone quickly points out the inclusiveness of the protests. The action involved men and women, the old and young, wage-earners and homeless – but it was mainly led by women and the youth. “People began to organize amongst themselves, taking the lead and instigating the mobilization,” the Quechua woman says.
Many street kids participated as well. They called themselves Water Warriors and formed an alliance with university students to defend themselves against the onslaught of tear gas and bullets with home-made slingshots.
“We organized quickly without really knowing how to, but some old men gave us advice,” said one Water Warrior. “You see, a lot of kids feel like they are failures already at 11 or 12 years old when they start working, shining shoes or whatever. The future of Bolivia are the youth, but there are more youth on the streets than in the university.”
On the third day of the shutdown, efforts for negotiations were used as a trick to trap spokespeople for La Coordinadora, who were arrested and sent to a remote prison in the jungle. A state of emergency was declared that resulted in the restriction of movement, freedom of association and freedom of the press, banning of gatherings of three or more people, and searches of homes without warrant.
Outrage grew and protests multiplied as solidarity actions broke out in five of Bolivia’s nine provinces, all demanding that the President resign.
In the capital of La Paz, low-ranking policemen went on a hunger strike for increased wages while students took to the streets. Elsewhere, rural teachers went on strike, major peasant organizations blocked highways throughout Bolivia and thousands of coca-growers mobilized into action.
“Solidarity was rekindled. People you didn’t know were bringing you food. Pharmacies were open to hand out bicarbonate so you wouldn’t cry (from tear gas),” said the Quechua woman.
The violent clashes between state security forces and protestors left seven dead, 88 wounded and 42 imprisoned. In an Aymara area called Achacachi, two soldiers and a captain were among the dead. The government siege lasted 11 days.
A settlement was then reached on April 10, more than three months after mobilizations had first begun. The government agreed to return the water system to public hands and change legislation to protect local control over water.
A committee with representatives from the municipal government, water facility and La Coordinadora was set up to discuss future plans for a cooperative managed by neighborhood assemblies.
But the protestors’ vision goes beyond this, says La Coordinadora’s spokesperson Oscar Olivera. “People are saying, ‘So the multinational corporation is going? That doesn’t change our living conditions. If we want social justice, we have to take things into our own hands.’ We’re talking about other ways to construct our lives,” he says.
In a country where 70 percent of the population lives in conditions of extreme poverty, people continue to build their vision of a society rooted in reciprocity and direct democracy.
As I sat with a couple of Water Warriors, I realized how their life had changed dramatically in the last few months. They went from getting by on the streets to taking to the streets.
These kids who had once shined shoes were now discussing the layout for a new project — a mural newspaper that would provide information to local water committees with updates and reports from the entire region. They were working side by side with university students and neighbourhood water committee members around a table, just as they had organized together during the protests.
One Water Warrior stressed that the goal of the mural newspaper is that it be accessible to everyone, “ft has to be convenient for people to read, posted where they are doing their daily routines – waiting for the bus or in the local clinic,” he said.
But faced with a government held hostage by international bankers and investors, the Water Warriors are forced to suspend their project to participate in the massive mobilizations that shut down seven of the nine provinces during the months of September and October.
The Water War set in motion a new kind of solidarity and lay the groundwork for coordinated protest actions, emphasizing “unity in diversity.” Teachers, trade unions, transport workers and national indigenous organizations initiated open-ended general strikes that were reinforced by widespread highway blockades. Important public and economic sites were occupied, such as gas and oil fields, airports, central plazas and streets.
For more than three weeks, the country was completely paralyzed. Airlifts brought in supplies to areas that experienced complete food shortages. Big companies like Coca-Cola suspended operations for fear of becoming the target of protests, while some businesses urged a military solution.
More than 20,000 army and police forces were deployed to clear highways and disperse protestors. Many were detained, 100 were wounded and 11 died from live bullets. Protestors perfected their actions as bike messengers traveled from one site to the next, passing on reports from those who kept a watch on military deployments. People hid, only to return hours later and rebuild the roadblocks that had been cleared by the army.
A Bolivian friend living in La Paz writes to me, “The Aymara and Quechua made us see that they are a majority in this country and that they produce the food. Beyond their economic demands, there was a strong sense of victory that underscored the strengthening of a national resistance against a racist state. The memory of past Aymara rebellions flourished.”
The resistance continues as government officials stall and attempt to negotiate individual deals while protestors wait to see results. But Bolivians can no longer deny or avoid the process of a people determined to be the subjects of their own destiny. After the Water War, Bolivia will never be the same.
This is the fifth of our seven-part series on First Nations peoples in Latin America. Montreal filmmaker Mary Ellen Davis is the project coordinator of this special series of stories.
Produced with the support of the Government of Canada through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
