Bolivia--call for moratorium on water privatization
DATE: Tue, 16 May 2000 15:30:23

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Forwarded from:
http://www.igc.org/trac/headlines/2000/136.html

Bolivia: Activists Call for Moratorium on
World Bank Water Privatisation Projects
Public Services International

Press release

April 14, 2000

A group of global organisations today called on the World Bank for a
moratorium on water privatisation projects, in the wake of the killing of at
least three people in Cochabamba, Bolivia this week. The demonstrators were
demanding an end to the water privatisation, sponsored and financed by the
World Bank, which had resulted in an immediate huge price increase for water
supplies to the people of Cochabamba.

The new private owners of Cochabamba's water supply are the giant US
construction corporation Bechtel, Italian group Montedison, Spanish
construction company Abengoa, and four Bolivian companies.

The killings followed over three months of demonstrations against the price
rises, and demands for the scrapping of the privatisation. Last week the
Bolivian government declared a state of emergency and ordered troops into
Cochabamba, in defence of the privatisation.

Hans Engelberts, PSI General Secretary, said today:

"Three deaths for water privatisation is three too many. We want to see a
moratorium, now, on World Bank sponsorship of water privatisation. The only
beneficiaries of privatising this vital service are the multinationals - the
local people always pay the price of their profits. Now, in Cochabamba, the
price of privatisation includes the lives of three people."

The group also called for an end to the inclusion of water PRIVATIZATION as
part of IMF conditionality.

Bill Lucy, PSI President, said in Washington:

"The IMF has been including water privatisation as one of the requirements
for its loans, especially in Africa, where Mozambique and Kenya, among other
countries, have been forced to privatise their urban water services to
multinational companies. This imposes an extra burden on the people to pay
for the multinationals' profits at a time when these countries are supposed
to be benefitting from debt relief."

Bechtel, the leading company in this consortium, is a giant global
construction company. It is involved in many construction projects,
including controversial private power stations in India and Indonesia, which
are financed by 20 year contracts to buy the power at a price that
guarantees profits. Bechtel is no stranger to the use of ruthless tactics to
protect the company's investments against local protestors.

In March this year, a major water conference organised by the World Bank and
the multinational corporations at The Hague backfired when unions and NGOs
combined to persuade most people, including government representatives, to
reject the Bank's recipe of privatisation and commercialisation.

Jamie Dunn, of the Council of Canadians, said:

"The World Bank and the multinationals found out at The Hague that
communities around the world are not prepared to allow the fundamental human
right to water and sanitation to be sold for profit. What has now happened
in Bolivia is an atrocity, committed on behalf of the World Bank and the
multinationals, in the face of popular opposition. As fellow Americans, we
call for this continent to become a privatisation-free zone, where water is
recognised as a human right, not a source of profits for foreign
multinationals."

The Cochabamba water privatisation was centered on a major engineering
project, involving river diversions, funded by the World Bank. The price
rises were driven by the requirement to fund the profits on this
engineering.

Patrick McCully of International Rivers Network said:

"The water of Bolivia is being canalised and channelled into the balance
sheets of Bechtel, Montedison and Abengoa. This project, and others like it,
should be halted while a complete reappraisal of the environmental, economic
and social sustainability of water supply schemes is completed."

For more information, see the website:
http://www.americas.org/News/Features/200004_Bolivia_Water/Shultz_and_Kruse.
htm

For further information, contact:

David Boys : +334 50 40 11 65 or +336 07 09 26 47

Jamie Dunn : +1613 233-4487 x 239 or +1613 290-2398