Bolivia's Cochabamba Water War: Indigenous-Led Uprising Forces Reversal of World Bank-Mandated Bechtel Privatization

Indigenous organizations led by CONAIE and the Coalition in Defense of Water and Life (Coordinadora) launch a massive uprising in Cochabamba, Bolivia, blocking roads and marching on the capital to protest World Bank-imposed water privatization. Throughout the 1990s, Bolivia faced increasing pressure from the World Bank to privatize public goods to fulfill loan conditionality. In September 1999, when the auction for Cochabamba’s municipal water system SEMAPA drew only one bidder, the government signed a 40-year concession to Aguas del Tunari, a foreign consortium dominated by Bechtel Corporation. Immediately upon taking control in January 2000, Bechtel doubled and tripled water rates for some of South America’s poorest families in a city of 800,000 residents. Protests erupt across January, February, and April 2000, with tens of thousands marching and battling police. President Hugo Banzer declares a state of siege, suspending constitutional guarantees. From February 4-6, soldiers and riot police unleash teargas and clubs on demonstrators, injuring 175 and blinding 2. On April 8, 2000, seventeen-year-old student Victor Hugo Daza is shot in the face and killed by Bolivian Army Captain Robinson Iriarte, who was trained in counter-insurgency tactics in the United States. The sustained protests prove successful: on April 10, 2000, Bechtel officials flee the city, the water system is returned to public control, water prices return to pre-2000 levels, and the enabling water law is repealed. Bechtel strikes back through a World Bank secretive trade court, demanding $50 million in compensation, but ultimately withdraws all financial claims in 2006. The Cochabamba Water War becomes a powerful global symbol of successful grassroots resistance to neoliberal shock doctrine, demonstrating how communities can defeat multinational corporations and international financial institutions. Congressman Evo Morales’s prominent role in the protests raises his profile, leading to his election as President in 2005 on an anti-neoliberal platform.