Alternative Globalization Addressing Peoples and Earth

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successful resistance against water privatization involves the people of
Cochabamba, Bolivia. In 1999, in compliance with an IMF conditionality,
Cochabamba’s water and sewage supply was privatized through a 40-year
lease to Aguas del Tunari, partly-owned by the US water giant Bechtel.
The privatization was quickly followed by a hike in rates that doubled or
tripled people’s water bills. Families faced monthly bills of more than US
$20 to be paid from earnings of under $ 100 a month. In the first of many
protest demonstrations, the people of Cochabamba closed down the city
in a four-day strike and blockade. From February 2000, the Coalition for
the Defence of Water and Life (La Coordinadora) led further peaceful
demonstrations, marred by violence and death. In an unofficial referendum,
96 percent of 50,000 votes disapproved of water privatization and the
company’s water contract. By April 2000, the Bolivian government had
declared martial law. After the arrest of the protest leaders , and the death
of a protestor, the Bolivian government withdrew the contract, reduced
water rates and transferred control of Cochabamba’s water to La
Coordinadora.
Bechtel then launched a US$25-million-dollar claim against the Bolivian
government at the World Bank’s little-known arbitration centre for
expropriation of its investment, pursuant of a bilateral investment
agreement between Bolivia and Holland. This action in turn prompted a
massive international outcry that brought bilateral investment agreements
into even greater disrepute, and reportedly forced the company to back
down. The success of the people’s resistance in Cochabamba and their
communally operated water services have become the icon for a growing
international campaign against the privatization of water, the source of
life.
Any viable alternative for the future must fulfil the criteria of social and
ecological justice, enabling life in dignity in just and sustainable
communities for generations to come. The present level of accelerated
resource extraction and energy consumption cannot be sustained in the
longer term. It is an utter illusion to believe that the dominant economic
model can offer a future for all.
In the economy of God, social life is an uninterrupted circulation of goods
and services, concretely expressing human beings’ complementary life and
obligatory solidarity. This circulation is assured by economic exchanges as
one form of social solidarity. As long as it is faithful to its original mandate,
economic exchange is a concrete, visible and necessary expression of
people’s solidarity. It implies a permanent exchange among peoples - a
reciprocity that binds them one to another.