Tom Translates Water Activism
This morning my friend Tom (no blog!), through some random serendipity, found himself acting as translator for a Democracy Now! interview of Bolivian activist Oscar Olivera, who played a significant role in the campaign against Bechtel’s privatization of water in Cochabamba, Bolivia.
The transcript (and audio stream) is here; I encourage you to check it out.
Excerpt:
AMY GOODMAN:
[C]ould you explain . . . what happened in Cochabamba? Talk about what Bechtel tried to do and what the people responded.
OSCAR OLIVERA: [translated]
It’s not that Bechtel tried to do it. They did it. They increased the charges for water, the cost of water, by 300%, so that every family had to pay, for this water service, one-fifth of their income.
AMY GOODMAN:
How did they get control of the water? I mean, here, you turn on the tap. You don’t pay.
OSCAR OLIVERA: [translated]
The government, under a law that was passed, conceded control of the water under a monopoly to Bechtel in a certain area. So that means that Bechtel tried to charge a fee and had the monopoly power over a very basic necessity for people. The law said even that people had to ask, had to obtain a permit to collect rainwater. That means that even rainwater was privatized. The most serious thing was that indigenous communities and farming communities, who for years had their own water rights, those water sources were converted into property that could be bought and sold by international corporations.
