CIADI/Telecom Italia : ¡hands off Bolivia !

7 décembre 2007

“Some multinational companies take over our natural resources, privatize basic services, fail to pay taxes and then, when they have no arguments in their defense, they go to the so-called ICSID. And then, in that World Bank tribunal, no country wins against the multinationals. So why do we need an ICSID where only the multinational companies can win ?” – President Evo Morales of Bolivia

Another World Bank/Multinational Attack on Bolivia – Stop ICISD and Telecom Italia

Once again, Bolivia is under attack by multinationals and the World Bank. In 2000, the people of Cochabamba, Bolivia took back their water system after it was privatized to US based Bechtel Corporation, and prices were hiked up to 300%. Bechtel struck back, suing Bolivia through the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, or ICSID. But pressure from citizens and social organizations around the world succeeded in forcing Bechtel to back off – and the suit was finally dropped.

Now, Telecom Italia – one of the world’s largest telecom operators and the dominant telephone company in Bolivia – has followed suit. The public phone company in Bolivia, ENTEL, was taken over by the Italian company in 1995.

When Bolivia suggested that Telecom Italia has provided faulty service, has not reinvested profits from Bolivia to benefit Bolivians, and then set up a commission to explore recovering control of the once-public company, Telecom went to the World Bank to sue Bolivia. At ICSID Telecom is claiming Bolivia has “destroyed” it’s investment – even though the company continues to operate and make money. Bolivia, having learned from it’s lessons from Cochabamba, pulled out of ICSID on May 2, 2007. Yet the World Bank’s ICSID still admitted the case on October 31st.

After decades of privatizations and corporate privilege, Bolivia is saying “enough” – enough corporate profit before public service, enough World Bank providing private “justice” for multinationals, at the expense of countries like Bolivia.

Bolivia needs your help. Learn about the case, and fight back :

1.Learn more about the Telecom case at ICISD, and how international law and the World Bank/ICSID give corporations “super powers” that can trump people’s rights and development, and why Bolivia left ICSID.

2.Join in calling on ICISD and Telecom Italia to back off.

Please see www.cadtm.org/spip.php?article2975 <http://www.cadtm.org/spip.php?article2975> to get the fulll information
 

Racism has become central to the Right's project to confront the Government and social movements. Fundación Solón convened a conversation of mainly indigenous women from various social movements on the issue of racism and the Constituent Assembly, in which many recounted horrific racist attacks and threats .   more »

Megan Tady (inthesetimes.com).- Bill Lokyo never expected to find himself embroiled in a six-year battle over water with a multinational corporation and city officials in Stockton, Calif. “We all thought this would only be a one-year fight,” Lokyo says.   more »

Elizabeth Peredo welcomes UN declaration on Indigenous Rights as an historic step towards recognising the struggles of indigenous communities for dignity and for enabling a new vision based on solidarity, reciprocity and balance with nature to be heard worldwide.   more »

Good overview of the rising opposition to and the unravelling of the free trade model in Latin America   more »

Elizabeth Peredo Beltrán (Solón Foundation).- “Integration issues are no longer matters for chancellors alone,” Esteban Llanos (President of the Council for the Defense of Rio Pilcomayo, Bolivia) told us with great conviction upon opening a discussion between social representatives about water problems in South America during the thematic session, AGUA, of the Social Summit for the Integration of the Peoples of Cochabamba (December 6-9, 2006).   more »

U.S. citizens, in an act of international solidarity, wrote hundreds of letters to Mr. Antoine Kuhn, the Director of Aguas del Illimani in La Paz, Bolivia urging the company to pay its debts and leave Bolivia without demanding compensation or filing lawsuits, announced the international consumer organization Food & Water Watch. The letters will be hand delivered tomorrow to the Aguas del Illimani office in La Paz, Bolivia.   more »

Report on activities in La Paz during Blue October, a worldwide campaign against privatisation of water. Includes proposals by a meeting of Women´s leaders for public policies and the Constituent Assemblyon water.   more »

Carlos Santos from Uruguay argues that global actions in October 2006 marking "Blue Octuber" comes at a time of advance against the commodification of this common resource. It has led to a consolidation of a common agenda at a global scale which includes the promotion of an alternative, public and sustainable water management model.   more »

"We estimate that by December 31, the service [of water in La Paz and El Alto] would be transferred (from Suez to a new state-owned water company)," said Alvaro Camacho, Bolivia's superintendent of water and sewage systems, according to the state news agency ABI.   more »

Children and young people were at the heart of the festival “Water is life, not a commodity” which is taking place in La Paz during Blue October, a month of global resistance to defend water against corporate control.   more »

Maude Barlow met with water activists and the Bolivian Government to launch the idea of an International Convention of Right to Water which would prevent privatisation of this increasingly precious resource.   more »

Susan Spronk analyses the audit of Suez in El Alto, Bolivia which proves that the French multinational´s claims to deliver clean water to poor people was never a priority set against its desire to win profits.   more »

On August 17th, at an historic meeting, civil society groups from North and South met with the Bolivian and Norwegian governments at the Bolivian Ministry of Water in order to advance the international struggle for the right to water forward and commit them to further collaboration.   more »

After 11 years of continual work, the Solon Foundation is changing its leadership but without changing the principles that guide its work, that is giving voice to the discriminated and critical social sectors that challenge huge inequality and call for social transformation.   more »

After a meeting with Bolivian President Evo Morales, the mayor of Paris promised to help improve the water infrastructure in the slum city of El Alto.   more »

Indigenous Communities of San Felipe Ecatapec and Villa de Allende used to have water locally but have increasingly seen sources dry up due to exploitation by bottling companies, deforestation and unequal distribution. Women who have gathered to resist have faced militarised occupation but undaunted took their struggle directly to the World Water Forum in Mexico.   more »

Tres video clips sobre los temas de la privatización del agua, libre comercio y resistencia y arte.

Three video clips on the themes of privatisation of water, free trade and resistance and art

http://www.togethertv.org/people/latin_america/bolivia_maxima.htm

(New York Times) Privatisation has failed to deliver which has given a boost to those activists and governments such as Bolivia that argue that water must be returned and run by local communities and government.   more »

The UN says that water privatisation has failed to deliver in developing countries and calls for Governments to re-assert their role in water management.   more »

Abel Mamani outlines his hopes and the challenges his Ministry will face. He explains that the Bolivian Government's policies on water will be based on the understanding that Water is a human right and must be managed by the State and the community.   more »

Bolivia is likely to end ties with IMF when a lending plan expires on 31 March. The IMF says that it will be a result of Bolivia having alternative financing, but others argue it is evidence of its weakening grip on a continent where its policies have failed to work.   more »

(Knight Ridder news service) Moves by Bolivia's new president to end foreign control of water utilities have drawn the eyes of other South American countries.   more »

“I never dreamed that I would be here,” said Evo Morales as he wore his Presidential sash and gazed out over tens of thousands of celebrating indigenous peoples, throngs of foreign journalists, and over-the-moon MAS party activists. Nick Buxton reflects on the inauguration of President Evo Morales   more »

(Open Veins) Nick Buxton reflects on an unprecedented and historic victory by Evo Morales and his party MAS in the General Elections on 18 December, and the daunting task they have of meeting peoples' expectations in the coming years.   more »

The big prediction is that Evo Morales will emerge as first in the Presidential race this Sunday (18 December). The thought unnerves the US and various economic interests in Bolivia, but will an Evo government be as radical as its rhetoric suggests?   more »

Bolivia faces ten litigations by multinational companies in the coming year, who argue that the Bolivia Government’s actions on water and gas undermine their investors’ rights protected by Bilateral Investment Treaties. Within Bolivia, lawyers have joined forces with Congressman Wilson Magne to challenge the treaties saying they are unconstitutional. Activists have warned that any attempt to sue Bolivia will lead to massive international campaigns against the multinational companies involved.   more »

Bolivia's basic services regulator, SISAB has invited local auditors Pozo y Asociados to carry out an audit of La Paz/El Alto privatised water utility, AISA. The auditor will carry out an economic, commercial, administrative and technical appraisal of Aisa's performance from 1997 to date.   more »

Document produced by FEJUVE (El Alto Residents' Association) in 2004, explaining why the contract that still is in operation today, must be broken with the privatised water utility AISA. An essential background briefing to Bolivia's second "water war."   more »

Fundación Solón opens a new exhibition on the 10th November “Engravings and Castings” by Walter Solón Romero to mark the artist’s birthday as well as 11 years of the Fundación’s existence.   more »