Almost ten years later, Bolivia remains highly indebted and the consequences of its agreement to privatise its water supplies has brought about a major rebellion by citizens of El Alto and raised serious questions about the IMF and World Bank's supposed commmitment to democracy.

The residents of Alto (Fejuve) in April 2005, wrote a letter to the World Bank and IMF, which tells a compelling story of how Western Government pressure and public money has been used to enforce privatisation and to provide profits for large multinational water companies, in this case, Suez of France.

Privatisation was pushed by institutions like the World Bank and IMF with great promises of foreign investment. Yet as the letter shows (attached), this rarely materialised.

In El Alto, 70-80% of all investment came from International Institutions and Western Governments, yet the water company still failed to deliver on its commitments to extend water coverage to poor residents whilst increasing its rates for connections to drinking water and sewage systems to the equivalent of nine times the local minimum salary.

Not surprisingly, in January 2005, people in El Alto said enough was enough, and brought  the city to a halt, forcing the Government to agree to end the contract.

But the story doesn't end there. Despite, the obvious failure of water privatisation, the International Community is forcing the Bolivian Government to agree to a deal that includes private involvement, despite local residents coming up with a workable alternative of an accountable and public water system.

As the residents state clearly at the end of the letter:

"In the world, only 5% of drinking water utilities have been privatized. Why, then do you make it a condition that we follow this path after having seen the abuses we have suffered? Why don’t you reflect and analyze the errors that have been made in the process of privatizing the water in Bolivia? Why not take some responsibility and help us build a new type of company where private greed and corruption of whatever nature are absent?"