¡Guerra!+en+Bolivia

=
Bolivia, along with South American countries Peru and El Salvador, has struggled through periods of economic and political turmoil for many decades. Landlocked Bolivia has the lowest GDP in all of South America and is considered to have one of the poorest economies in the world. The country heavily relies on funding from foreign creditors; as of the year 2002, Bolivia owed $4.5 billion to foreign governments and multilateral developmental banks. The country is abundant in natural resources including tin, lithium, petroleum and is second only to Colombia in regards to its coca exports. Notably, it has the second-largest natural gas reserves in South America. In the past three decades, Bolivia has experienced major economic conflicts that have further challenged their poor economy. In the past two decades, the government has attempted to privatize many service sectors in Bolivia including the state airline, telephone company, railroad, electric power company, and oil company. Two major conflicts contributing to Bolivia's unstable economy are the Water Wars and Gas Wars. Both the water and the gas conflicts stemmed from controversial judgments under Presidents Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and Carlos Mesa, respectively.======

The Bolivian government signed a contract with the [|Bechtel Corporation], the largest engineering company in the United States, to privatize water in [|Cochabamba]in 1999. Themedia type="youtube" key="Ikb4WG8UJRw" height="274" width="339" align="left" [|privatization] act, known as the Law 2039, would aspire to improve service quality, provide drinking water to all residents of Cochabamba, and expand electrical production. The major influence of privatization was the [|World Bank]. It threatened it would not renew its $25 million loan to Bolivia if it didn’t privatize its public water enterprise. Bolivian president Hugo Banzer immediately put the project up for auction and received a single bid from //Aguas del Tunari//, a company in which Bechtel Corporation claims more than 25% ownership. The contract, Law 2039, gave //Aguas del Tunari// control of hundreds of rural irrigation systems and local wells and ensured the company a 16% annual return through the year 2039. Soon after the contract was completed, Cochabamba was hit with a 200% hike rate of the municipal water supply raising monthly water bills to around $20, consuming massive proportions of household incomes. Most of the families affected earned less than $100 a month and spent less than $20 on food. The privatization of water withheld clean water from thousands of people and even outlawed citizen collection of rainwater. National distress caused the Cochabamba protests and ultimately forced the government to retract its water privatization contract in early 2000.

**Cochabamba** **Protests**
Just one week after //Aguas del Tunari// enforced water privatization in Cochabamba, citizens joined by congressman and future president[| Evo Morales] held city-wide demonstrations and protested the outrageous water hikes. Monthly water bills rose to around $20 a month, consuming a massive proportion of household incomes. In early January, //regentes// (retired unionized factory workers) and //jubilados// (peasent irrigators) protested in the downtown streets and were promptly joined by hundreds of Cochabamba’s blue-collar workers. This large-scale demonstration successfully shut down the city for four straight days, forcing the government to reconsider the privatization. Reconstructing the contract, //Agua del Tunari// decreased the rate hike to 35 percent. Peaceful demonstrations led by [|La Coordinadora], The Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life led by activist Oscar Olivera, continued in Cochabamaba’s central plaza and were combated by Bolivia’s armed forces. The police declared [|martial law] in order to contain riots which had erupted throughout Cochabamba. Seventy protesters and 51 policemen were injured during this revolt. Still refusing to negotiate, general strikes and demonstrations continued into the month of April. Finally the government conceded on April 11, repealing Law 2039 and surrendering Cochabamba’s water rights to //La Coordinadora//.



**Gas Wars**
Five years after the resolution of Law 2039, there was more economic turmoil in regards to Bolivia’s natural gas exploitation. A controversial issue since 2003, Bolivia struggled to find a balance between government and citizen interest. In May of 2005 the Bolivian congress passed the [|Hydrocarbons Law], solidifying governmental control of all hydrocarbons and natural resources. This doubled taxes to 32% and increased the state’s share in natural gas royalties. Eighty thousand people protested the hydrocarbons law demanding complete [|nationalization]of the country’s natural gas reserve. Fearful of foreign corporation exploitation, tens of thousands of protesters (including an increased number in Aymara and Quechua participants) held demonstrations, strikes, and blockades that effectively shut down Bolivia's capital, La Paz. This massive citizen demonstration forced President [|Carlos Mesa] to resign in June of 2005. Later that year, Cochabamba protester and congressman Evo Morales was elected President and signed a decree that nationalized Bolivia's hydrocarbon resources.

**Language as a Barrier**
Western Bolivia, including prestige centers and capitals La Paz and Sucre, speak a dialect of Spanish called “tierra altas”. This dialect is comparable to the Spanish spoken in other highland areas in Venezuela and Mexico. Eastern Bolivia, containing many indigenous tribes, speaks a dialect of Spanish called “tierras bajas”. Tierras bajas is very similar to the Andalucia dialect of Southern Spain and is similar to the Spanish spoken in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. Although the national language of Bolivia is Spanish, there are at least 39 other languages spoken by indigenous tribes. It is estimated that 50% of the 9,000,000+ population have an indigenous language as their mother tongue (see chart below). Due to a poor economy, the lack of a quality education system and bilingual education have caused a rift between the government and Bolivia’s indigenous peoples. This divide has allowed the government to oppress the indigenous minorities and slow rural progress. The caste separation was very evident in Bolivia's water and gas wars. The majority of the protesters consisted of indigenous workers including the Quechua, Aymara, Chiquitano, and Guaraní. Indigenous groups in Bolivia have even created factions like the "Confederacion de pueblos indigenas de Bolivia" and the "Landless Peasant Movement" to voice their concerns to the government. Since President Evo Morales (an Aymaran Indian) was elected in 2005, relations between indigenous groups and the government have improved. Morales, the political leader of the socialist movement "[|Movimiento al Socialismo]" (MAS), has efforted an increase of power to indigenous groups through land reforms and distributions of natural resource wealth.
 * < **Major Indigenous Groups** ||< **Population** ||
 * < Quechua ||< 2,500,000 ||
 * < Aymara ||< 2,000,000 ||
 * < Chiquitano ||< 180,000 ||
 * < Guaraní  ||< 125,000 ||