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12/15/2005:

"Who Will Bring Water to the Bolivian Poor?"

COCHABAMBA, Bolivia - The people of this high Andean city were ecstatic when they won the "water war."

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Noah Friedman-Rudovsky for The New York Times
Half of the 600,000 people in Cochabamba, Bolivia, remain without water. Here, Edwin Ventura, 8, collects water from an outdoor tap.
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Noah Friedman-Rudovsky for The New York Times
Many in Cochabamba cannot depend on wells and get water through deliveries made two or three times a week by freelance water dealers.
After days of protests and martial law, Bechtel - the American multinational that had increased rates when it began running the waterworks - was forced out. As its executives fled the city, protest leaders pledged to improve service and a surging leftist political movement in Latin America celebrated the ouster as a major victory, to be repeated in country after country.

Today, five years later, water is again as cheap as ever, and a group of community leaders runs the water utility, Semapa.

But half of Cochabamba's 600,000 people remain without water, and those who do have service have it only intermittently - for some, as little as two hours a day, for the fortunate, no more than 14.

"I would have to say we were not ready to build new alternatives," said Oscar Olivera, who led the movement that forced Bechtel out.

Bolivia is just days away from an election that could put one of Latin America's most strident antiglobalization leaders in the presidency. The water war experience shows that while a potent left has won many battles in Latin America in recent years, it still struggles to come up with practical, realistic solutions to resolve the deep discontent that gave the movement force in the first place.
nytimes.com