Bolivia's Blow to Neo-Liberalism

By FREDERICO FUENTES

In April 2000, the people of Cochabamba captured the imagination of anti-corporate campaigners the world over. Only months after the US transnational Bechtel took control of the regions water supply - forcing citizens to pay for rainwater they collected - the people of Cochabamba, organised through the Coalition in Defence of Water and Life, rose up and booted out the corporation.

Many heralded this as the first decisive reversal of neoliberal policy and the beginning of an intense cycle of mass struggle for a new Bolivia, led by the country's indigenous poor. One of those involved in this struggle and who continues to work with the Coalition in Defence of Water and Life, as well as the National Coalition in Defence of Water, Basic Services, Environment, Natural Resources and Life, established in December last year, is Gissel Gonzalez.

Gonzalez is currently in Australia as part of the Second Latin American and Asia Pacific Solidarity Gathering to be held in Melbourne, October 21-22. Green Left Weekly spoke to Gonzalez about the current situation in Bolivia, where, six years after the "Water War", Bolivia has its first indigenous president, Evo Morales.

Asked why such an intense rebellion had occurred in Bolivia since 2000, Gonalez explained that "for more than 20 years, we, as Bolivian people, have been suppressed by governmental and state policies", which were carried out by governments "managed, utilised and pressured by imperial powers like the US, like England, and all those bad governments in the world that look to eliminate poverty by eliminating the poor".

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