It looks like Bolivia's 2nd Water War has already come to a satisfactory conclusion, in favor of the people of El Alto. President Carlos Mesa has agreed to cancel the contract with Aguas del Illimani, a French company. I've just discovered a blog by Jim Shultz, head of the Democracy Center in Cochabamba and the main reason the North found out about the first Water War in 2000. The latest entry of his blog has great details about the El Alto situation. He says that unlike the Cochabamba water war "To the government´s credit, no state of martial has been declared, no one has been arrested, no city has been militarized, no one has been injured or killed." This is really good news, of course.
It's good news for me personally too because I've been waiting for activists in La Paz to get back to me about the shipment of computers we're trying to send them, but they've been too busy, apparently, with this water revolt, to reply to me. So now perhaps they will have more time.
Posted by steev at Enero 13, 2005 08:16 AM