Cochabamba water war
What triggered the Cochabamba water war?
Who were the main groups involved in the Cochabamba water war protests?
What was the outcome of the Cochabamba water war?
How did the Cochabamba water war impact Bolivia’s political landscape?
How did the Cochabamba water war influence Evo Morales’s rise to political power?
Cochabamba water war, series of protests and civil unrest that took place in and around Cochabamba, one of Bolivia’s most populous cities, between November 1999 and April 2000 after the privatization of the city’s water system and subsequent increases in water prices. What began as demonstrations against rising water costs quickly grew into a broad social movement involving Bolivian labor unions, Indigenous organizations, farmers, students, and neighborhood groups. Following weeks of strikes, road blockades, and violent clashes between protesters and security forces, during which a 17-year-old boy was fatally shot by a Bolivian Army captain, the Bolivian government canceled the privatization contract. The conflict became an international symbol of resistance to the privatization of essential public services and helped shape debates over access to water as a human right.
Origins of conflict
Throughout the 1980s Bolivia faced one of the worst economic crises in its history. Like many Latin American countries during this period, Bolivia struggled with hyperinflation, rising foreign debt, and declining revenues from commodity exports, particularly the collapse of the tin-mining industry. The resulting fiscal crisis strained the government’s finances and prompted leaders to look for ways to stabilize the economy. To address this, Bolivia turned to international institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), both of which made privatization of public services a condition in loan agreements during the 1990s. Notable among these agreements was a September 1998 loan from the IMF for $138 million that required the country to sell off all remaining state-owned enterprises as a means of reducing government spending, attracting foreign investment, and improving economic efficiency. One of the public utilities ultimately affected by these reforms was Servicio Municipal de Agua Potable y Alcantarillado (SEMAPA), the municipal water utility company serving the city of Cochabamba.
In September 1999 the Bolivian government awarded a $2.5 billion, 40-year contract to Aguas del Tunari, an international consortium of private investors that included a subsidiary of the U.S.-based engineering company Bechtel. The agreement, reached after closed-door negotiations, transferred SEMAPA to the consortium, which was the only bidder for the contract. Aguas del Tunari pledged to expand access to drinking water and sewer services while also developing hydroelectric and irrigation projects to support the surrounding communities. Then, in October, Bolivia’s legislature passed Law 2029 (the Drinking Water and Sanitation Law), which would allow for the privatization of Bolivia’s drinking water and sewage services. This would essentially make residents pay full cost for essential water services.
Within weeks after the concession took effect, many Cochabamba residents saw a skyrocketing increase in their water bills. Estimates of the increases vary. Some scholars report average increases of more than 50 percent, while others suggest that certain households saw their water bills double or even triple. For thousands of lower-income residents, the shocking price increase consumed a substantial share of their monthly income, placing an essential resource beyond the reach of many people. Public frustration erupted as residents came to view the privatization as placing a basic necessity under private control.
Although the Cochabamba water war is often remembered for the mass demonstrations that filled the city’s streets, the movement actually began in the surrounding countryside. Many rural farming communities had spent generations building and maintaining their own irrigation canals, wells, and water systems. After the passage of Law 2029, irrigators feared that these community-managed systems could also fall under government regulation and eventually private control. In November 1999 the Federation of Irrigators organized highway blockades outside Cochabamba to protest the new legislation and gauge public support for broader resistance.
The demonstrations quickly expanded beyond the countryside, bringing together a diverse coalition of rural and urban groups. Farmers joined with labor unions, neighborhood organizations, environmental activists, students, factory workers, and other civic organizations to form the Coordinadora de Defensa del Agua y de la Vida (Spanish: “Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life”), commonly known as La Coordinadora. Led by Oscar Olivera, president of the Cochabamba Federation of Factory Workers, and irrigation leader Omar Fernández, the coalition argued that access to water should remain under public and community control rather than private management. Over the following weeks La Coordinadora organized neighborhood meetings, public assemblies, and demonstrations throughout Cochabamba and the surrounding valley. Organizers explained the implications of Law 2029 and the privatization agreement, encouraging residents from both urban neighborhoods and rural farming communities to unite in opposition. What had begun as scattered protests and a lackluster organization eventually evolved into a coordinated social movement capable of mobilizing tens of thousands of people.
Bolivia’s war over water
The movement’s first major confrontation with the Bolivian government came in January 2000. After Cochabamba residents received their first water bills under the new concession, La Coordinadora called for a citywide strike and mass demonstrations. Farmers blocked the highways leading into the city while demonstrators erected barricades throughout Cochabamba, occupied the central plaza, and halted transportation and commerce. For three days businesses, schools, public transit, and even the city’s airport ceased operations as protesters demanded the repeal of Law 2029, lower water rates, and the return of the city’s water system to public control.
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The scale of the demonstrations caught the Bolivian government by surprise. Initially, officials dismissed La Coordinadora as an unofficial organization that represented only a small group of activists and refused to negotiate. However, by day two of the protests, the Bolivian government found itself at the negotiation table with La Coordinadora leaders in hopes of reopening the city. Officials promised to reconsider the new water rates and review Law 2029, prompting La Coordinadora to temporarily suspend the protests while awaiting the government’s response. Many residents, however, remained unconvinced and refused to pay their water bills. When the promised reforms failed to materialize, demonstrations resumed with even greater intensity in early February. Rather than seeking compromise, Bolivian Pres. Hugo Bánzer’s administration deployed more than 1,000 heavily armed police officers from outside Cochabamba to occupy the city center.
The decision marked a turning point in the conflict. Running battles erupted throughout downtown as security forces used tear gas and batons to disperse crowds, while protesters responded with barricades, stones, and slingshots. More than 175 people were injured during two days of clashes. Instead of restoring order, the government’s show of force broadened public support for the movement, drawing in residents who had previously remained on the sidelines. Among those who joined the demonstrations were the cocaleros (coca farmers) of the Chapare region, led by Evo Morales. Their participation strengthened the movement’s broad social coalition and elevated Morales’s national profile, foreshadowing the political realignment that culminated in his election as president five years later.
The February confrontations also transformed the movement’s goals. After obtaining and reviewing the concession agreement, leaders of La Coordinadora concluded that reducing water rates alone would not address the underlying issue. They shifted their demands from revising the privatization to abolishing it altogether, calling for the cancellation of the Aguas del Tunari contract and the repeal of Law 2029. To demonstrate public support, the coalition organized a three-day public referendum in March 2000. More than 60,000 residents participated, and roughly 90 percent voted in favor of ending the concession, giving the movement greater political legitimacy even though the referendum carried no legal authority.
By early April neither side showed any willingness to compromise. La Coordinadora launched an indefinite general strike that it called La Última Batalla (“the Final Battle”), declaring that demonstrations would continue until the concession with Aguas del Tunari was canceled and Law 2029 repealed. For the third time in three months, highways leading into Cochabamba were blocked, businesses closed, and thousands of demonstrators filled the city’s streets and central plaza. As negotiations resumed under the mediation of the Roman Catholic archbishop of Cochabamba, Tito Solari, hopes briefly rose that the monthslong conflict might finally be nearing an end. Those hopes quickly faded. The negotiations broke down, and the government instead launched a broad crackdown on the movement. Protest leaders were arrested, police raided the homes of La Coordinadora organizers, and many activists went into hiding.
The confrontation reached its climax on April 8, 2000. President Bánzer declared a “state of siege,” suspending constitutional rights, imposing a curfew, banning public gatherings, and ordering police and military forces to reestablish control over the city. However, rather than dispersing, residents of the city doubled down and erected new roadblocks, returned to the streets, and organized food and supplies for demonstrators who remained in the city center. As the confrontation intensified, Bánzer’s security forces abandoned crowd-control tactics and began using live ammunition against protesters.
Shortly after noon that day, 17-year-old Víctor Hugo Daza, an unarmed protester, was fatally shot near Cochabamba’s central plaza by an army captain firing live rounds into the crowd. Local television footage caught the shooting, and news of the teenager’s killing by Bánzer’s forces spread quickly throughout Bolivia. Protests across the country erupted as Daza’s death became the defining image of the water war. Rather than breaking the movement, the violence intensified public outrage and strengthened demands that the privatization be abandoned. Facing sustained demonstrations, mounting political pressure, and growing national attention, the Bolivian government rescinded the concession with Aguas del Tunari on April 10, ending one of the most significant episodes of social protest in Latin American history.
Political and global impact
The Cochabamba water war reached far beyond the city where it began. Internationally, the movement became one of the best-known examples of successful resistance to the privatization of public utilities. Activists and community organizations around the world pointed to Cochabamba as evidence that local communities could challenge the privatization of essential resources and influence government policy. The conflict also intensified debate over the role of international financial institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank in encouraging privatization programs in developing countries. In the years that followed, the conflict also became an inspiration for campaigns advocating that access to clean water should be recognized as a fundamental human right.
Within Bolivia, the water war fundamentally altered the country’s political landscape. More than a protest against rising water bills, the conflict united labor unions, Indigenous organizations, coca growers, farmers, neighborhood associations, and urban workers into a broad social movement capable of challenging the country’s previous political establishment. The coalition forged in Cochabamba did not disappear after the concession was canceled. Instead, it became the foundation for a series of nationwide mobilizations against neoliberal economic policies and foreign control of Bolivia’s natural resources, most notably during the 2003 Bolivian gas war.
Those movements also reshaped Bolivian electoral politics. As popular dissatisfaction with the country’s traditional politicians and political parties grew, many Bolivians began looking to leaders who had emerged from the social movements themselves. Among the most prominent were Evo Morales and others from his political party, the Movement Toward Socialism. Morales, who had participated in the water war alongside other grassroots organizations, built his political platform around many of the same issues that had united protesters in Cochabamba, including greater national control over natural resources, expanded Indigenous political representation, and opposition to the market-oriented economic reforms promoted during the 1980s and ’90s. After narrowly losing the 2002 presidential election, Morales eventually would go on to win a decisive victory in 2005, becoming Bolivia’s first Indigenous president.
The water war reshaped Bolivia’s political conversation for years to come. Questions about who should control the country’s land, water, and natural resources became central issues in national politics. Reflecting on that broader transformation, Morales observed in a 2006 interview with Time magazine, “We needed to end that internal colonialism and return the land and its natural resources to those who have lived on it for so many hundreds of years, instead of putting our economy in the hands of the World Bank, the IMF, and transnational corporations.”