March 17, 2008 | Volume 5, Issue 1
Economic Policy in Bolivia: Lessons from the "Water War"
The 2000 Water War in Cochabamba represents the first significant response by the Bolivian citizenry to the malignant effects of global economic policies. It also marks the emergence of new social groups to represent the interests of Bolivians on a broad scale. In addition, the Water War should be seen as a turning point in contemporary Bolivian social and economic history. The emergence of new political actors on the national scene, as well as heightened protests in redress of social and economic ills, are two of the most important phenomena to have emerged in the 2000s; both must be seen in the light of the events of Cochabamba.
The Causes and Implications of the Bolivian Water War
The eruption of mass protests in 2000 surrounding the privatization of the municipal water system of Cochabamba, Bolivia has come to be known as Bolivia’s “Water War.” The rights to the water concession for the Cochabamba valley were sold to a multinational conglomerate, which subsequently raised rates and exercised control over traditional and communally-owned water sources as part of their contract. The rate hike caused protests, which escalated through the beginning of 2000, and involved numerous social groups. These groups coalesced into a new and more powerful protest organization, which took on the mantle of representative of the people of Cochabamba, and became the legitimate voice in the negotiations which occurred between the multinational, the government, and the citizens’ representatives.
After months of protest and tension over the water privatization, the government arrested leaders of the protest groups and called a state of siege. This was lifted several days later, when it was announced that the multinational company who had bought rights to the concession was to leave Bolivia and that management of the Cochabamba water supply would revert back to public administration.
Bolivian economic, social, and political history seemed to have built up to this moment for the fifteen years prior to the protests. In 1985, the government passed the principal “neoliberal law,” in an effort to pull Bolivia out of economic crisis and transform the economy. Like other countries during that era, Bolivian society experienced the drastic changes associated with privatization and liberalization. The economy stabilized, unemployment rose, and the Bolivian society entered an era of flux, where past political representation became irrelevant, employment opportunities changed, and new migration patterns appeared. Fifteen years later, in 2002, the Gini coefficient, a measure of inequality, stood at 60.1, among the highest in the world.
The Water War in Cochabamba in 2000 represents the first significant response by the Bolivian citizenry to the malignant effects of globalized economic policies. It also marks the emergence of new social groups to represent the interests of Bolivians on a broad scale. Furthermore, the Water War should be seen as a turning point in contemporary Bolivian social and economic history. The emergence of new political actors and heightened protests in redress of social and economic ills, are two of the most important phenomena to have emerged Bolivia since the 2000 Cochabamba water war.
In order to fully grasp the causes and implications of the Water War, it is necessary to revisit the key policies of economic liberalization prior to 2000. The events of the protests in Cochabamba must also be examined to see the emergence of new actors on the national political stage. Then, we will be able to see the connections with some of the major events and changes in Bolivia since 2000.
Economic Liberalization
Through the 1970s, Bolivia’s economy fit into the Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI) model of economic development, which was common in Latin America. Under the dictatorship of Hugo Banzer Suarez (1971–1978), tin—Bolivia’s main export and the dictatorship’s lifeline—buoyed the Bolivian economy. Along with this economic development came mounting external debt, as the government continued to financially support unsustainable and costly development projects in various sectors of the economy, ranging from agriculture to natural gas exploration (Morales and Pacheco 180). From the National Revolution of 1952 through this period, successive administrations, democratic and authoritarian alike, were sustained in power through support from the rural and mining sectors of the population. This latter group was vital to political power, due to the predominance of mining in the national economy during this period. Thus, from a popular standpoint, the mining sector enjoyed a privileged position within Bolivian society. The government subsidized and catered to this sector because of the potential challenge miners may have posed to military and economic stability under this growth model.
Economic stagnation began in the late 1970s and continued to mount in the early 1980s. The world price of tin fell leading to a large drop in exports. High international interest rates resulted from several factors during this period. The United States government’s measures to contain its own inflation problems and Bolivia’s already high levels of foreign debt led to the difficulties in accessing foreign credit (Morales and Pacheco 182). In 1982, a Latin American debt crisis began when Mexico defaulted on its international debt.
Bolivia had a cumbersome and inefficient economic system, which had already proven itself outmoded. The reliance on exports of non-renewable natural resources, especially tin, proved to be disastrous for the economy. The brief administration of Lydia Gueiler (1979–1980) attempted to reform the currency, but this democratic interlude was interrupted by the brutal coup détat of Luis Garcia Meza (1980–1981). Following the coup, social repression increased as did the external deficit and international isolation of the government.
Bolivia returned to democracy with the government of Hernán Siles Zuazo in 1982 but the economic tailspin continued despite several efforts at reform. With advice from the International Monetary Fund, the administration adopted a simple policy of honoring debts in a punctual manner, which they thought would begin to open up further lines of credit. This did not occur, nor was it to occur in the near future (Morales and Pacheco 183). One of Siles Zuazo’s six attempts at reform actually produced the opposite of the desired effect. The “de-dollarization” of the peso and imposition of price controls actually increased inflation.
Hyperinflation is a phenomenon which has occurred several times in twentieth century capitalist economies, most notably in post-World War I Germany. In Bolivia, this perverse economic phenomenon happened not as a direct effect of social crisis or war, but rather because of economic policies which had become antiquated and unsustainable. In the midst of this economic crisis, in February, 1985, inflation reached 180%. For the year to September of 1985, the inflation rate was an astonishing 27,000%.
The causes of the economic meltdown could be found in government policies left over from the ISI era. Jeffrey Sachs, a Harvard economist later to become famous for writing the post-Eastern Bloc economic plan for Poland, became the economic adviser to the Bolivian government:
The government was printing money to finance a large budget deficit. Initially I did not understand the origins and dynamics of the budget deficit, nor the politics of the budgetary process. But I did understand that the Bolivian government was not credit worthy enough to sell bonds to the private sector at home or abroad. Instead, it had to sell its bonds directly to the Central Bank of Bolivia… in return for fresh cash to pay the army, miners, and teachers… The government was printing money to pay its bills, and as it printed the money it was driving down the value of the currency- and driving up the price of goods (Sachs 92).
This cycle created the worst case of hyperinflation in economic history. Sachs and his team eventually identified the root cause of the spiraling inflation as the government’s policy of setting the price of oil to the peso. While the world market price of gasoline was $0.28 per liter, the Bolivian price had slipped to $0.03 per liter. Since the government’s budget depended on oil taxes, the tax base had essentially collapsed (Sachs 94).
Mass protest from important sectors of society, the likes of which Bolivia had not seen since the National Revolution of the 1950s, brought thousands of people into the streets. Workers demanded salary increases. The protests put the newly democratic system at risk of collapse and indeed pushed the entire society to the brink. In such a climate, Siles Zuazo cut his term and called elections.
From these elections, Víctor Paz Estenssoro, the former president and hero of the National Revolution of 1952, returned to power after several decades’ absence. In one of the great ironies of Bolivian history, the very man who had helped shape the nationalist, protectionist economic and social policies 30 years before, now worked to overhaul the Bolivian economy into an open, market-oriented system. Sachs worked with Finance Minister and future president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada to draft Supreme Decree 21060, Bolivia’s infamous “neoliberal law.” The essence of this law represented a major shift in Bolivian economic policy away from state support for the national economy and towards the creation of a system amenable to investment from abroad.
DS 21060, as the law is called in Bolivia, is a program of orthodox stabilization, which called for the unification of the official and parallel exchange rates for the currency. Severe fiscal and monetary adjustment measures supported this unification. A sharp one-time increase in oil prices ended the hyperinflation in one week, as tax money came in to the state oil company.
In particular, the fiscal measures were particularly drastic. For instance, in 1986, the government-run Corporation of Bolivian Miners dismissed 21,000 of 27,000 miners (Morales and Pacheco 184). This change in the status of mining under the Bolivian system devastated those dependent on this sector and marked the end of the era of peasant-miner-government collaboration as it had existed since the 1952 Revolution. In response to these new economic and social problems in the country, the Paz Estenssoro administration created an emergency social fund with financing from the World Bank and other institutions. This fund was formed with the aim of creating jobs and infrastructure development. At the same time, the Bolivian government sharply reduced education and social spending. There was no longer favoritism toward any working class sector as there had been with mining.
Along with these drastic reforms to the economic system came subsequent privatizing and liberalizing policies throughout the late 1980s and 1990s. First, the government effectively halted payment of its external debt to the IMF and other international creditors from 1987 onward:
[debt servicing] would require politically explosive and socially unacceptable burdens on Bolivia’s poor through further tax cuts in government spending and further increases in taxation (if those were even possible to collect)... Bolivia said no to the IMF: it would not restart debt servicing, and its insistence on debt cancellation helped to set in motion the process of debt cancellation for the poorest countries. (Sachs 100)
Second, the government sold off most of its major assets. Under the first Presidency of Sánchez de Lozada (1993–1997), the five largest assets of the state were sold off, including the oil, phone, and electric companies, along with the national airline and train systems (Brownlee and Lodge 5). A new tax system was implemented to collect from the wealthiest members of society and increase public sector revenues. Real compensation levels decreased. The tax system was reformed to allow for foreign investment. The tariff system was simplified to a single maximum rate. The peso was replaced with a new currency, the Boliviano, which could be acquired at a million peso to one Boliviano rate. This new currency was to have a real and flexible value to the dollar.
President Sánchez de Lozada also passed the Law of Popular Participation, which solidified the turn away from state centralism. The law implied a “municipalization” of government funds in indigenous areas by taking away responsibility from the central government for dispersal of funds (Langer 86). This reform did provide some rural development, though demographic trends toward urbanization continued.
Bolivian society adjusted to the new realities of the post-neoliberal economy. The former miners of the highlands soon converted into thousands of new coca farmers in the lowlands, taxi drivers in the cities, and other assorted workers for the expanding informal economy. The urban and peri-urban growth rates in the three largest cities of Bolivia have grown at a high rate, and the urban population passed 50% for the first time in the late 1980s (Urquiola 216). The gross domestic product of the country rose 1.9% from 1987 to 1991, 3.5% from 1995 to 2000, and to a 4.5% growth rate in 2006. However, economic growth did not translate into greater opportunity for the majority. Poverty has remained high and a large percentage of the population still has no access to potable water, sanitation, or health facilities. Key demographic indicators, such as infant mortality, continue to be high (INE website).
Law 2029 on Potable Water and Sewerage and the Water War
In this context of the open, privatized, neoliberal economic system that had been installed in 1985, a series of protests erupted, which came to be known as the Water War. The newly passed Law 2029, and the subsequent privatization of the Cochabamba water supply, inspired these protests, which started in the beginning of 2000. In fact, this law had been passed just five months earlier.
When examined in the Bolivian context, where indigenous tradition holds water sacred, the law had radical stipulations. “A basic feature of Law 2029 was the introduction of a regime of concessions and licenses for the supply of potable water, with the concessions to apply to centers of population with more than 10,000 inhabitants in with the provision of services is ‘financially self-sustaining’ and the licenses elsewhere” (Assies 17). The length of concessions was 40 years and licenses were 5 years. Overall, “the conditions for granting concessions clearly favored the formation of large enterprises that functioned according to market criteria” (Assies 17). The firms granted concessions received sole right over the water resources of that area.
This monopolistic right also included wells and water sources which were not connected to any distribution network. In some communities, these wells had been dug with communal labor projects or contracting from the town members. Even in these cases, the concessionaire would have the right to put a meter on the well, at the customer’s expense, and start charging for its use (Finnegan 6). “Aguas del Tunari expected the people to pay for the improvement and expansion of what had been their water system” (Olivera 11). Thus, if there were a neighborhood organization or water committee, of which there are many in small communities in Bolivia, they would be forced to enter into an agreement with the water company. “These features of Law 2029 did not fail to be perceived as a menace to the arrangements for water supply that, in the absence of public services, had been created by the population in the form of cooperatives and other local associations classified as usos y costumbres” (Assies 17). The law even went so far as to prohibit peasants from building rain catchment systems in the countryside. This would require authorization from the superintendent (Olivera 9).
Soon after Law 2029 was passed, the municipal water system of Cochabamba was sold to a multinational consortium. There was a public bidding, but only one bidder appeared. The new company was called Aguas del Tunari, after the prominent peak near the Cochabamba valley. It only had a 5% stake of Bolivian owners. The main shareholders were Bechtel, from the United States, and Edison from Italy, with some Spanish support. The company was charged with final completion of the Misicuni project, a $300 million development scheme piping mountain water to the valley. This project was strongly debated for its feasibility. “This aspect of the deal seemed to make little sense- the World Bank had commissioned studies that pronounced Misicuni uneconomic” (Finnegan 9).
Soon after contract signing, people began to question the terms of the new agreement and Law 2029. “The news of impending expropriations and rumors of big water-price hikes began to circulate. The list of alarmed groups—neighborhood associations, water cooperatives, the labor unions—grew” (Finnegan 6). Skepticism met Aguas del Tunari President Geoffrey Thorpe’s assertion that rate increases for the average user would be 35%.
Aguas del Tunari’s rate increase proved to be higher than originally stated. Bills first arrived to water users in the beginning of January 2000. In some cases, the rate hike was as high as 150%. Furthermore, the bills actually claimed people were using more water than they had previously. “There were bills that said water usage increased from 5 cubic meters to 20 cubic meters per person in one month” (Olivera 10). At this point, protesters organized. A new group, calling themselves La Coordinadora por la Defensa del Agua y la Vida (Coordinadora), led by trade unionist and factory worker Oscar Olivera, took the lead. On January 10, the Coordinadora called a meeting:
The Coordinadora meeting, attended by angry citizens, professionals denouncing the deficiencies of the Aguas del Tunari contract, trade unionists, and members of irrigators’ associations and potable-water committees, resulted in a call for an indefinite shutdown of the city to start January 11. The city was duly immobilized on that day, but this was not so much the work of organizations such as the Civic Committee or of the trade unions as of the irrigators’ associations, which effectively closed the strategic roads, and the potable-water committees and other neighborhood associations of the periphery, which set up a multitude of small barricades (Assies 24–25).
A vast number and variety of groups participated in the Water War protests. Their diversity made them particularly potent against the government. The Coordinadora became the voice of not only the more radical elements of workers and farmers, but also middle class and educated groups.
The Civic Committee was another group involved in the protests as a representative of the people. This group had ties to the Mayor of Cochabamba at the time, Manfred Reyes Villa, and was involved in collaboration to jumpstart the Misicuni Project. As the protests wore on and negotiations started, stalled, and resumed, the Civic Committee proved to be out of touch as a true representative of the people. The Coordinadora would assume this role in the Water War protests.
Massive protests in January ended in a truce, with popular demands for a revision of Law 2029 and the Aguas del Tunari contract, and a one-year moratorium on the reclassification of water users, so as not to include everyone under the concession area (Assies 25–26). However, negotiations progressed slowly. The government’s negotiating tactic at this stage was to try to strike a deal with the Civic Committee, marginalize the Coordinadora, and maintain an appropriate level of security for investment. The government did not consider changing the Aguas del Tunari contract. Meanwhile, elite police units had been called from La Paz, and the main routes in the city center had been cut off. This led to an increased level of anger in the protesting crowd. The police confronted the crowd with tear gas and batons, but instead of dispersing, more people came out and joined the scene. The protesters found new routes to the city center avoiding the major police blockades, eventually reaching within several blocks of the main square (Olivera 34).
A February 5 truce deal orchestrated through the Catholic Church ended this round of protests, but not before 70 civilians and 51 policemen were wounded and 172 arrested (Assies 26). Negotiations that followed produced further deadlock, and the Civic Committee and the government, now on the same side of the issue, accused the Coordinadora of radicalizing their demands. The Coordinadora held a referendum on the issues, and with a 50,000-strong voter turnout, the people of Cochabamba overwhelmingly indicated their support for the abrogation of the Aguas del Tunari contract, a revision of Law 2029, and a reversion of control to public authorities, with more input from the citizens groups. The other side balked at this expression of popular sentiment.
The final stage of the Water War began with independent calls for a general strike for April 4, from the Coordinadora and the Civic Committee, after no response was given by the government to these groups’ demands. In the subsequent days, Cochabamba city again filled with protesters, while all main roads and highways around the city were blocked by several different labor groups. The crowds, estimated at over 50,000 people, went to the offices of Aguas del Tunari and tore the sign down, though no damage was done to the building. At this point, the government negotiations with Mayor Reyes Villa and the Civic Committee sought revision of the concession agreement with Aguas del Tunari. The Coordinadora, who claimed to (and actually did) speak for the majority of Cochabambinos, now strove for annulment of the contract entirely.
The April protests started without Bolivian Government intervention. The temporary strategy was to avoid confrontation while the city was blocked from the outskirts. Soon thereafter, the government arrested important union and indigenous leaders, such as Oscar Olivera of the Coordinadora and the radical Aymara leader Felipe Quispe. The Information Minister for President Banzer, Ronald MacLean, announced a 90-day state of siege on April 8. He also made comments to the effect that drug trafficking from the nearby Chapare region financed Coordinadora. Since the group had a wide base of support, these comments enraged the crowd and added to the support in the streets of Cochabamba:
The state of siege, along with the comments about drug traffickers, backfired in Cochabamba. The small coca-leaf farmers, known as cocaleros, from the lowlands east of Cochabamba, had indeed joined the protesters, but ordinary Bolivians draw a sharp distinction between cocaleros and the wealthy, Army-bribing, customs-bribing narcotraficantes. Many of the cocaleros are ex-miners. Water is not their issue, they are more concerned about a coca-eradication program sponsored by the United States, but their natural sympathy was with the protesters (Finnegan 11).
The government even went so far as to have the military cut electric lines to an area of Cochabamba where various TV and radio stations are located (Assies 29). When an ex-military sniper climbed up a tree, fired on, and killed an innocent bystander, student Hugo Daza, the protests entered a final stage of mass mobilization.
The 17-year old Daza became a martyr to the cause. By this point, on April 9, the end of Aguas del Tunari’s venture in Cochabamba was close.
The company’s executives were told that the police could no longer guarantee their safety, and fled Cochabamba for the lowland city of Santa Cruz… When water privatization collapsed in Cochabamba, the World Bank’s representatives insisted that the fiasco had nothing to do with them. The government informed Aguas del Tunari that, because the company had “abandoned” its concession, its contract was revoked (Finnegan 13).
In the aftermath of the privatization debacle in Cochabamba, control of water reverted to administration by Semapa, the public water company from before the sale. The new board of representatives for Semapa included Coordinadora members. Ironically, Semapa is encountering some of the same issues that Aguas del Tunari found when attempting to revamp the water system. Says one of the directors of Semapa, Luis Sánchez-Gómez:
Currently, SEMAPA‘s system of drinking water reaches 62 percent of Cochabamba’s citizenry, and only 58 percent are connected to the sewer system. And service in some zones of the city is pretty sporadic (twice a week, for two hours at a time). In the first place we need to reduce the amount of water lost in the distribution system, which equals 55 percent of total production and results in unbilled water. Many users do not have meters, and there exists a significant number of clandestine connections to the water system (Gomez 89).
In essence, Mr. Sánchez-Gómez refers to many of the same problems encountered by the multinational company when it took over the system. This is not to imply that Law 2029 was drafted with the best interests of ordinary Bolivians in mind. In fact, the unity government of ex-dictator Banzer failed to perceive the negative effects of globalization on the citizenry.
One of the most direct effects of the Water War was a similar abrogation of concession rights to Aguas del Illimani, another multinational that was forced out of La Paz by protests in the following years. While representatives of the World Bank and other institutions may fret over the loss of these concessions in countries like Bolivia, the truth is that there has never been a study which showed privatization as a preferable policy to public ownership in water networks of this kind:
The failed privatizations in Cochabamba and subsequently in La Paz and El Alto demonstrate several salient features of water provision that are critically important from a public health perspective. First, these cases corroborate lingering concerns… over water access and pricing for the poor under privatization. Second, the cases underscore that communities justifiably regard water as essential for life and maintain a strong desire for public control of water. Third, the cases remind the World Bank… that proposed developmental strategies must be acceptable to the local populations. Fourth, these cases raise doubts about the financial viability of privatization as a model for extending water services to the poor (Mulreany et al 29).
While multinational companies from the United States and Europe have taken over water systems around the developing world, a wave of protest has followed these new policies.
Bolivia Since the Water War
In the aftermath of the Water War in Cochabamba, many changes have occurred in Bolivian political and economic life. The protests in 2000 inaugurated a heightening of solidarity between disparate groups, such as the coca growers in the lowlands and indigenous groups in the highlands, and between urban, rural, and semi-urban citizens. The overall success of the Coordinadora and the Water War protests is in part due to the important role played by the community members on the periphery of Cochabamba. Road blocking has become commonplace in Bolivian political life. Since the government no longer represents groups such as the miners, they have taken policy decisions into their own hands. This same ethic goes for coca growers, indigenous groups of various kinds, labor unionists, lowland groups seeking autonomy, teachers, taxi drivers, and multiple other groups throughout the country. In essence, the political consensus of the 1990s, in which traditional political elite from the Bolivian oligarchy ruled through coalition, and propounded neoliberal economic and social policies, began to crumble with the Water War of 2000.
The level of violence in protests has also escalated. During “Black October” of 2003, popular protests in El Alto, the sprawling peri-urban slum above the capital La Paz, ended in the deaths of over 50 protesters. These protests arose when Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, then in his second term as president, attempted to sell a concession for natural gas exportation to the United States through the territory of Bolivia’s historic rival, Chile. The popular opposition to the plan was enormous. Bolivians, sensing another attempt at outside exploitation of their natural resources, fought against this plan, and eventually forced Sánchez de Lozada from office and into exile.
The Water War protests also marked the beginning of the rise of indigenous leaders like Felipe Quispe, the radical Aymara leader, and now-President Evo Morales, who previously had been a union leader for the coca growers. These leaders, especially Morales, came to exert enormous power over the political system of the country. His Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party has risen from obscurity to national prominence in politics over this period. Morales is a leftist populist, much like his friend Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Both leaders have been buoyed by their countries’ large reserves of oil and natural gas.
The governance of these natural resources represents a new challenge to Bolivian society and the economy. While Bolivia sits on huge reserves of natural gas, the fight rages in Bolivian society over how to exploit these resources and who will benefit. In an enormous shift away from the Washington Consensus policies of the 1980s, Morales re-nationalized the state oil company, Y.P.F.B., and passed a law to renegotiate exploration contracts. Autonomist movements have become powerful players in the battle for gas rights from the lowland regions where most of the deposits are found. Morales has also called for a Constituent Assembly, which is composed of groups from all parts of Bolivia, to rewrite the constitution of the state.
Conclusions
Bolivia’s experience, beginning in 1985 with Supreme Decree 21060, set the stage for the social protests which erupted in Cochabamba in 2000. Bolivia has a long tradition of protest against economic and social injustice. The drastic economic changes in 1985, from the planned economy to the neoliberal model, brought about drastic social convulsions as well. The debacle of the mining sector represented a loss of a unified worker’s voice in national politics. The Water War represents a turn back to greater national solidarity in social movements. It also represents the beginning of protest movements which have been crucial in shaping Bolivian national politics since 2000.
The rise of protest movements surrounding natural resources represented a salient feature of the Water War. The same issues have reappeared in other cities and countries since then, and indeed water policy will be counted among the most serious challenges to developing countries in this century.
The future of Bolivian development is not yet assured. The turn away from strict neoliberal policies with the rise of Evo Morales was unanticipated by Bolivia’s political elite. The exploitation of non-renewable natural resources, now with natural gas, could lead to a repetition of the same cycle of economic dependence to which Bolivia has been subject for much of its history. It could also represent a turning point, toward a more just and equitable distribution of natural resources, as the protesters in Bolivia’s Water War demanded.
Works Cited
Assies, Willem. David Versus Goliath in Cochabamba: Water Rights, Neoliberalism, and the Revival of Social Protest in Bolivia. Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 30, No. 3, Popular Participation against Neoliberalism. (May, 2003), pp. 14–36.
Brownlee, Jamie, and Lodge, Andrew. Contemporary Social Movements in Bolivia: Experiments in Direct Democracy. Online retrieval.
Finnegan, William. Leasing the Rain. The New Yorker Magazine, issue 4/8/02.
Instituto Nacional de Estadística. [www.ine.gov.bo], accessed July 10, 2007.
Langer, Eric. Una Mirada Desde Afuera, in Bolivia en el Siglo XX. La Paz: Harvard Club de Bolivia, 1999.
Morales, Juan Antonio, and Pacheco, Napoleón. Economía chapter, pp. 155–192, in Bolivia en el Siglo XX. La Paz: Harvard Club de Bolivia, 1999.
Mulreany, John P., et al. Water Privatization and public health in Latin America. Revista Panamericana de la Salúd Pública, 2006; 19(1): 23–32.
Olivera, Oscar. Cochabamba! Water War in Bolivia. South End Press, Cambridge, MA. 2004.
Sachs, Jeffrey. The End of Poverty. New York: Penguin, 2005.
Sánchez-Gómez, Luis. Directing Semapa: An Interview with Luis Sánchez-Gómez in Cochabamba! Water War in Bolivia. South End Press, Cambridge, MA, 2004.
Urquiola, Miguel. Población y Territorio chapter, pp. 193–217, in Bolivia en el Siglo XX. La Paz: Harvard Club de Bolivia, 1999.
Other References
Di Tella, Rafael, and Pill, Huw. Bolivia: Globalization, Sovereignty, or Democracy?. Harvard Business School, Cambridge, MA, 2002.
Lobina, Emanuele. Cochabamba- water war. PSI Journal, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2002.
Yergin, Daniel, and Stanislaw, Joseph. The Commanding Heights. New York: Touchstone, 2002.