One Year with Suez: ¡Fuera! (Out!)

On Thursday, January 13, 2005, after several days of protests, the citizens of El Alto thought that they had won their battle to expel a transnational water company from their neighborhoods. The government of then-President Carlos Mesa issued a supreme decree to “carry out any necessary action immediately to terminate the Concession Contract signed with the company Aguas del Illimani S.A.” The French Suez corporation, owner and administrator of Aguas del Illimani, seemed to have received a knockout blow from the Alteños.

But that was not the case. In March they had to go out into the streets again to block avenues and access roads into the city, including the highway that unites the Aymara metropolis with La Paz, the seat of Bolivia’s government. They won little more this time, although on that occasion former president Mesa watched his government tremble before it was all over.

And the Alteños, the poor indigenous Aymara (we’ll never tire of saying so) of El Alto, returned to the streets together with the rural Aymara, the miners, their neighbors from the poor neighborhoods of La Paz, and other sectors. In May and June of 2005, while Carlos Mesa planned a self-coup, the Alteños were one of the groups fighting with the police as they besieged the center of power in this city. After more than two weeks of protests, Mesa left the presidency, Eduardo Rodríguez entered it, and new elections were called for last December 18.

But Suez (Aguas del Illimani) was still there, and is still there today… Even though Abel Mamani the former president of the Federation of El Alto Neighborhood Committees (FEJUVE) who led the mobilizations in El Alto in 2005, was named by President Evo Morales as Minister of Water, Suez remains, and many Alteños, perhaps 100,000, are still without water and basic services. What happened? Trickery and lack of clarity, this journalist would say… fear of making big decisions, both on the part of the social leaders and the last two administrations.

At this point, many are wondering if the transnational will ever leave Bolivia, and if the Alteños will ever have, as they have demanded, a company with a social and communitarian focus that, without trying to profit, will once again give them the right to have water. Among the doubts and fears of the governments and leaders is that Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux keeps repeating that it has honored its contract to provide potable water and sewage systems; with this posture, the French have been blackmailing Bolivia with the specter of a lawsuit…

Evo Morales and Jacques Chirac, the French president, discussed the issue when Evo traveled to Paris as president-elect. Chirac asked for legal security for French investments, and Morales offered it all, as long as no company breaks the law or fails to live up to commitments. But that was it…

Under these circumstances, many people, many readers, and even many Alteños, have begun to forget the reasons for the marches and blockades against Aguas del Illimani. That is why, to help document that privatized and profoundly unequal country that is Bolivia — the Bolivia that elected Evo Morales with a clear majority — we have decided to present this brief documentary produced by María Corcorran and Lindsay Katona, as part of their work for the School for International Training in Bolivia, and directed by Ismael Saavedra.

In ¡Fuera! (“Out!”), anyone can see the Alteños who were left out of the water privatization scheme. Corcorran and Katona, who lived in El Alto for a month and walked for entire days to meet the people and know their problems, have captured the situation of the Aymara city with respect to this common good – water. And they have done it in a fresh way, with sensitivity and clarity. Both filmmakers have done a huge service to the people of El Alto and Bolivia: they let those same people tell, in their own words, how the other side of neoliberalism is lived: without work, without education, without health care… and without water.

What you shall see here, kind readers, is not pleasant, so be prepared… but at the same time, it is a show of strength and hope in which those who have least are rearranging the political and economic scenario in Bolivia. Thank you, Maria, thank you, Lindsay. It is an honor for Narco News and Salón Chingón to present your work. Let’s go to it…

- Luis A. Gómez

Watch/download the video (25:35): MPEG4: - Download (high resolution, 133mb) QuickTime: - Download (medium resolution, 63mb)