Latin America Looks Left

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Bolivia: In early 2001, the municipal government in Cochabamba sold the management contract for the city?s water system to a subsidiary of U.S. construction giant Bechtel, which raised water bills by as much as 300 percent. Riots broke out, and after four months of civil strife the government canceled the contract. Bolivia?s ?water war? is widely viewed as a watershed moment in the region?s resistance to the IMF?s privatization programs and has emboldened activists to challenge other IMF policies. In February, police officers in La Paz protesting an IMF-ordered income tax hike clashed with the army in a melee that left 13 people dead. This populist momentum nearly translated into a major upset in the March presidential election, in which socialist coca farmer Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian, finished a surprisingly strong second to right-wing incumbent and businessman Gonazalo Sanchez de Lozada. The vote was close enough that Bolivia?s congress has been left with picking the next president.

Venezuela: When president Hugo Chavez was briefly deposed on April 11, 2002, and again when the country was rocked by strikes last winter, the U.S. media jumped on the story, reporting what looked like a massive popular movement against a petty dictator. Some 200,000 anti-Chavez protesters took to the streets supporting his ouster. What you didn?t see, says Greg Palast, who covered the short-lived coup for BBC television (see profile on p. 76), was an even larger pro-Chavez rally across town. The left-leaning Chavez enjoys wide popular support among Venezuela?s poor and working classes, who have benefited from his policies.

Ecuador: As in Bolivia, privatization programs, cuts in public services, and huge telephone, gas, and electric rate hikes have drawn increasingly organized resistance in Ecuador. These popular uprisings led to the upset victory of former army colonel Lucio Gutierrez in last year?s presidential election. Gutierrez defeated billionaire banana magnate Alvaro Noboa by campaigning on a platform of social change, more compassionate economic policies, and an end to corruption.

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