Bolivia's Laboratory of Dual Power

The making of Bolivian history does a funny thing to journalists. Those who are in Bolivia spend most of their time in the streets, with furtive trips home or to the nearest internet cafe, to send off the latest story or update. And those of us outside of Bolivia often end up spending more time at the computer and on the phone than usual, trying to keep up with the rapid development of events, forwarding news coming live from the streets, and piecing together what we can from the hundreds of reports circling the globe on thin copper wires (or, more and more, bouncing around in wave form, but I must admit that I really like copper wire).

Narco News, as usual, is at the forefront of the reporting, and hundreds, if not thousands of people are going to the website for the first time, having heard rumors of the democracy-from-below that is flourishing in Bolivia in these weeks, and hungry for more information. Many of these readers may not know much about the context in which current events unfold, or the people doing the unfolding. For that reason I am posting an article I wrote in late April – ancient history when it comes to Bolivia – which is an attempt to look a little closer at the movers and shakers and history makers of Bolivia. Thanks for reading, and thanks to everyone doing reporting, translation, webmastering, and everything else that allows these stories from below to emerge and propagate. Bolivia’s Laboratory of Dual Power
by Jennifer Whitney
originally published in the May/June issue of Left Turn Magazine

A tremor ran through the international business community last January as Bolivians forcefully ejected another transnational water corporation from their country. The people of El Alto — the poorest and fastest growing city in South America — refused to accept the prohibitively high rates being charged by Aguas de Illimani, a subsidiary of French corporation Suez. Outraged at the new costs of installing a water line to private residences (as much as six months’ salary), people took to the streets, blockaded main arterials, occupied the transnational’s headquarters, and marched on the capitol in La Paz.

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