Cochabamba: From War to Water Management

By Raul Zibechi, Americas Policy Program. Posted June 2, 2009.

The pavement ends too soon in the barrios in the southern part of Cochabamba. At only five kilometers from the center, one can barely make out an irregular layer on the broad avenues that the cars traverse with difficulty. When one looks in the direction of the hills which dominate a wide, treeless valley, one sees only dust blowing over the streets and irrigation channels changed into parched ditches through which at least a thread of water ought to run.

Rows of houses appear climbing upward until they are lost to sight, nearly reaching the crest of the hills which is dominated by a very dry climate. We are in one of the most important barrios of the southern periphery, Villa Sebastián Pagador, or District 14, established 32 years ago by immigrants from Oruro. The southern zone, made up of six districts, includes half the city's population, some 250,000 inhabitants -- the poorest inhabitants -- who are the most affected by the inefficiency of the Municipal Potable Water and Sewer Service (SEMAPA).

The Bolivian state decided in its neoliberal period that only the rich and middle classes would have water; the essential service would therefore not reach the poor, in particular the immigrants of the last generation. To alleviate or even to possibly resolve this grave problem, neighbors in these communities decided to organize themselves, creating water committees, associations, and cooperatives, constructing distribution networks, storage tanks, and drilling the wells themselves using their scarce resources.

In the neighborhoods of southern Cochabamba 120 water committees are functioning, plus some 150 more in the peripheries of the urban zone and an even greater number in rural areas. These organizations regulate the use of water according to the habits and customs of the communities. In the urban zone to the south, between 70% and 80% of the population is not served by the municipal water company. As such, the water committees supply almost 30% of the population and the remaining residents receive water from water trucks. There are hundreds of thousands of people organized solely around the water issue, while a multitude of territorial organizations exist.

The celebrated "water war" can only be explained as the result of a community decision made by hundreds of thousands of people to defend a resource, a feat that was not created or administered by the state but rather by urban and rural communities themselves. In the city, the individuals that make up the community water systems come from many regions of the country, a mix of immigrant campesinos and relocated miners. "These two characteristics strongly contribute to the community organization around water," state two directors of the water movement.

The immigrant campesinos contribute by sharing their Andean traditions of collective work run in shifts, known as the "ayni," while the miners bring their vast organizing experience in the labor unions of the mining industry. Each water system has an average of 200 families associated with it but some have no more than 30 or 40 users. The majority do not have legal status. The residents who have decided not to organize themselves, buy their water from water trucks which traverse the city all day charging excessive prices for water of dubious quality.

Don Fabián Condori, a Life for the Community

It's the middle of the afternoon on Saturday and the hot sun beats down, making the climb harder. We arrive with Boris at a small farm with adobe walls; we open the wooden door and a large open space with two small, tidy offices on the sides appears. We are in the Association of the Production and Administration of Water and Drainage (APAAS), the first water system of Cochabamba and one of the most consolidated. Don Fabián Condori receives us with a broad smile which deepens the lines which mark his face.

"I'm 61 years old and I've spent 19 years in the water system. I was born in Oruro and I arrived in Sebastián Pagador 30 years ago when there were only 70 families. At the end of the 90s almost 80% of us were from Oruro, but now we have 60,000 inhabitants from every corner of the country, above all from the Andes. I think people chose this place for its climate, its wealth, or for the good food and fruit." Fabián told his life story calmly, as if he were speaking of someone else, perhaps because he didn't think of himself as playing the lead role in the history he was recounting.

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