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Rocío Bustamante, Elizabeth Peredo, and María Esther Udaeta

5 Women in the “Water War” in the Cochabamba Valleys

T elling the story of women’s participation in the “Water War” in Cochabamba, Bolivia, in April 2000, establishes the degree and form of women’s involvement in the Cochabamba mobilizations and deep-

ens the analysis of the role of women in the management and use of water in daily life. Identifying what women’s participation contributed during the conflict, as well as how the active role women played affected their positions in their organizations, as water users, and as members of cooperatives is also important for understanding Bolivia’s social movements.

What has come to be known as the Cochabamba Water War was a trans- formative event for the significance of water as well as for water policy. Sud- denly topics such as access to water and water rights, privatization, struc- tural adjustment, poverty, and citizen participation and conflict were on the public agenda. Almost the entire population of the region participated, no matter what their social class. Different issues combined as in a kaleido- scope: poverty and marginality, discontent over the lack of access to drink- ing water and demands for access to water and other services, the existence of community water management practices, and an Andean vision of natu- ral resources rooted in the agrarian world that has recently spread to the ur- ban milieu.

The articulation of these issues had several dimensions and facets: ethnic- ity, gender, and class were expressed in a varied dynamic of social protest, as- sociations, alliances, recognition, and negotiation. Women were one of the most important currents in the movement as they are mainly responsible for the everyday work of managing water and irrigating fields. In the urban sphere, women are the ones who manage water consumption, distribution, and storage, a crucial role because in many parts of the city, households are

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EBSCO : eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 8/27/2018 4:24 AM via SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY AN: 830633 ; Bennett, Vivienne, Dávila-Poblete, Sonia, Rico, Nieves.; Opposing Currents : The Politics of Water and Gender in Latin America Account: s3372930.main.ehost

not connected to the water distribution network, or water simply does not get there. This close relationship between water and women’s everyday lives shaped their participation and their connection to the larger discourse of the protests, which through the slogan, Water Is Life, asserted an inalienable right to water.

Women, Water Rights, and Resource Management in the Cochabamba Valleys

Cochabamba is a department1 marked by the lack of water. Even though residents and visitors speak of its temperate climate, its beautiful small towns, and its varied criollo food, its lack of water is always mentioned. Only 55 percent of the urban population and 46 percent of the rural population have access to drinking water and sewerage systems (Bolivia Public Expendi- ture Review, World Bank 1999b). Because of this scarcity, inhabitants have a heightened awareness of water management issues. The constant concern with water goes a long way to explaining the degree of involvement in the conflict, which drew on longstanding demands for water services and access as well as on the recognition of the need to defend their own water systems and the municipal water distribution system. These all came into play in the face of a privatization process that threatened to take away the population’s right to water.

The region’s diverse inhabitants, however, do not all have the same rela- tionship to water rights and management, and this varies depending on their social, geographic, and cultural location. This means that a considera- tion of each particular social group in the conflict must take into account the differences in access and control and in norms, procedures, discursive ar- guments, and demands. Thus for women, the different forms of access to water, the degree of participation in its management, and place of residence all influenced their position in the conflict (see table 5.1).

Urban Area: Women as “Users” of Water A large part of Cochabamba’s urban area has access to drinking water

through the Municipal Drinking Water and Sanitation Service (Servicio Municipal de Agua Potable y Saneamiento, SEMAPA), a water supply oper- ator with mixed public-private financing. SEMAPA is subject to the provi- sions of Law 2066,2 which regulates the supply of drinking water and sewer- age services and also establishes users’ rights and obligations.

Users generally acquire the right to service when they buy a residence or

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building by paying a connection and installation fee. There is no data on the number of women who directly hold this right to service in the city of Cochabamba, but in practice women have a far more direct relationship with water as part of their role in social reproduction than men, both for everyday chores and because they usually pay for the service, resolve billing problems, and register complaints.

The rights acquired by users by paying for the service connection are to:

• Receive a continuous supply of drinking water of acceptable quality and in adequate amounts, according to prevailing norms,

• Request the measurement and verification of their water consumption, • Request that the service provider check for leaks inside their building

that may not be visible, • File complaints for overbilling, bad service, or negligence on the part of

the service provider, and if necessary to appeal to the Superintendent of Ba- sic Sanitation, and to demand that the service is functioning adequately (Mattos Crespo 1999).

In formal terms, there is only a service provider–client relationship, and users have no participation in water management. As a result of the conflict analyzed in this chapter, however, the public has gained a greater degree of participation through using the Neighborhood Committees to democrati- cally elect representatives to the water company’s Board of Directors.3 Thus there is now a somewhat greater degree of community control over water ad- ministration, planning, and management.

In terms of the participation of women, although they have more to do

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Table 5.1 Forms of Access to Water and Participation in Water Management in the Cochabamba Valleys

Type of user Forms of access to water Participation in water management Place of residence

Consumer Through the company None (only in SEMAPA* through Urban zone that provides the service neighborhood committees)

Associated Through water board, Direct if holder of water rights Urban periphery neighborhood committee, or cooperative

Communal Through communal systems Direct if holder of water rights Rural zone Indirect, through husband or son

*Note: SEMAPA is the Servicio Municipal de Agua Potable y Saneamiento (Municipal Drinking Water and Sanitation Service).

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with daily household water use and its “quality control,” nothing particu- larly favors their inclusion over that of men in either the Neighborhood Committees or the SEMAPA Board of Directors. Some authors such as Salazar (2000), Dibbits et al. (1995), Peredo (2001), and others have sug- gested that one of the effects of the regulations resulting from the 1993 Law on Popular Participation (see note 3) has been to displace women’s participa- tion to the benefit of men because meeting times and meeting dynamics, the ways leaders are elected, the mechanisms used to administer resources, all tend to limit women’s participation. Until the 1993 law, their participation had been greater through housewives’ committees, “soup kitchens” (come- dores populares), production groups, groups organized for supervision of the neighborhoods (“barrios”), and others.

Water Committees or Cooperatives in the Urban Periphery Because SEMAPA is unable to provide service to the entire city, the pop-

ulation of the urban periphery gets water through its own systems, generally from groundwater sources managed by cooperatives, committees, or associ- ations. By investing either cash or labor to build the systems, water users have greater direct participation in peripheral water systems than they do in the municipal water systems that have no social participation Although, as happens so very frequently, women become invisible under the general cate- gory of “families served,” the possibilities for participating in meetings where decisions are made and in the organizational structure are greater than when a municipal water company provides the service. Thus, decisions such as the fees to join the system, tariffs, investments needed to expand the pipelines, and so forth are all issues that are usually managed in a more transparent way with greater social control, including the participation of women. The tendency of these organizations and the very conceptualization of the drinking water and sanitation projects in Bolivia is to consider men as the heads of households. In practice, however, it is women who are more in- volved with specific water management issues because these are a daily con- cern due to their roles in the task of reproduction.

Individual or Family Rights in Rural Areas In Bolivia, because of the weak and precarious presence of the state in ru-

ral areas, peasant or indigenous organizations are in charge of most irriga- tion and drinking water systems, involving both women and men in the technical and operational tasks of water access, administration, and distribu-

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tion. Currently women play a central role in water distribution and con- sumption, basically because during recent years family structures in rural ar- eas have suffered the effects of increasing migration. Today, the temporary migration of campesinos4 to the cities no longer respects the seasons or the agricultural calendar but rather is determined by alarming rural impoverish- ment. As a result, women take on a greater role in tasks culturally assigned to men and for ever longer periods of time, and women and children have be- come responsible for almost all agricultural chores.

Thus agricultural and water management tasks are largely feminized, and women collect water for family consumption, take their animals to commu- nal troughs, and monitor when they can irrigate, all from the same source of water. Despite this reality, in the Andes, the majority of water rights still are registered in men’s names, whether for irrigation or drinking water systems. This formal registry, however, does not translate into a limitation on access to water, because in practice it is a family right available to all members. Nevertheless, certain rights, such as participation in decision-making bod- ies, are linked specifically to the holder.

In general terms, the number of women and their degree of participation in leadership positions diminishes in inverse proportion to the size of the system. While at the family or neighborhood level a more direct degree of participation is likely, in larger organizations, this participation is more re- stricted. The reasons for women’s absence in leadership roles has to do with level of education, abilities in speaking Spanish, limitations of time and availability, and so on (Boelens and Zwarteveen 2002a). But underlying this is the commonly held cultural belief that the qualities required to actively participate in public meetings or in leadership positions are male, this reality tends to limit spaces for female leaders.

Research in the Andes (Boelens and Zwarteveen 2002a; Gutiérrez and Cardona 1998) has shown that just because women do not speak in the com- munity’s general assemblies does not mean that they do not influence im- portant decisions related to the management of water systems through less public channels. For example, it is common knowledge that men must first consult with their spouses before most decisions are made. This makes it very difficult to make decisions at a single community meeting as nonlocal organizations working on rural development sometimes want to do. Conse- quently, analyzing in greater depth decision making in Andean communi- ties beyond the public or formal spaces where these processes take place is very important. The existence of nonpublic spaces for decision making re-

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lated to water management does not negate the desirability or necessity for women to participate more explicitly in public spaces as well.

This raises debates between “we must respect traditional forms of partici- pation” and “we must promote more direct and explicit forms of participa- tion in which the value of women’s work and contributions to the organiza- tions is made more evident” (Peredo 2001). Though women participate, have influence, and many times decide, their participation is not necessarily reflected in structures of representation and decision making, perhaps least of all when negotiating and reaching agreements with public or state bodies.

Prelude to a War Foretold The city of Cochabamba and the urbanized areas toward Sacaba (to the

east) and Quillacollo (to the west) have a population of approximately 730,000 inhabitants. The Municipal Water and Sanitation Service covers about 55 percent of the demand for drinking water (Gandarillas 1997). Ac- cording to Ledo (1997, 28), “close to half of the water produced for domes- tic consumption (4 million cubic meters) .l.l. was devoted to the consump- tion of the residents of the old urban core and the northeastern part of the city, where about 27 percent of the total population lives. The remaining 73 percent of the population have access to only 50 percent of the volume pro- duced.” The zones that have less access to water are also the poorest areas in the city (see the highlighted cells in table 5.2).

Water scarcity has made the valleys of Cochabamba the site of conflicts and tensions for a long time. Some of the first legal cases recorded during the colonial period had to do with disputes over water. The origins of the contemporary conflict, however, have to do with an urban-rural confronta-

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Table 5.2 Forms of Access to Water in Cochabamba

Zone Public cistern Own well Water truck Run-off Neighbor

Northeast 14.9% 0.0% 0.6% 0.6% 1.2%

South central 4.5% 0.6% 24.5% 1.2% 1.3%

Northwest 5.1% 2.1% 13.5% 1.9% 3.7%

South 0.0% 0.6% 45.1% 0.0% 0.0%

Source: Ledo 1997 Note: Boldfaced figures show the correlation between lack of water access and impoverished areas.

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tion that goes back to the 1960s when SEMAPA first attempted to drill wells in the Central Valley to improve the supply of drinking water for the city. Because the Misicuni Multiple Project5 that would supply water from the high mountains to Cochabamba by tunnel has constantly been postponed, a major part of the company’s response to growing demand was based on uti- lizing underground water.

Conflicts and tensions around water reached a breaking point in Septem- ber 1999, when the government of former dictator Hugo Banzer, fulfilling a commitment made to the World Bank to privatize, gave the concession for the SEMAPA water company to the “Aguas del Tunari” consortium (a Boli- vian subsidiary of an international consortium headed by the multinational engineering firm Bechtel). The concession contract established company control of the exploitation of water sources and service provision in almost the entire province of Cercado where the city of Cochabamba is located and in the future along the Central Valley-Sacaba conurbation axis. Several irri- gators’ organizations and small neighborhood, communal, or municipal drinking water systems were within the concession area, so these legal meas- ures affected their rights. As well, the contract guaranteed the company a 15 percent rate of return and pegged the tariffs charged by the company to the U.S. consumer price index.

Law 2029, which regulates the provision of drinking water and sanitary sewage services, was also passed shortly after the privatization of SEMAPA. Among its provisions were that concessions (both large and medium sized companies) would have exclusive rights in the provision of sanitation serv- ices and in the use of water sources for forty years. All others (water commit- tees, cooperatives, communal systems, etc.) would have a nonexclusive, and therefore, temporary license for five years. A further provision of the law gave sanitation sector authorities the power to assign rights to water sources, without establishing any criteria, limits, rights, and obligations and also per- mitted the expropriation of water sources as needed.

In response to government actions that affected the lives and the rights of multiple social sectors in Cochabamba, peasant organizations and water- user organizations in areas of the urban periphery carried out the first road- blocks on November 4, 1999. The broad base and determination demon- strated by the roadblocks forced the government authorities to negotiate, resulting in an agreement between the Superintendent of Basic Sanitation and the campesino organizations of Cochabamba’s Central Valley that re- quired the Aguas del Tunari consortium to respect campesino water sources.

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The negotiations, however, left unresolved the provision of drinking water and sanitary sewage services under Law 2066, which benefited Aguas del Tu- nari to the detriment of cooperatives and of community water centers and systems.

Because this remained unresolved, the campesino sector restated its de- mands, now joined by various city organizations angry about water tariffs that were to be increased between 40 percent and 200 percent6 with the rise in rates to cover the cost of future improvements and outraged about irregu- larities that were discovered regarding the signing of the contract.7 The re- sulting social movement organized itself around the Committee in Defense of Water and Family Budgets, which along with other organizations would subsequently make up the Coordinadora Departamental en Defensa del Agua y de la Vida (Coordinating Committee in Defense of Water and Life).8

The Coordinadora’s considerable initial achievement was to link the urban and rural populations in opposition to the concession to Aguas del Tunari and to Law 2029.

The Water War Nobody would believe how Cochabamba, a “garden city,” suddenly became a real battleground .l.l. these are days when a majority of the people of Cochabamba and its environs stood up in the face of an irrational hike .l.l. in water tariffs by the re- cently created “Aguas del Tunari” company and against the imposition of the latest Law 2029 on drinking water and sewer services. Two days of intense struggles, not seen in Cochabamba in the last 50 years. The mobilizations grew spontaneously with the support of the Coordinadora .l.l. people came out into the streets in mas- sive numbers: thousands and thousands of people, youths, even children, women in fancy clothes and women in polleras,9 peasants, older men with no weapons other than their indignation and their voices lifted in protest, faces daubed with bicarbon- ate and many with handkerchiefs over their mouths and bottles of vinegar in their hands to counteract the effects of the tear gas. And while the hours and the anguish increased, the bonfires multiplied, the noise of empty pots and sticks banging on tins and anything the demonstrators found around them also increased. A true war scene, the noise of shots, shouts, people running, broken bottles in the streets, nuns from various churches aiding the wounded, women who threw paper and water from their windows to reinforce the roadblocks. (Bolivia Press, Special Edition No. 1, 2000)

The mobilizations began in January 2000 with roadblocks on the highways of the country’s main axis (which connects Bolivia’s principal cities of La Paz and Santa Cruz via Cochabamba), which led to the first confrontations with the police and military. Negotiations between government ministers, civic

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leaders, and leaders of the Coordinadora finally ended with the signing of the “Regional agreement for provision of water, defense of people’s budgets, peaceful coexistence, and respect for human rights.” This agreement estab- lished a commitment to create working commissions, made up of both the government and civil society, on the fee structure, on the revision of the con- tract signed with the Aguas del Tunari consortium, and on the revision of Law 2029. After several weeks, negotiations broke down in the working commissions dealing with the concession contract and the fee structure but moved forward in the commission drafting modifications to Law 2029.

The breakdown in negotiations between the government, civic leaders,10

and the Coordinadora led to the organization of another protest action, “peacefully taking over the city of Cochabamba,” on February 4, 2000. This mobilization was violently repressed, leading to a major conflict that culmi- nated in several wounded, a number of arrests, and the signing of a new agreement called the “Cochabamba Settlement,” in which the government promised to freeze water tariffs at 1998 levels until an agreement was worked out.

As a way to pressure for its demands, the Coordinadora carried out a “Popular Poll”11 in which the population was asked whether they agreed with the fee increases, the concession contract, and the privatization of water. Nearly 50,000 people participated, and the results led the Coordinadora to demand that the contract with Aguas del Tunari be annulled and that Law 2029 be immediately modified. As negotiations continued at an impasse, the Coordinadora called for a total work stoppage and the “takeover of the city of Cochabamba” on April 4. Thus began the final battle in the Water War, the two most dramatic weeks in recent Bolivian history.

People from neighborhoods in the urban periphery and peasant commu- nities from the rural areas marched toward the city to support the blockades and marches. Life on the streets became intense, with news breaking every minute. Unprecedented solidarity and cooperation emerged, either because of news regarding the government’s response, or because of news about the company, or because of initiatives taken by the Coordinadora, or because of the aggression and offensives by the military forces, or simply as a defense from the police forces and from the tear gas, and the bullets of the military forces. People from different social classes who in everyday life had little to do with each other became part of a single group in the streets, even putting their lives at risk. “Water Warriors,” street brigades of men and women from the ranks of the unemployed, the poor, youths, and vagabonds, formed, and

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these demonstrated incredible discipline, in the process often giving new meaning to their lives.

Faced with a rebellion that appeared unstoppable, the Banzer govern- ment began to negotiate (April 6, 2000), and the highest departmental au- thorities announced the cancellation of the contract with the consortium (April 9, 2000). Then, when the conflict appeared resolved, the police vio- lently broke up a negotiating meeting between the Coordinadora and the government, the central government denied that the contract had been can- celled, and several Coordinadora leaders were arrested. These events infuri- ated the population even further, resulting in constant clashes between the forces of law and order and the “Water Warriors” in the city’s street and plazas. In an attempt to regain control of the situation, the government de- clared a state of siege in the whole country.

On April 10, the Superintendent of Basic Sanitation sent a note to the Aguas del Tunari consortium canceling the contract for “reasons of force majeure.”12 That same day an agreement was signed in which the govern- ment committed itself to: (1) Return the management of the drinking water and sewerage company to SEMAPA under a transitional board of directors with both governmental and nongovernmental representation, including legally recognized entities such as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and labor organizations. This board had responsibility for orchestrating a long-term solution to the water issue and to amend Law 2029 on the basis of the popular poll carried out in Cochabamba on March 26, 2000. Despite these promises, the population remained mobilized until finally, at dawn on April 15, after two long weeks of conflict, the parliament approved the amended version of Law 2029 (now Law 2066), meeting the movement’s principal demands.

Women as Actors and Symbols of the Rebellion One of the stories that passed from mouth to mouth in the streets of

Cochabamba during the conflict was about “La Coordinadora.” When the leaders of the Coordinadora sought refuge in a convent, the nuns agreed and asked, “But where is La Coordinadora (Ms. Coordinator)? She must be a very brave woman, right?”13 Making the Coordinadora a woman went from being an anecdote to being a story of identity for the women who partici- pated in the Water War.

To tell the truth, at first even I was curious as to who “La Coordinadora” was, that friendly lady, that brave woman. But later I have become aware that really men,

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children, and especially women participated in the struggle for water. This has marked a chapter in the history of Cochabambans; we know very well that women from the provinces or from the countryside are the ones who most fought in the Cochabamba Valley.14 (Amanda)

“We Women Have Known How to React When Extreme Things Happen.l.l.”

Women played a fundamental role in the mobilizations not only through their active participation but also in the issues the movement emphasized, the way demands were raised and their interpretation, and thoughts about the movement. According to the women protagonists themselves, the roles and activities that they took on during the Water War were chiefly:

• Keeping watch at key places as well as at the blockade points; • Responding to police repression with sticks and stones. In some cases,

making sorties to try and prevent arrests; • Providing protection against tear gas: vinegar, wet cloths, lemons, Vase-

line, etc.; • Serving as roadblock delegates or chiefs, and carrying rocks, wire, etc.,

to enforce the blockade; • Closing the chicherías to avoid the tendency to go drinking;15

• Cooking in communal kitchens with food supplied by all the commu- nities.

Women irrigators recall that when they first entered Cochabamba not all in- habitants of the city welcomed them. Social discrimination and prejudice against the campesinos is very strong among many city residents who would tell them, “Just leave; what are you doing here?”

The city people, those in the old downtown, threw rotten tomatoes at us: “these ka- cachakis, laris,16 Indians, look how they are filling the streets, how they dirty every- thing.” They even threw urine at us. Then we said, we are fighting for everyone.l.l.l.

Unfortunately it hurt me that the city people did not help us much, they closed their doors, when there was teargas we didn’t know where to go, where to hide, we asked for a little water, some gave us some and others didn’t. That has hurt me, be- cause we are all human and between all of us we should help one another.l.l.l.

This initial rejection gradually changed as the confrontations spread and ne- gotiations became tenser, making it clear that the rural sectors were also de- fending urban demands against the fee hikes.

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They trembled when they got their bills; they had this problem, and who helped them? .l.l. would the people in the old downtown alone been able to defend them- selves? All of us irrigators, all of us have united and in this last mobilization they opened their doors, they offered us a glass of water because it really is for everybody and we were fighting for everybody.l.l.l.

It was precisely the women who forged the first links of solidarity in the streets:

The women would tell me, “we have many people from the communities who have come to do roadblocks on the avenue and many of them are hungry, we need some- thing!” I told them, “‘Mamacitas’ We are the women, we will go ask!” So, we went house to house to ask for whatever they could spare, and then we made that com- munal kitchen so that the people from the surrounding communities could sustain themselves.

“Going to ask,” showing their own strength and vulnerability is a feature of the female discourse towards Cochabamba society during the Water War. This is a very feminine approach: to articulate being a mother, suffering, tenderness, love, courage, and protest as a way to challenge injustice. This strategy made it possible for the rebellion to become generalized and ex- panded the participation of women from the countryside, from the neigh- borhoods in the urban periphery, and from the city center itself:

And we women thought, so what are we going to do? Are we going to just stay and watch, with our arms crossed while they are gassed, run over, killed, beaten, and that’s it? Can’t you see? We are women, and we are not going to be able to do any- thing. Then they said, since the women and elderly can’t go, well, let’s do some- thing; let’s block the road!

They combined their sensitivity as women in the face of abuse, violence, and injustice with their need to become social actors when confronted with stereotypes of what women, and elderly women, should be. This led them to be protagonists in the protests.

At the meetings, many women were appointed as blockade leaders along with men, to make sure that there was no drinking and that communities showed up for their scheduled shifts.

My zone also carried out pickets and passed out cards to those who were there: “and whoever doesn’t show up to help with the blockade won’t get water, if we ever get it.” So everyone showed up, like soldiers. I was in charge, I had an aide and I posted block leaders.

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During the conflict, women used several identities and signifiers that shifted along a continuum from strength to vulnerability. Their choice of identity varied according to the needs at any given time within their own organiza- tions, as well as in confrontations with the military forces and during inter- actions with different social groups and classes:

The police hesitated when they were going to beat us because we would say, “Cow- ards! Don’t you have mothers and sisters? Don’t you drink water? Yes, we’re fighting for you too!” Besides, it is women who provide the courage. We are more deter- mined.l.l.l. It is easier for them to grab the men, the youngest men, and they take them away; with the women it is a bit more difficult, we always stop them.

The conflict deepened and became increasingly radical, as a local report shows: “The voices of protest are on the rise. The statements made by many women and men from different parts of the city on open mikes made avail- able by radio and television stations indicate that the people have gained consciousness and are increasingly angry.l.l.l. They report that airplanes from La Paz are arriving to unload large numbers of soldiers. The city seems to be at war, there is broken glass in the streets, burned tires, piles of garbage, pieces of wood and stones in the middle of coca17 leaves. The people seem fearless, they have risen to their feet, and all they want is to be heard” (Bo- livia Press 2000, Special Issue, April 7, 2000).

Women actively participated in caring for people during the mobiliza- tions:

The women helped people who were choking from the teargas, because they had water, salt, bicarbonate, menthol, white flour, vinegar, we had everything we could; there we were with all that stuff. And for those who were choking we had cigarettes to roll, paper and matches to light them and make smoke to counteract the effects of the teargas; that was what women did.

Women were also appointed to monitor and prevent excesses by the protes- tors, prevent excesses of violence, and prevent alcohol consumption:

Because some “compañeros” would go to have a drink, the government would say over the radio that the blockaders were a bunch of drunks, but this wasn’t true, be- cause we were all aware that we had to make sure our traditions and customs were respected (FEDECOR workshop, December 2001).

All these activities were carried out in addition to fulfilling the traditional role of women in the home. For peasant women, this implied enormous sac- rifices because during the most intense periods to go out and mobilize, they had to abandon their homes, their crops, and their animals:

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Truthfully, it meant suffering for us, it was not nice, we left our little animals and all our chores, we women had to come running, with slings, with ash.l.l.l.

We could not even get back to our houses to cook, and all of us left our houses, only the babies stayed behind. We got up at 4 a.m. and would leave food cooking.

Women, Leadership, and Decision Making Although women were active participants, carrying out countless duties,

and played a key role in negotiations at the micro level, in the confronta- tions, on the barricades, in weaving together the solidarity networks between urban and peasant sectors, and in disseminating information in the mass me- dia, their participation dropped dramatically at the level where decisions were made, where face-to-face negotiations with the government took place. “Even though it was obvious that there was women’s participation,” said one woman, “we were not taken into account. Those who would lead, who would make up the commission that would be part of the Coordinadora, and who would come to represent the Coordinadora, were all men, and we women had to do other things, anything but be the leaders.”

Many women not only led the actions in the streets and headed groups at points of confrontation, but in their own organizations they were also man- agers of water. These roles, however, were not always recognized or legit- imized. The following comment in which a woman even decries her gender identity reflects this situation:

I am sorry I am a woman, how I would have liked to be a man. That way I could be general secretary, that way people could say that I managed and was part of the lead- ership. But I’ll never get to be general secretary because of that flaw, that I am a woman. Because I am a woman I won’t be made a leader. In the countryside espe- cially, machismo predominates, and they say, “How can we be under the command of a woman?”

What the Water War Accomplished An evaluation of what the Water War accomplished reveals the following

gains:

• The SEMAPA water company recovered its public status, now with a greater degree of public participation and control on its board of directors.

• There were amendments to thirty-six articles of the Law on Water and Sewerage Services, guaranteeing, among other things: respect for small water systems, recognition of campesino rights to their sources of water and water systems, community control over contracts and readjustment of tariffs.

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• International financial institutions became more open to dialogue and public consultation before formulating legislations and norms related to wa- ter.

However, many challenges lay ahead, because:

• The problem of water in Cochabamba remains unresolved and more than 50 percent of the population still has no access to services. No new short-run sources of water are easily available: remaining underground sources require major investments and are very difficult to tap.

• The Bolivian government forced SEMAPA to sign a forty-year conces- sion contract, which established that the agency must pay a yearly fee to the Municipal Sanitation Department equal to 1–3 percent of its yearly income (from customer payments) and excludes it from receiving public subsidies earmarked for the water sector. In addition, because SEMAPA has partial public financing, it is subject to an additional tax of 1–3 percent of its yearly income.

• Another battle in this war will be fought before the International Cen- tre for Settlement of Investment Disputes operated by the World Bank, where the consortium has filed a claim seeking both losses and punitive damages for having their contract in Bolivia canceled.

• Finally, despite all the mobilizations to defend current water sources, these rights are not secure because the implementing legislation for Law 2066 which makes these rights legal has not yet been approved.

What Changed for Women? Experience shows that explicit processes of reflection and education that

highlight and emphasize women’s contributions and their value to the com- munity are required to combat self-perceptions that diminish and camou- flage women’s important responsibilities by subsuming them within the tra- ditional daily female tasks. In the case of the Cochabamba women irrigators, however, a process of self-valorization, in which they recognized the impor- tance of their roles with respect to water, took place by leaps and bounds precisely because the April actions placed them in the eye of the storm. As one of them pointed out, “we have begun to have value, to value ourselves.” Some women underwent even more profound processes, asking questions about their role as leaders and as activists. Their experiences in the “Water War” generated greater commitment to their own organizations and in- creased expectations regarding their roles within those organizations:

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I don’t want to stay at home anymore, I want to participate because I also have an equal right. So that is why we have to start organizing ourselves, we women must educate ourselves.l.l.l. We have the strength to participate and learn. We are strong; at least in our communities we are no longer afraid. We bundle up our toasted corn, our cheeses, our dried meat, and just go off to the struggle.

Another movement protagonist explained why she is continuing to partici- pate and presented a critical perspective, contrasting the level of women’s participation with the lack of recognition from their organizations and from society as a whole:

We are not struggling for something meaningless; we are struggling for the truth.l.l.l. We left our homes, we left our chores, but we are not struggling for no reason, we are struggling for water and the day will come when we will be recog- nized.l.l.l.

Women’s demands and mobilizations had concrete results. For example, the neighborhoods of the southern zone such as Alto Cochabamba gained the support of SEMAPA to build their own drinking water system with com- munity labor, although of course this did not solve the problem in the whole city.

Water got to marginal zones and neighborhoods where before people had none.l.l.l. This is what is important about this struggle, because it shows that we can get drinking water and sewerage services to marginal zones and neighborhoods, and that the struggle of the women of Alto Cochabamba has not been in vain.

Finally, participation in the April mobilizations enabled the spread of soli- darity networks among women from different social classes and places of residence around a common struggle:

I’ve witnessed women’s solidarity in the streets, I’ve seen women from all social classes offer each other mutual support, giving each other refreshments, nuns bring- ing things, ladies who were watching from their balconies who said, “we should help, we will give newspapers.” There was solidarity, and this has made us discover that we can indeed build solidarity aside from the political differences that may sep- arate us. That has helped us recognize ourselves as women, it has helped us to say, yes, we can change the state of things that affect us.l.l.l.

The social conflict that took place in Cochabamba is paradigmatic of the tensions that exist around the issue of water today on a world scale: the scarcity of drinking water, the precariousness of access for people in the ur- ban periphery and rural areas of low-income countries, the marginality of large groups in terms of water rights, the fragility of distribution systems, the

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privatization of services versus community or state management, questions of efficiency and sustainability, daily uses and customs regarding water, the role of women, and finally the social conflict that can be unleashed around water. Behind all this, there are contrasting visions of water: the pressure for privatization policies connected to profitability versus visions of communal use of water based on solidarity, rooted (as in this case) in longstanding soci- ocultural fabrics.

Though the conflict between Cochabamba society and the Aguas del Tu- nari consortium was a local one, which took place in one of the poorest countries of Latin America, it established an important precedent for the so- cial currents that champion a vision of water as a common good for human- ity. Reacting on the basis of their most vital daily needs, men, women, chil- dren, the elderly, youths, members of community and neighborhood organizations in the city and countryside, that is, the society as a whole, mo- bilized in a defense of water that in the process acquired a major collective significance: the struggle for life.

Bolivia and Cochabamba have not been the same since. “I drink water, therefore I am, therefore I vote,” is a graffiti painted on one of the walls of the city, indicating that water is an issue for everyone, that it is a basic right, and that this has become part of collective consciousness. The empower- ment experienced as a result of participation in collective social actions and negotiations gave an impetus to irrigators’ and users’ organizations, to the cooperatives, the neighborhood organizations, and women’s organizations.

Therefore, we can speak of a before and an after in terms of the Water War: of changed relationships with the authorities and institutions; of the increased capacity to negotiate and reach agreements with government bod- ies; of the growing involvement of the population in decisions having to do with natural resources, as well as of the dynamic within popular, civic, and social organizations; and of women’s organizational dynamics and power re- lationships.

In Bolivia the state is weak. Although it set out to implement a water management system for the whole country, the state-run or municipal-run companies left many urban areas without coverage—especially in the urban periphery. These areas therefore developed their own rules, distribution sys- tems, and criteria for assigning water rights and tariffs. In rural areas, water management—understood as the organization of activities and resources to take water from its source to its end user—is in the hands of community or- ganizations that operate on the basis of their own usos y costumbres (custom-

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ary practices).18 These more traditional forms of water management are gov- erned by a vision of water as central to the common good, are based on a deep respect for nature and on an assumption that water and land are not only essential for life itself but are themselves living entities.

The Water War served precisely to give new value to the traditional per- ception of water, which under current socioeconomic models runs the risk of subordination to the unilateral logic of development and commodifica- tion. Different visions of water were apparent during the Water War, rang- ing from that of urban water consumers to rural irrigators and farmers. At the beginning, the rural groups and irrigator organizations were harassed and discriminated against because they had “invaded” urban space. Largely thanks to the role of women in the conflict, this tension gradually dimin- ished, and bonds of solidarity developed between groups from the urban pe- riphery and the rural groups, as well as between women from irrigators’ or- ganizations and women from urban water users’ groups and cooperatives. This process meant that demands related to the customary practices increas- ingly made more sense to the urban population and became central to the demands of the Coordinadora in its negotiations with the government.

Women participated in the Water War based on their specific societal roles, but these roles took on a double and complementary significance: strength and vulnerability. This confirms Chaney and García Castro’s (1993) argument that women’s political participation is more socially legitimate if it is based on their traditional roles. However, women’s leadership in the deci- sion making and negotiation process was not an accurate reflection of their level of participation in the actions and the importance of their role in water issues in everyday life.

Women’s positions as block organizers or heads of street committees were due to several factors: their role in daily community water management gave them a fuller understanding of water’s value as a resource; they recognized that their water sources must not be negatively affected by privatization, and they linked water with the survival of their own culture in ways rooted in their indigenous cultural identity.

For many women, the decision to participate and leave their homes, their animals, and their crops behind was a major sacrifice that was motivated simply by anger at knowing that their rights were in danger. Thinking about the importance of their daily work related to water began after the conflict as they began to assign water greater value, and this will surely become a process of empowerment and collective reflection.

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The dynamic of interactions between women from different social groups is interesting. Though the need to differentiate is very pronounced in Bolivia’s class and almost caste structure, it was notable how peasant women found themselves side by side with middle class “ladies” and how they worked together to figure out how to confront military intervention.

The achievements of the Water War gave the inhabitants of Cochabamba an important sense of empowerment that lasted for quite some time. The transfer of water management back to the municipal company SEMAPA presents a new challenge, that of strengthening the Coordinadora. In the face of marginality, a lack of public policies that defend the rights of the population, the Water War was an episode that combined citizenship, par- ticipation, and dreams of a better life. The public in general, and women in particular, is always excluded from social policy decisions, from the distribu- tion of wealth, from the distribution of power. The conflict was a moment when this norm of everyday life was ruptured and power resided in the streets.

The challenge that remains is how to link different levels and processes of empowerment with demands for the expansion of rights in societies built on class, gender, and ethnic hierarchies and discrimination. On one hand, how can demands based on collective visions of solidarity and communal water uses find a legitimate space where they can be applied; how can decisions on water policy, services, and the sustainability of water use truly match visions rooted in community practices, respect for nature, and respect for the right to water? And on the other hand, how can the demands and the dynamic that the actors themselves bring to these processes be incorporated as a fun- damental component of future action? In other words, how can women par- ticipate and exercise their rights as citizens in the streets and at the same time overcome the barriers of discrimination and gender inequality within their own organizations or communities, especially because the latter are also di- rectly related to the role they are supposed to play in water issues? The water protests gave women a new role, and a “struggle within the struggle,” some- thing of which the women Water Warriors of the April days in Cochabamba are well aware.

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