BECHTEL VS. BOLIVIA
Riley Bechtel is the 51st most wealthy
man in the U.S.*
He heads one of the most powerful corporations in the world.
He is also providing, to the press and public, deliberately false and
misleading information about the suffering his company created for the
people of Bolivia.
He is also providing, to the press and
public, deliberately false and misleading information about the suffering
his company created for the people of Bolivia.
(* Source: Forbes Magazine)
For
the poorest people in Cochabamba [water] rates went up little, barely
10 percent.
- Gail Apps, spokeswoman for Riley Bechtel
January 3, 2002 e-mail to the public and the media
In February 2000, just months after it took over control of the water system of Bolivia’s third largest city, Cochabamba, a Bechtel subsidiary hit water users with enormous price increases. These increases forced some of the poorest families in South America to literally choose between food or water. A popular uprising against the company, repressed violently by government troops, left one 17 year old boy dead and more than a hundred people wounded. In April 2000 Bechtel was finally forced to leave.
In November 2001 Bechtel decided to add to the suffering it had already caused by filing a legal demand for $25 million against the Bolivian people – compensation for its lost opportunity to make future profits. In response, The Democracy Center and more than 100 people from all over the world wrote directly to Bechtel CEO, Riley Bechtel, calling on him to drop his action against Bolivia. Mr. Bechtel responded to those messages with a statement from his public relations staff with documentably false and misleading statements about the price hikes his company imposed on the people of Cochabamba.
Bechtel’s falsification of the facts can’t be allowed to stand. Here, for public review, are the actual documents and detailed numbers that demonstrate that Bechtel is lying to the public and media. We urge people to write directly to Mr. Bechtel via e-mail, to let him know that his company must stop both its falsifications and its unconscionable legal demands against Bolivia’s poor.
THE INTERNATIONAL CITIZENS' PETITION TO THE WORLD BANK'S CLOSED-DOOR TRADE COURT
In August 2002 more than 300 citizen groups from 41 different countries filed this petition, demanding that the Bechtel vs. Bolivia case be opened to public participation and scrutiny. Read the petition and see who endorsed it. (Version en Español)COCHABAMBA’S WATER BILLS FROM BECHTEL:
The direct proof of Bechtel’s continued mistruths about what it did in Bolivia – viewable copies of the water bills with Bechtel’s increases and a chart of the water rate hikes drawn directly from the water company’s computers.BECHTEL’S LEGAL ACTION AGAINST BOLIVIA:
A brief summary and explanation of Bechtel’s legal demand filed with the arbitration arm of the World Bank (ICSID)REPORTS FROM THE SCENE -2000
The Democracy Center’s complete dispatches from the Cochabamba water revolt, winner of the 2000 Project Censored award for top story.RILEY BECHTEL, A PROFILE
Read the April 2002 profile on Riley Bechtel published in the British monthly, The New Internationalist, including a fine image of Mr. Bechtel traversing the globe.WRITE TO RILEY BECHTEL TODAY!
A link allowing you to write to Bechtel CEO directly, as hundreds have already done from throughout the world.EXCHANGES OF CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN BECHTEL AND THE DEMOCRACY CENTER: Since April 2000, when Bechtel was first kicked out of Bolivia, the Democracy Center’s executive director, Jim Shultz, has had several direct exchanges with Bechtel’s top officials. They are posted here.
“BOLIVIA’S WAR OVER WATER”: Jim Shultz’s new complete history of the Bolivian water revolt, a chapter from the forthcoming book on globalization, We are Everywhere.