Bolivia: una lettera al presidente della Bechtel

["Nello Margiotta" <animarg@tin.it>]

 Jim Shultz  The Democracy Center
 An Open Letter To Mr. Riley Bechtel  CEO, Bechtel Enterprises

 Dear Mr. Bechtel,

 Having heard from your public relations department I have decided to write
 to you directly, from Cochabamba, Bolivia, a city you know well.  It was
 here two years ago that a Bechtel subsidiary took over the public water
 system and, within weeks, doubled and tripled water rates for some of the
 poorest families in South America.  Your company ordered mothers living on
 minimum wage of $60 per month to pay $15 or more just to keep water running
 out of the tap.  Faced, quite literally, with a choice between water or
 food, people took to the streets to demand that rates be lowered.  Your
 company refused.  The Bolivian government sent soldiers into the streets to
 defend your contract.  A 17 year old, Victor Hugo Daza, was shot in the
 face and killed.  More than a hundred others were seriously wounded.  I was
there.  I saw it happen.

 In the end, in April 2000, your company left.  It had to.  The protests
 and the government's violent response wouldn't end until you were gone.
 Your subordinates didn't leave empty handed.  They took the hard drives
 from the computers, the cash left in the company's accounts, and sensitive
 personnel files from before their time.  They also left behind an unpaid
electric bill for $90,000.  Now your company says it wants more.  Last
 month you filed a demand of  $25 million against the Bolivian people.  Your
 lawyers are claiming as losses the millions of dollars in potential profits
 you had hoped to make and weren't allowed to.

 I understand that, overlooking the glorious San Francisco Bay from your
 Beale Street headquarters, you have a different perspective.  Your company
 paid lawyers some large, undisclosed sum to set up a company in the Cayman
 Islands and then to represent you in a behind-closed-doors, one-bidder
competition.  You then paid some water managers from England to come here
> and run things.  They served you more poorly than you can imagine,
creating
 a social crisis so severe that your company was forced to leave.  Now
Bechtel and its affiliates want cash.

 Imagine, if you will, how the situation appears to the Bolivians who
 experienced it directly.  Your company came here, charged people rates they
 could never afford and which your company knew in advance would create just
 the sort of violent convulsions that it did.  As one of your associates
 euphemistically said to me in a letter, "a rapid increase [in water prices]
 would be difficult socially."  When asked reasonably to lower rates, your
 company refused.  When those rates sent the entire city into a violent
 crisis, your managers hid out in a five star hotel, content to let soldiers
 fire live rounds at those protesting your presence here.  Now, after all
 the death, harm and suffering it has already caused here, Bechtel has the
 arrogance to add on to that a claim of financial damages against these same
 people.

 Few here doubt that Bechtel is capable, through legal trickery and
 firepower, of squeezing millions of dollars out of the Bolivian treasury.
 Once again, you will sit down behind closed doors with Bolivian government
 officials, this time in a World Bank-sponsored arbitration.  The government
 here has budgeted $50,000 to hire U.S. lawyers to represent them, probably
 not quite what you have at your disposal.  The Bolivian President,
 desperate to look friendly to foreign investment, will be eager to write
your company a check and bring things to an end.  Your losses, however you
 may calculate them, are numbers on a ledger.  Mrs. Daza's loss is buried in
 a cemetery.  No one will be representing her in your arbitrations.

For Bechtel, with revenues of more than $14 billion annually, $25 million
 is what you take in before lunch on any given workday.  What does your
 legal action mean for the people of Bolivia, for the families that already
 suffered so deeply once because of Bechtel's involvement in their lives?
Here in Bolivia $25 million is the annual cost to hire 3,000 rural doctors,
 12,000 public school teachers, or hooking up 125,000 families who don't
have access to the public water system.  Which of these are you suggesting
 Bolivia should do without in order to pay you?

Your public relations department denies Bechtel responsibility in this
 matter, claiming that you are only a minority shareholder in the subsidiary
 that did business here.  That is convenient.  The whole company is owned by
minority shareholders.  Bechtel, however, is the largest among them.
> Surely, one of the most important lessons that we, as parents, try to
teach
 our children is about taking responsibility for our actions.  Corporations
 should be held to no less a standard.  If the buck does not stop with you
Mr. Bechtel, the head of the corporation with the largest stake, then who
 is responsible?

So, you have a choice.  You can direct your public relations staff to make
 glib statements about fairness, while your lawyers take aim at Bolivia's
 poor, or you can do something extraordinary.  You can decide that the
 Bechtel has already done enough damage here and you can rescind your demand
 and your legal action.  You could even do so on condition that the Bolivian
 government agrees to dedicate that $25 million to directly serving the
 poor.  From out my window, Mr. Bechtel, I see the old man who has been bent
 over building a new street curb all week.  He couldn't afford to pay your
 water rates and now he and his children can't afford to pay your demand for
 compensation.  Your corporate mission statement declares Bechtel's
 commitment to work with communities, "to help improve the standard of
living and the quality of life."  In Bolivia, by any definition imaginable,
 Bechtel has failed that standard miserably.  The decision is yours as to
 whether to repeat that mistake again.

 Sincerely,

 Jim Shultz
 Cochabamba, Bolivia


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