007: Art Imitates Life

In "Quantum of Solace," 2008's contribution to the James Bond franchise, the principal villain, one Dominic Greene, seeks to help a corrupt dictator stage a coup in Bolivia in exchange for what appears to be a worthless piece of scrub desert in a remote corner of the Andean country, devoid of oil or precious minerals.  

The movie pans to a scene where Bolivian villagers crowd around a cistern that has run dry, the last few drops falling listlessly from the spigot.  For years, Greene's corporation had been secretly shutting off water supplies and storing them under the desert.  In fact, Greene's nefarious plan is revealed in a scene when Greene forces the would-be Bolivian dictatorto sign over the rights to take over operations of the water utilities in the country.    Stage a coup in exchange for being water commissioner?  

Sound familiar? 

It should.  During the late 1990s, as a condition for continued loans, the World Bank insisted that Bolivia privatize its water services.  In 1999, the state-run water utility in Cochabamba, Bolivia's third-largest city was  privatized by a consortium led by several international partners including the US-based Bechtel Corporation.   Although ambitious in its plan to expand water coverage in the Cochabamba area, the consortium raised rates by over 30% which made payment untenable for many of the poor water consumers in Cochabamba.  Residents took to the streets to protest the rate hikes and the threats by the consortium to shut off water to any resident who could not pay.  A general strike was called and violent protests errupted with many arrests, several killed and a state of emergency called. 

The consortium pulled out of Bolivia after several months of turmoil and subsequently Becthtel took legal action before the World Bank's ICSID against the Government of Bolivia to recover its lost investments.