Water is a basic human right

Two years ago, the World Bank (whose official attends Bolivian government cabinet meetings as a full participant) refused to guarantee a $25-million (U.S.) loan to refinance water services in Cochabamba, Bolivia's third-largest city, unless the government sold the public water system to the private sector and passed the costs on to consumers. Only one bid was considered, and the utility was turned over to a subsidiary of a conglomerate led by Bechtel, the giant engineering company implicated in the infamous Three Gorges Dam in China, which has caused the forced relocation of 1.3 million people.