Grade Level: SrH-Adult
Producer: Filmakers Library
Closed Captioned: |
Running Time: 26 mins
Country of Origin:
Study Guide: No |
Copyright Date: 2004
Available in French: No
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Bolivia, one of the most troubled countries in the region, is fractured by language, race, and class. The poorest country in South American, its society is divided into the rich and the very poor. Now, there is a new fault line - globalization. In a recent referendum, voters decided to allow more exports of the country's lucrative natural gas reserves, which will earn the country much needed foreign revenue. The exporting of natural gas in an explosive issue in Bolivia, where public anger at proposals to ship the gas out of Chilean ports toppled the government in October 2003. Native Indians reinforced the anti-globalization movement when they organized against the privatization of water by the multinational corporation Bechtel. As Professor Roberto Fernandez, Cochabamba University, points out: It was theft. Bechtel was stealing from people what they had invested in their small neighbourhoods. The water war...opened a broad path for the popular movement. |
