Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Transredes


The newspapers say Evo is shooting himself in the foot. Everyone says, that no way no how any business will ever invest in Bolivia now; the WTO will sanction and the WB will refuse loans. Why should the big transnationals come when they’ll have no way of insuring if what’s theirs will remain theirs for very long, now that the president of Bolivia has nationalized natural resources companies, telecommunications providers and now this.

It was the rash state takeover of a transnational oil transport company that’s got them all scared. Evo says the state tried to negotiate and Transredes was just taking too long, “obviously stalling”. So he took it. It’s Bolivia’s now. Not to worry, Bolivia will pay them for it. But I personally hope it takes 8 years, just as its taken 8 years for Transredes to pay Bolivia for their oil spill in the Desaguadero River. And even now it’s only by default that Transredes will be paying the $1.9 million dollars it owes the state as the standard 0.3% of business value owed for an oil spill. The state will be deducting that from what it pays the private company.

Included among the accused transgressions of Transredes are not only the oil spill and failure to comply with Bolivian law following the event, but also a terrible clean up job in which they re-contaminated a community by not lining the ground where they stacked the bags of contaminated soil. Furthermore, anthropology students confessed to being paid by the transnational to identify leaders in the indigenous communities, which sit along the contaminated riverbank and lakeshores. Later the students confessed that Transredes used the information to bribe the leaders instead of compensate the communities.

These days Bolivia is testing the soil and hoping to show it’s still contaminated which would validate a lesser payout to the company. I doubt it will be difficult to prove as nearly every community says their lands and water sources remain affected.

Transredes will fare much better in their exit from Bolivia than other corporate giants such as Bechtel. When Bolivia sought loans to overhaul its state owned water system in 2000, the World Bank conditioned that the company be privatized first. Bechtel became owner of a portion of Bolivia’s formerly publicly owned water system. The company was kicked out of the country by social protest after increasing water prices by 35% and making it illegal to even collect rainwater!

There will undoubtedly be economic and political consequences for Evo’s takeovers. But every time an Uru tells me how they can’t fish in their contaminated lake, or tales of the sinister corruption with local NGOs and anthropologists manipulated in the hands of the large multinational, I just keep thinking someone has to stand up to them.

For more insight on the unchecked powers of corporations check out this documentary.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Beautifully written! xo

Ian said...

"Transredes used the information to bribe the leaders instead of compensate the communities."

so is that the fault of the companies or the leaders? If communities are governed/ruled/whatever by corrupt leaders, aren't they pretty much going to get screwed over anyways?

"the sinister corruption with local NGOs and anthropologists manipulated in the hands of the large multinational, I just keep thinking someone has to stand up to them."

are we standing up to the sinister local NGO's and anthropologist sell-outs as well?

if I'm 30 pounds overweight I can blame McDonald's all I want, but demonizing a fast food chain for my poor decisions is kinda silly