"BOLIVIA FOR SALE"
Following is a transcript of, and images from, the 30-minute documentary "Bolivia For Sale" which was recorded during the week of November 14, 2005, on location in Bolivia. The documentary was presented as part of Fairtrade Fortnight on the Community Channel in the UK, March 9-16, 2006.
Background: Damian Lewis visited Bolivia on behalf of Christian Aid in during the week of November 14, 2005, to explore for himself the conditions of this poverty-stricken country, meet with some key people and gather information. Since his visit, Damian has been very active in bringing this cause to the world's attention. And in January 2006, Damian took on the role as a trade justice ambassadorfor Christian Aid to help champion their causes even more.
This transcript, and these photos, are provided primarily to help bring additional attention to the cause. Although you may be visiting this page in the capacity as an admirer of Damian Lewis and his acting work, it is my hope that you also will be inspired by his work as a humanitarian -- and perhaps consider learning more about the issues and what you might do to help. You will find links to further information at the bottom of this page.
Thank you for visiting.
TRANSCRIPTION BEGINS ...
| Damian Lewis (voice over): These are historic times in Bolivia. The people have just elected their first-ever indigenous president with the biggest mandate in Bolivian electoral history. Evo Morales comes not from the traditional political elite, but from a poor family of coca farmers and tin miners. He was elected on a platform of resistance to neo-liberalism, a type of free-market economy that's largely been forced on Bolivia by international bodies like the World Bank.
Evo Morales (video clip, subtitled in English): Let's give the power back to the Bolivian people. |
| Titles:
"Bolivia For Sale" |
 Damian Lewis (to camera): I'm here in Bolivia with Christian Aid. I'm at about 3,800 meters above sea level on the Altiplano, very close to Lake Titicaca. And I can tell you it's pretty hard to breathe. I'm here to meet some of Christian Aid's partner organizations who work with the poorer communities. Really, I'm on a fact-finding trip to discover how well the free-market model serves Bolivia, the poorest country in South America.
Damian Lewis (voice over): Trade, both in local and global markets, is clearly a fundamental way for people to work themselves out of poverty. Since the 1980s, Bolivia has followed the free-trade model commonly known as the Washington Consensus. Simply put, this means privatizing all state-owned enterprise, and opening up domestic markets to international investment and competition. I'm going to investigate the effects the Washington Consensus has had in Bolivia by looking at three key markets: gas, milk, and first, water. |
 Subtitle:
"Water" |
 Damian Lewis (to camera): At 3,500 meters above sea level, La Paz is the highest capitol in the world. But higher above it still, here on the Altiplano, the Andean High Plain, sits El Alto, its poorer, sprawling sister city. Now here in El Alto, more than a quarter of homes don't have access to safe, running water. And that's because since privatization, the water company has failed to provide for poor people here.
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 Damian Lewis (voice over): I meet Maxima Cari and her three children, who are typical of the 200,000 people here in El Alto with no connection to running water.
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 Maxima Cari (subtitled in English): We don't have steady work, so we can't afford to pay for water.
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 Damian Lewis (to Maxima): Maxima, tell me, where do you get your water from?
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 Maxima Cari (subtitled in English): We dig our own wells with picks and shovels. The water is about 8 meters down. We also dig holes for sewage water. That contaminates the well water we drink. It's not as clean as tap water. That's why the children get ill. They get diarrhea, sometimes I have to take them to the hospital, sometimes they have to stay there. It's not nice to have to live like this.
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 Damian Lewis (to camera): This is the 8-meter-deep that Maxima and her husband have dug with their own bare hands and with a pick. What's amazing is how far they've had to dig for very little water. God. Now, if we just -- if I just show you the quality of the water, if you can just have a look in there, you can see it's full of bits.
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 Damian Lewis (to Maxima): Maxima, es possible -- es possible beber el agua?
Maxima Cari: Esto es lo que nosotros bebemos. [Next sentence, also in Spanish, unintelligible.] |
 Damian Lewis (to camera): I just asked her if this is drinkable, and this is the water that they drink, and that she gives her children to drink. Hardly surprising, I suppose, that they end up in hospital.
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 Damian Lewis (voice over): I want to find out what's gone so badly wrong. I meet Pablo Solon of the Solon Foundation, one of Christian Aid's partners in Bolivia. Named after Pablo's father and Bolivia's famous muralist Walter Solon, the Foundation combines art training with campaigning for social justice.
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 Damian Lewis (to Pablo): Pablo, can you just tell us, why was water privatized in Bolivia in 1997?
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 Pablo Solon: Because it was a condition of the renegotiation of the debt imposed by the World Bank, the IMF and the Inter-American Development Bank. During the 90s, almost all the public services and public companies were privatized because of this condition. What the World Bank, the IMF said was, "If you privatize this, then you'll get the best dollar. The money will come to Bolivia, and you will have more public services, even though they are private. And Bolivia is going to grow. And you are going to have more jobs. And everybody is going to be better off. If you do this, we are going to give you more loans, and give you more years to pay these loans. So do this, and you will find paradise." That was the dream that they sold to the Bolivians in the 90s.
Damian Lewis (voice over): One specific condition the World Bank required was the privatization of the water and sewage systems in the cities of El Alto and La Paz. The contractors duly put up for tender, though in the end, there was only one bidder. Pablo Solon: Who got the contract was Aguas del Illimani, who is Suez. Suez is one of the most -- biggest water transnational. It's a French company. It's almost in 100 countries around the world. They have profits of more than $5,000 million per year. Damian Lewis (voice over): But there's not much profit to be made in the poor communities of El Alto and, therefore, little incentive for the company Aguas del Illimani to invest in much-needed new water connections here. The price they set for a mains connection is far above what the average family can afford. Pablo Solon: $445 to connect to the drinking water system and to the sewage system. Here, the minimum salary is $70 in a month. Damian Lewis (to Pablo): So to just translate that for a UK audience, if someone in the UK is earning roughly £20,000 a year, it's going to cost them £8,000 or £9,000 just to get connected to safe and clean water. Pablo Solon: What's the most important thing for the private company? To bring water to all the people? Or to have profit? What we have seen is that what they mainly want is to have good profit. Damian Lewis (to Pablo): What's been the reaction of the people here in El Alto? Pablo Solon: The people in El Alto have always made a lot of protests against the privatization of water. But at the beginning of the year 2005, they decided to have a city strike. That means that all the city stops. You have blockades on all the streets. No cars can go through El Alto. Nothing can go in or out. And because El Alto surrounds La Paz, then La Paz also has almost no activity. So after four days of a total city strike, the government decided to initiate the process to end the contract with Aguas del Illimani. |
 Damian Lewis (to camera): Clean water is a basic human right -- not a commodity, not a market to be opened up in a rush towards free trade. Allowing developing countries to protect their own basic services like water against the brutalities of the free market is as vital as debt relief or increasing aid.
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 Subtitle:
"Gas" |
 Damian Lewis (to camera): It's the story of the last 500 years of Bolivia's history, and it can be summed up in one word. "Saqueo." Plunder. Ever since the Spanish conquered this land, it's been plundered for its resources. La Paz was cited where it was just behind me because of a river full of gold. Then Bolivia's famous silver mines underwrote the Spanish economy for nearly two centuries. Then came tin mining, and then rubber tapping. But it's always followed the same pattern. The plundering of the land for the benefit of a few. Bolivia has now entered another chapter in its story. A new resource has been found -- vast gas reserves that are worth hundreds of billions of dollars. And the Bolivians are now asking themselves why they might not finally see the benefits of their own land's extraordinary riches.
Damian Lewis (voice over): The problem is, Bolivia's gas and oil industry was privatized in 1996 under heavy pressure from the IMF. The result was a disastrous deal for Bolivia, with taxes slashed to attract corporate investment. |
 Damian Lewis (to camera): Liberalizing the industry in this way allowed enjoined foreign corporations like British Gas to profit from some of the cheapest gas production costs in the world.
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 Damian Lewis (voice over): I meet with Javier Gomez at the research organization CEDLA to find out more.
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 Damian Lewis (to Javier): Can you explain to me why gas was privatized in Bolivia?
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 Javier Gomez (subtitled in English): It was said that the poorest countries had intervened too much in the economy, and that had brought disadvantages. On the contrary, in Bolivia, Y.P.F.B., the state company that managed the hydrocarbons, was a profitable business and generated resources that sustained the Bolivian state. So we believe the real cause of privatization in Bolivia is part of a general process to privatize in poor countries to transfer natural resources to private companies and particularly to the multinational corporations.
Damian Lewis (voice over): The Bolivian government felt it needed outside expertise and investment to take advantage of its newfound wealth. But the tax regime they set up was very favorable to those that bought into Bolivia's vast gas fields. A basic royalty of only 18 percent was placed on all new reserves, a tax level far below the international norm. Javier Gomez (subtitled in English): That means, compare to other countries, a gift to the multinational corporations. The president of Repsol, the Spanish oil company, boasted they earned $10 for every dollar invested. In other words, 10 times what they invested. |
 Damian Lewis (to camera): Very low corporate taxes means that once again, Bolivians have been shortchanged. Gas production might have increased dramatically, but not Bolivia's share of the profits. The contradiction is clear. On the one hand, a large number of people living in terrible poverty. On the other, massive multinationals taking home record profits.
Javier Gomez (subtitled in English): Gas privatization was managed in a very dark and underground way. Bolivian society had no clear information about just how big the gas business is when the privatizations took place. Damian Lewis (voice over): It later came to light that Bolivia was sitting on natural gas reserves worth an estimated $250 billion dollars. |
 Damian Lewis (to camera): When the details were made public in 2003, it provoked outrage with thousands of people taking to the streets here in El Alto, blockading these very roads, cutting off fuel supplies, and bringing La Paz to a virtual standstill.
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 Damian Lewis (voice over): I meet Carlos Rojas from Fejuve, a network of community associations instrumental in organizing the protests.
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 Carlos Rojas (subtitled in English): For nearly two weeks the place was completely paralyzed -- businesses closed, vehicles unable to move. In El Alto all you could hear were protest marches.
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 Damian Lewis (voice over): The marchers demanded a referendum on the country's energy policy, as well as the President's resignation. His response was brutal.
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 Carlos Rojas (subtitled in English): When the army intervened, you heard gunshots. People died. The army didn't care about the consequences of firing their guns. It was a real massacre. Here we lost more than 80 of our neighbors. There were tears and pain for many families.
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 Woman in crowd during the protest (subtitled in English): They can't kill us like animals. The President has to go! This is an abuse of our trust. Why do they do this? We're only standing up for our rights. Why do they have to kill us?
Damian Lewis (voice over): But the protests have been pivotal. The President was forced to resign, and the issue of gas took centre stage in Bolivian politics. Carlos Rojas (subtitled in English): If they take these resources, there will be nothing left for us. So there was a unique unity. That's the thing that keeps us going. We're very united in El Alto. Javier Gomez (subtitled in English): If you ask any Bolivian what he wants to do with the gas, he'll say, "Take back the gas for the future of my children." That's how people understand it. That's why they mobilize with a clear awareness that Bolivia's natural resources should benefit and help develop Bolivian society. |
 Damian Lewis (to camera): Change to the way the gas reserves are managed here is urgently needed. Why shouldn't the wealth of this country be used to benefit its own people?
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 Damian Lewis (to camera, from inside a van traveling on a roadway): We've now left the sprawling city of El Alto, and we find ourselves in the most stunning countryside. We're going to talk to some dairy farmers and get a sense of their existence up here on the Altiplano.
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 Subtitle:
"Milk" Damian Lewis (voice over): More than a third of people in Bolivia live off the land, often in far worse poverty than those in the cities. Most are small subsistence farmers who live without any support from the state. |
 Damian Lewis (to camera): From the Peruvian border, it's absolutely stunning. It's 6 in the morning -- a little early, but we're up because that's when the local farmers get up to milk their cows.
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 Damian Lewis (voice over): Abrahim Mamani supports a family of eight by working as a dairy farmer.
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 Damian Lewis (to camera): He has four milking cows out of 18, and he's about to show us how to do it. Apparently, he's quite skilled.
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 Abrahim Mamani (subtitled in English): She gives good milk. She's producing very well.
Abrahim Mamani: Los cinco dedos tienen que trabajar. |
 Damian Lewis (to camera, translating): All five fingers have to work hard.
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 Abraham Mamani: Primera, segunda, tercera, cuarta.
[Not translated in programme. Translation: "First, second, third fourth."] Damian Lewis (to Abraham): Ah, okay. |
 Damian Lewis (to camera): Maybe I'll get a chance to milk my first cow. I'm quite nervous. I think it's -- something everyone should know how to do is milk a cow. And if I can't do it, I might look a bit foolish.
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 Damian Lewis (to Abraham, who hands him a pail to collect the milk): Gracias.
[Not translated in programme. Translation: "Thank you."] |
 Abrahim Mamani (placing a stool for Damian to sit on): Tomate asiento.[Not translated in programme. Translation: "Take a seat."] Damian (to Abraham, with a bit of nervous laughter): Okay. |
 Damian (to camera, and to himself, as he begins attempting to milk the cow while Abraham observes): Ah, I'm getting some, but not very much though.
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 Abrahim Mamani: Muy bien, mas o menos.
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 Damian (to Abraham and to himself, with a bit of nervous laughter): Mas o menos.
Damian (to camera): I said, was I doing all right. And he went, "Yeah, more or less." So not really. |
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 Damian (to camera, after the milking attempt, when Abraham has resumed milking the cow himself): I'm really glad to have tried that. That was really -- it was fantastic. But, I mean, look at the difference.
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 Abrahim Mamani: Facil. Facil.
[Not translated in programme. Translation: "[It's] Easy. [It's] Easy."] Damian Lewis (to Abraham, laughing a bit): Sí. Sí. [Not translated in programme. Translation: "Yes. Yes."] |
 Damian Lewis (to Abraham): Is it a hard life being a dairy farmer?
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 Abrahim Mamani (subtitled in English): You have to work hard. If not, we don't get much milk. Here, the cold is serious because the ice bothers the livestock. Sometimes they get ill -- so you have to protect the stable.
Damian Lewis (to Abraham): And whom do you sell your milk to? Abrahim Mamani (subtitled in English): For 17 years we've been selling to the Pil Andina factory in La Paz. p>Damian Lewis (to Abraham): Are you happy selling to Pil Andina? Are you happy with the price that they give you for your milk?Abrahim Mamani (subtitled in English): We have no room for maneuver. Pil Andina is doing good business because when we give them our milk, they make it into various products. They sell them and make more than triple. It doesn't work for us because they pay us a pittance. That's why we'd like our own factory. Damian Lewis (voice over): As I listen to Abraham, I begin to realize that this is the story of yet another failed privatization in what would seem to be a simple domestic market. |
 Damian Lewis (to camera): Behind me is the Pil Andina milk processing plant. Nine years ago, this was a state-run company. It was privatized to promote competition on the local market -- a good idea, you might think. But it's not so simple. This multinational company now virtually monopolizes both production and sales.
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 Damian Lewis (to camera): The family I met sells its milk to this company at very low prices. In fact, since Pil Andina took control of the market, farmers are getting paid even less.
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 Damian Lewis (to camera): We've come across the compound's store which sells, unsurprisingly, Pil products. Pretty illustrative, I think, of just the hold that they have on the dairy products market. If you want some milk, come to Pil. If you want some butter, try Pil. If you want a carton of yogurt, I've got an idea for you: Pil. Now, all of this is fine if, of course, there was any competition. But there isn't.
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 Damian Lewis (to camera): It seems to me that this is just another example of how the one-size-fits-all free-market model is again failing in poorer developing countries. I think the key question is how can we ensure that poor farmers reap the benefits of what they produce.
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 Damian Lewis (to camera): Here, an association of small farmers is trying to do just that. APROLAC is producing milk and dairy products for the benefit of its own members. I meet its president, Gabriel Mamani.
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 Gabriel Mamani: Bienvenidos.
[Not translated in programme. Translation: "Welcome."] Damian Lewis (to Gabriel): Gracias. [Not translated in programme. Translation: "Thank you."] |
 Damian Lewis (to Gabriel): How do you help the local farmers?
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 Gabriel Mamani (subtitled in English): APROLAC is trying to manage in a fair way the whole production chain. We ourselves produce, collect, transform and sell the milk. So the profit has to be for us too, not for the big businessmen, so our members can have an income to help them look after their families, for education, health, lots of things.
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 Damian Lewis (voice over): Gabriel shows me how, with help from Christian Aid partner CIPCA, the cooperative has bought the equipment it needs to process milk into cheese and yogurt.
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 Damian Lewis (to camera): Look at this. Oh my God.
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 Damian Lewis (to camera): This is local -- local Altiplano cheese.
(Damian tastes the cheese.) |
 Dairy worker: Que te parece?
[Not translated in programme. Translation: "How is it?"] |
 Damian Lewis (to the workers): Me gusta mucho. Me gusta mucho.
[Not translated in programme. Translation: "I like it very much. I like it very much."] |
 Damian Lewis (to camera): What's great about the fact that they can make their own cheese is this "transformacion" -- the transformation process they're able to do here on a very small-scale way with the funding that they've received. There's a palpable sense of a dream here that one day they'll be competing with the big corporations. Good luck to them.
Damian Lewis (to the workers around him): Mucha suerte. Mucha suerte. [Not translated in programme. Translation: "Good luck. Good luck."] |
 Damian Lewis (to Gabriel): How difficult is it for APROLAC to compete with a big multinational, for example, Pil Andina?
Gabriel Mamani (subtitled in English): That's our vision, our dream. Fifteen years from now, we'd like to be equal to Pil Andina, or even better than them. This is a hard-working community. So using what we already have and already know, we can do it. Damian Lewis (to Gabriel): Do you get any help from the government? Gabriel Mamani (subtitled in English): From the central, provincial and local government, we haven't received a single thing. We have had help from NGOs like CIPCA. We know very well that more free-trade agreements are coming to flatten us. That's why we need to organize ourselves to compete. That's our vision. |
 Damian Lewis (to camera): So, the association still has basic machinery and little training, and is struggling to make a profitable business. At the same time, it has to compete with a huge multinational. It's clear that it's going to need a lot more support to survive.
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 Damian Lewis (voice over): My trip to Bolivia is almost over. I meet again with Pablo Solon, who wants to show me a mural project run by the Solon Foundation. Working with local young people, the Foundation have created images on the same themes of free trade I've been looking at. The work they've done is impressive, and I meet one of the artists, Diego, whose political awareness belies his 15 years of age.
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 Damian Lewis (to Diego): Diego, what is the idea behind this mural?
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 Diego (subtitled in English): The motivation for making the mural is to fight against injustice. The injustice that we live every day. We know that the foreign debt is strangling us. And we're hanging by a thread, hanging over an abyss. It's like Bolivia is carrying an extra weight, and with a little more, we'll fall into the abyss. We Bolivians don't want that. That's what we're trying to express. The indigenous man who is inside the American money --
Damian Lewis (to Diego): Prision. [Not translated in programme. Translation: "Prison."] Diego (subtitled in English): In prison. We're prisoners -- Damian Lewis (to Diego): Sí. [Not translated in programme. Translation: "Yes."] Diego (subtitled in English): -- of the dollar. |
 Diego (subtitled in English): I think constructing a new country is what the murals help us to do, because we're expressing what we feel, what's happening here. And the sun shows that today is a new day. A new day full of hope. A new day let's take advantage of, because today is today and tomorrow is tomorrow.
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 Damian Lewis (voice over): Diego's analysis is typical of the scores of people I've met in my short time in Bolivia. The people here have become necessarily politicized after years of exploitation.
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 Damian Lewis (voice over): Evo Morales won his historic majority with promises to take back control of the gas sector and reverse the excesses of free-market liberalization. He comes into office facing enormous challenges, and with the hopes of millions of Bolivians resting on his shoulders. I for one will be intrigued to see what happens.
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| End Credits:
Presented by Thanks to Archive Producton Assistant Video Archivist Music Camera Executive Producer Production Directed and Edited by |
... END OF TRANSCRIPTION
Click here to watch "Bolivia For Sale" online in its entirety. (If that link fails, go to this page and click the link on that page to view the video.)
Click here to view more images from this program and other photos of Damian during his visit to Bolivia.
Click here to view an article from Marie Claire magazine about Damian's visit to Bolivia.
Click here to view an article from Christian Aid News magazine about Damian's visit to Bolivia.
Click here to read an article about, and see photos of, the situation in El Alto by freelance writer-photographer Nick Buxton, who took part in Damian's visit.
Click here to view exclusive photos of Damian from his interview on the BBC2 programme The Daily Politics on December 7, 2005, when he presented a portion of the film and discussed Bolivia's situation with the programme's panel.
Click here for more information about the situation in Bolivia, Christian Aid's efforts, Damian's visit to the area, Damian's role in the campaign, and how you can help.
Click here to view a Christian Aid video with Damian talking about conditions in Bolivia and the importance of the September 14, 2006, march against world poverty in London. Click here to view photos from this Christian Aid video.
Click here to visit the Christian Aid Web site.
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