Latin America conference: Speakers
Oscar Olivera
Oscar is the executive secretary of the Cochabamba Federation of Factory Workers and spokesperson for the Coalition in Defense of Water and Life, known as La Coordinadora. The Coordinadora was at the forefront of a popular uprising in Cochabamba in 2000 against US multinational Bechtel who had taken over their water systems as an IMF-imposed condition for debt relief. As part of a corruptly-negotiated deal Bechtel not only raised water rates sky-high, but also was able to take over communally-constructed and managed water supplies run for centuries by its people. The Coordinadora demanded that their water system should stay under local public control. Thousand of citizens protested for weeks. The Bolivian army killed one, injured hundreds and arrested several Coalition leaders. Olivera, who had been forced into hiding, emerged to negotiate with the government.
In April 2000, la Coordinadora won its demands when the government turned over control of the city's water system to the organization and cancelled the privatization contract. La Coordinadora achieved the first major victory against the global trend of privatizing water resources sparking off similar struggles including in Uruguay where campaigners inspired by Cochabamba's fight secured a referendum victory that changed the Constitution to say that water was a public right and could not be privatised. The victory also gave new energy to Bolivia's dynamic social movements who in a series of nationwide struggles overthrew two Presidents in 2003 and 2005, and helped secure a resounding victory for Bolivia's first ever indigenous President, Evo Morales in December 2005. However the Coordinadora and many of Bolivia's social movements continue to be fiercely independent of the Government and have vowed to hold it to account if it does not deliver its commitments to reverse neo-liberalism and develop a more inclusive and just nation. Olivera continues also to head La Coordinadora's work to develop a water system that relies neither on corrupt government management nor on transnational corporations.
Hilary Wainwright
Hilary is the co-editor of Red Pepper magazine and the Director of the Transnational Institute's New Politics project. She has written extensively about the relationship between social movements and left parties, particularly in Europe and Latin America, and in her book 'Reclaim the State: Experiments in Popular Democracy', examined the Brazilian Workers Party's involvement in Participatory Budgeting.
Sue Branford
Sue is currently the Chair of the Latin America Bureau and has a long association with War on Want. She is a journalist who specialises in Latin America, and has written for the Guardian, BBC and New Statesman. Her 2002 book 'Cutting the Wire: The story of Brazil's landless movement' (co-authored with Jan Rocha) is a major examination of the history, politics and practice of the Movimento Sem Terra.
Nick Buxton
Nick Buxton is a British activist currently based in La Paz, Bolivia, working alongside social movements in their struggles against water privatisation and free trade agreements.
Andy Higginbottom
Andy is the secretary of the Colombia Solidarity Campaign and editor of Frontline Latin America, a quarterly newspaper which focuses on Latin American social movements and their struggles against neo-liberalism and imperialism in the continent.
Paul Chatterton
Paul is a member of Kiptik, the Zapatista solidarity organisation in Britain, and recently spent six months living in Chiapas with the autonomous communities.
Lies Craeynest
Lies is Senior Programmes Officer at War on Want, a radical anti-poverty charity whose international programmes focus on solidarity with existing social movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Jorge Martin
Jorge is the International Secretary of Hands Off Venezuela, an organisation which undertakes international solidarity work with the Bolivarian Revolution.