2000 Cochabamba Protests - Resolution

Resolution

After a televised recording of a Bolivian Army captain, Robinson Iriarte de la Fuente, firing a rifle into a crowd of demonstrators wounding many and hitting high school student Víctor Hugo Daza in the face, killing him, intense anger erupted. The police told the executives of the consortium that their safety could no longer be guaranteed. The executives then fled from Cochabamba to Santa Cruz. After coming out of four days of hiding, Oscar Olivera signed a concord with the government guaranteeing the removal of Aguas del Tunari and turning Cochabamba's water works over to La Coordinadora. Detained demonstrators were to be released and Law 2029 repealed. The Banzer government then told Aguas del Tunari that by leaving Cochabamba they had "abandoned" the concession and declared the $200 million contract revoked. The company, insisting that it had not left voluntarily but been forced out, filed a $40 million lawsuit in the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, an appellate body of the World Bank, against the Bolivian government, "claiming compensation for lost profits under a bilateral investment treaty." On the day following Víctor Hugo Daza's funeral, Óscar Olivera climbed to his union office's balcony and proclaimed victory to the exhausted crowd. The demonstrators declared that they would not relent until Law 2029 was changed. To get a quorum to amend the law the government even rented planes to fly legislators back to the capital. In a special session on 11 April 2000 the law was changed.