Housing, hospitals, schools, water, energy – all the things we depend for our daily lives – are being privatised so that big business can profit. But across the world from Bolivia to Britain people are organising, fighting back and proposing better alternatives. These are the things we have fought hard for and won. Don’t sit back and let them take our cities and resources from us.Two public meetings in Leeds will bring people together to discuss what’s happening and plan how we can respond.
The first meeting of the 'Our Cities are not for Sale!' events takes place on 12 July at the 'Common Place Social Centre' in the city centre. It features high-profile Bolivian trade unionist and anti-privatisation campaigner, Oscar Olivera Foronda, who is visiting Leeds as part of a nation-wide tour to deliver a message of solidarity and hope: ‘If we can beat privatisation in Bolivia then you can do it in Leeds’.
Oscar Olivera (pictured above) is the executive secretary of the Cochabamba Federation of Factory Workers in Bolivia and spokesperson for the Coalition in Defence of Water and Life (known as ‘La Coordinadora’). He will speak about the popular uprising against privatisation in Bolivia since 2000 that recently swept the socialist president Evo Morales to power.
The charismatic activist, known as ‘El Chato’ to his comrades, helped lead a mass movement in Cochabamba against US multinational Bechtel who had taken over the water systems as an IMF-imposed condition for debt relief. As part of a corrupt deal, Bechtel raised water rates sky-high and took over communally-constructed and managed water supplies run for centuries by its people. Thousand of citizens protested for weeks despite huge government repression. Olivera emerged from hiding to negotiate with the government and in April 2000, ‘La Coordinadora’ won its demands when the government turned over control of the city's water system to the organisation and cancelled the privatisation contract.
The meeting has been organised by the Save Little London Campaign with support from Leeds Unison, World Development Movement and the Common Place social centre. During the event, Oscar will be joined by a trade activist campaigning against the harmful trade role played by the European Union in Latin America, a Venezuelan worker in Hugo Chavez's nationalised oil industry, a local trade unionist from Unison talking about privatisation in Leeds and a speaker from the Rossport Solidarity Camp in Ireland who will explain how they are supporting local people’s fight against oil giant Shell's plan to build an unprecedented high pressure gas pipeline through the hamlet of Rossport.
Save Little London campaigners aim to use the opportunity of Oscar’s visit to link the struggles of people abroad to those closer to home and launch a city-wide anti-privatisation network aimed at stopping the PFI regeneration scheme in Little London and supporting all other campaigns to defend public services in the city. The 12 July public meeting will be followed a week later by a city-wide anti-privatisation meeting in Little London. 'Our Homes are not for Sale - Challenging Privatisation in Leeds' will be held on the 19 July at 'Space@', behind Little London Community Primary School. Details above.
Meeting details:
Wednesday 12 July 6pm-late
Fighting the privatisation of resources: voices from the frontline
@The Common Place Social Centre
Featuring Oscar Olivera
Spokesperson for the Coalition in Defence of Water and Life (‘La Coordinadora’) in Cochabamba, Bolivia.
Plus
Nick Buxton, trade activist based in La Paz, Bolivia
John McDermott, local trade unionist, Leeds Unison
Fin, Rossport Solidarity Camp against Shell, Ireland
speaker from Venezuela
++ Film screenings, food, and benefit party
The Common Place, 23-25 Wharf Street, Leeds
www.thecommonplace.org.uk
For a map, click here
For more information, email savelittlelondon@gmail.com or ring 07775886617
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The Common Place is an autonomous social centre based at 23-25 Wharf Street in the heart of the city centre – see our website www.thecommonplace.org.uk for directions. Its aim is to create a place in which people can collectively recover those things being eroded by the market society: a sense of community and solidarity, affordable food and entertainment, a non-commercial place to relax, talk, meet people or find information on political campaigns, issues and actions.
Doors will open at 6pm on Wednesday 12 July. The evening will begin with a short film on the popular uprising in Brazil followed by speakers and discussion from 7pm until 9pm. The event will climax with a Fiesta for Water and Life benefit party with drinks, food and music, featuring an acoustic set by American folk singer, Tom Neilson (http://www.tomneilsonmusic.com). All monies raised will go to supporting La Coordinadora in Bolivia and the Common Place.
Oscar Olivera is the executive secretary of the Cochabamba Federation of Factory Workers in Bolivia and spokesperson for the Coalition in Defence of Water and Life, known as ‘La Coordinadora’. He worked in factories from the age of sixteen. He took his first leadership role in the labor movement twenty five years ago when he went to work in a shoe factory. For more information about Oscar http://www.narconews.com/Issue34/article1049.html
La Coordinadora achieved the first major victory against the global trend of privatising 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. Oscar Olivera also continues to head La Coordinadora's work to develop a water system that relies neither on corrupt government management nor on transnational corporations.
Local campaigners will launch a city-wide anti-privatisation network at the meeting. The aim is to link campaigns to defend council housing, the NHS, education, post offices, libraries, playing fields and all public services and space from privatisation under one umbrella – Our Cities are not for Sale – bringing together trade unions with tenants, teachers, lecturers, administrators, doctors, nurses, librarians, cleaners, council workers and students.
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