Bolivia's Morales blasts privatisation, urges support for farmers
Bolivia's Morales blasts privatisation, urges support for farmers
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation - Fri, 31 Oct 2014 14:20 GMT
By Chris Arsenault
ROME, Oct 31 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Bolivian President Evo Morales blasted water privatization and urged governments to fight poverty by doing more to support small farmers during an address at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on Thursday.
Morales, an Aymara Indian and former coca grower who became Bolivia's first indigenous president in 2006, comfortably won a third term on Oct. 12 with an estimated 60 percent of the vote.
His anti-poverty programmes and prudent spending of funds from the nationalisation of natural gas and oil businesses have earned him wide support in the country long dogged by political instability.
"A government which privatizes water is not respecting individual or collective rights," Morales said to raucous applause from delegates at the meeting in Rome. "If you don't have water, you don't have life."
Social movements in Bolivia fought protracted battles against water privatization in the late 1990s and early 2000s, which were eventually successful.
More:
http://www.trust.org/item/20141031142024-kpml0/