Privatization Bolivian Style: A Cautionary

plane for Miami in the face of protests that left over 70 civilians dead. The protests, popularly referred to as the `gas wars', began when the government announced plans to allow private firms to install a pipeline to Chile to transport gas destined for US markets. The public rejection of the plan grew out of the increasing perception that natural resources, which many Bolivians believed held the key for economic development, were being transferred to international firms. Following constitutional procedure, Vice President Carlos Mesa assumed the presidency with a promise to reconsider fundamental neoliberal policies. The gas wars were the third time in as many years that massive numbers of Bolivians had taken to the streets against neoliberal policies designed along the lines of the Washington Consensus (Williamson, 1993). In 2000, the `water wars ' erupted in Cochabamba, the country's fourth largest city, when a consortium headed by the US construction company Bechtel took control of the local water company and raised water rates, sometimes as much as 400 % (Finnegan, 2002). Bechtel left the country after the government rescinded the contract. In February 2003, the military fired on strikin