the 45 year old machinist and union activist led the people of Cochabamba to the streets in the year 2000, when the government of Bolivia, after being put under pressure by the World Bank, privatised the water of the third biggest city of the country. The water concession was given to the US-corporation Bechtel. In the course of the people‘s protest in Cochabamba tens of thousands of people hit the streets. They simply didn’t want to accept to pay up to a third of their income for their drinking water to the corporation. The government deployed police forces and later the military. The struggle that developed out of this became known as “the water war”.