Genocide Case For Bolivia Ex-Head
Bolivian prosecutors have brought formal charges of genocide against the country’s exiled former president, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada.
The move came on the fourth anniversary of Mr Sanchez de Lozada’s resignation following violent street protests at plans to export natural gas.
The charges, denied by Mr Sanchez de Lozada, relate to the deaths of at least 60 people killed in the unrest.
The Bolivian government is seeking his extradition from the United States.
The Bolivian attorney general, Mario Uribe, presented nine charges, including genocide, against Mr Sanchez de Lozada to the Supreme Court in Sucre.
Eight members of his government and five high-ranking military chiefs were also charged with a range of crimes, including murder and torture.
Mr Sanchez de Lozada has denied allowing security forces to use violence against demonstrators.
His lawyer in the US, Howard Gutman, told the Spanish news agency Efe that the charges were due to “the incessant political campaign to punish the political rivals” of Bolivia’s current leader, Evo Morales.
Growing crisis
On Wednesday, a group of protesters gathered outside the US embassy in La Paz to demand that Mr Sanchez de Lozada be sent back from the US to face trial.
The Bolivian ambassador in Washington, Gustavo Guzman, said his government would present a formal extradition request to the US authorities at the beginning of November.
Mr Sanchez de Lozada fled to the US after the protests brought down his government in October 2003.
The crisis had grown as more and more people took to the streets to demonstrate against his free market policies, including plans to export natural gas.
Troops were deployed to help combat the growing civil unrest, including strikes and road blockades, and dozens were killed in several weeks of violence.
Goni, as the US-educated president was often called, came to power in August 2002 with just 22.5% of the vote, and remained deeply unpopular.
The man who came a surprise second in that election, Evo Morales, played a central role in the demonstrations demanding the nationalisation of the energy sector.
Mr Morales was elected president in December 2005.
© 2007 BBC
Punishing political rivals and even mass murder are not synonymous with “genocide.” This term is increasingly abused. Was Lozada intent on wiping out the indigenous population or any part of it? Guatemala is a place where genocide against native peoples occurred as are the US and Israel. I don’t know that this is the case in Bolivia, maybe it is. Certainly murder and torture are things for which leaders need to be held accountable but we must reserve the label of “genocide.” for the real thing.
I agree with Jaded Prole that the term “genocide” does not apply to simple political oppression. I hardly think that 60 deaths in street protest qualifies as genocide. Overuse of the term does nothing but minimize real genocides, such as happened in Nazi Germany, Armenians, Cambodia, and Rwanda.
The article doesn’t discuss what the protests were about. Furthermore, genocide is among the charges and not necessarily applied solely to the massacre. At the time, there was a real risk that they would be wiped out as a consequence of water deprivation through privatization as well as a host of other murderous policies. Fortunately, the neo-liberals were tossed out, but a strong case can be made that a genocide was averted.
I agree with the sentiments so far. Goni is a political slickster who deserved to be overthrown. (See the documentary “Our Brand is Crisis.”) I support Morales and the popular democratic revolution now underway in Bolivia. Nevertheless, it is a bad, bad idea to conduct political vendettas and masquerade them as criminal justice. To prosecute Goni because he was a bad leader gives support to charges that Bolivia is now being overrun by mindless mobs and is, in fact, on an “incessant campaign to punish political rivals.” If there are specific charges of homicide to be prosecuted, then so be it. But using genocide in this way only makes other possible and perhaps more appropriate charges against Goni seem like it is purely driven by political and personal grudges.
The duly elected government of Bolivia has every right, and plenty of probable cause, to charge Goni with serious crimes and to seek his extradition from the U.S. to stand trial. What matters is whether the U.S. government will cooperate in the way the U.S. government demands other countries cooperate when it’s the U.S. seeking extradition. And it’s Bolivian laws that matter, not somebody else’s definition of “genocide.” Sixty people were killed and he was in charge.
There is actually a standard and commonly accepted definition of genocide. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as “…any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
It should be noted that Bolivia signed it but has not ratified it. This might be a point that the US will raise if it decides not the extradite Goni. It is in Bolivia’s interest to accept this definition. Its extradition request must be accompanied by evidence that is sufficient enough to meet the probable cause threshold accepted in the US criminal system. Perhaps Bolivia can, and if so it should. If, however, Bolivia rejects the definition advanced by the Convention it has no grounds to request extradition and charges of genocide will simply look like a political ruse. Extradition works when states agree that an act in question is criminal and agree on the evidence that establishes probable cause.
States that say the following to other states are generally unsuccessful at extradition: “You have one of our nationals who committed a crime. We don’t care if you don’t like our evidence, and we don’t care if you consider it a crime. Just give him/her to us.” If Bolivia wants the US to honor its extradition request, it must make a prima facie case. I admit, of course, the US’ own political agendas and interests might still work against the request. But in such a case, Bolivia will at least have integrity on its side.
The Bolivians, I’m afraid, don’t have the resources the U.S. employed a few years ago to jail a certain Panamanian drug dealer. Our government didn’t even need to request extradition in his case.
Sanchez de Losada is being charged with nine crimes, one of which is genocide. Others are homicide, torture and causing serious bodily harm. Why wouldn’t any of these be sufficient grounds for extradition?
I hate to say this, but 60 people dead is not a “genocide”. Mass murder, maybe, but genocide?
The U.S. seems to provide safe harbor for mass murders. Anyone remamber Bhopal or the Shah?
I remember Bhopal. If an accident is “mass murder”, then god help the Soviets after what happened at Chernoybal and what used to be the Caspian Sea.
kkiittyt
Under those standards, genocide is happening everywhere all the time….
SonOfPowerslave - Ok perhaps mass homicide would more aptly fit int he Bhopal case, after all it was the wanton neglect of safety precautions and mis-management of the plant that caused the “accident” and thereby caused the deaths of the victims.
Killyt - Thanks for the clear definition of Genocide. Based on that I wonder when the USA will admit that it was founded and furthered on the principle of Genocide against the Native Americans? Anyway I expect that the USA will not likely be giving up Mr Sanchez de Lozada for extradition, even if Bolivia does make a prima facie Case, but your point that they should still do so is spot on.
I usually like short concise articles, but this one I found severely lacking in necessary facts. I would have expected better from the BBC.
Debating whether Bolivian law is using the proper language to describe the massacre of 60 people seems very much beside the point.
I would think that progressives in the U.S. would be celebrating the fact that a murderous leader for crimes against his own people. And this hardly seems an example of a politically motivated prosecution. The principle of command responsibility is well established under the law, and Goni ordered the military to use deadly force to put down the uprising. Instead of second guessing the Bolivians over questions of semantics, we should be pressuring our own government to hand over Goni — and demanding accountability for U.S. officials who aided and abetted his crimes.
For a good primer on the struggle that ousted Goni see “The A-B-C of Popular Revolt” by Andrea Arenas Alípaz and Luis Gómez — http://www.narconews.com/Issue31/article885.html
It is flawed to dismiss a discussion of appropriate and productive strategy as purely a matter of semantics. If Bolivia truly wants Goni (or to mobilize support for his extradition), then it must devise a plan that is principled and sound. Secondary sources suggest to me that Goni did, in fact, give the orders to open fire on demonstrators. As such, it is perfectly reasonable for the Bolivian government to charge him with homicide, corruption of public office, and perhaps even crimes against humanity (a different charge from genocide according to the International Criminal Court). Indeed, progressives in the United States should pressure the government to hand over Goni. But not because he is a “evil man” and we are “righteous people,” or he is a “neo-liberal” and we are not, or he is a “client of imperialism” and we are anti-imperialist. Charges should be pressed because there are specific criminal acts that he committed. I repeat, I DO believe there are REASONABLE grounds to request extradition and press charges against him and Bolivia SHOULD do it. I want to emphasize that ethics must be central to progressive politics and the pursuit of justice globally. When we progressives target and propose to lynch people simply because of their politics rather than specific criminal acts, we are no better than those in power. Blacks in South Africa were rountinely arrested and murdered simply because they were vocal opponents of apartheid. Should all former members of the apartheid states security apparatus now be locked up and/or hung? In Rwanda, should all Hutus who were members of the military or paramilitary units now be sentenced to genocide against the Tutsis? The Nuremberg Trials suggest the answer is “no.” The identification of specific perpetrators and the intimacy of the act must be the standard for prosecution of politically-motivated crimes. If we progressives reject this standard, we really will confirm our critics claims that we are just lynch mobs without reason or a higher sense of justice. For an excellent film that addresses these ethical concerns, see “Divided We Fall.” I also recommend Andrew Rigby’s book “Justice and Reconciliation: After the Violence.”
My understanding is that the genocide charge is not being made under international law, but rather under the Bolivian penal code that defines direct and indirect involvement in massacres for the purpose of the collective subjugation of a people as genocide, and defines a massacre as the killing of three or more people.
The question of intimacy and the identification of specific perpetrators in an interesting one. I would actually hold the soldiers who fired the shots and even the low level officers who gave orders to open fire less responsible for the deaths than the President who ordered troops into the streets and authorized deadly force.
I favor his prosecution not because of his politics but because he is the one most responsible for the massacres.
I also beleve that U.S. officials who supplied weapons, training, and intelligence to the Bolivian military knowing the country’s human rights record were accessories before the fact since the use of force against civilians was a predictable outcome of those actions. Under international law he Krupp case and the Zyklon B case would provide legal precedent for their prossecution.
Just a repeat of the many observations that Goni may not have been guilty of genocide as defined by the UN, but the other charges are certainly valid points. It may be politic for the government to remove the genocide charge even if their legal definition is different from the UN’s, just to facilitate the extradition. The rest is enough to send him away for a long time.
bypassing the issue at hand with a view to the bigger picture, what is going on?
prostitutes planning to go on strike , local authorities sending people to storm the major airport because government wants the control of the place,also demanding autonomy,us ambassador making sarcastic comments, bolivian delegation coming to us for general assembly being held up at the airport !! smells like some conspiracy , incitement from the outside you know where. it all looks like the usual worn-out stuff. strikes , incitement aimed subdividing countries, propping up the privileged class against the poor majority. what is next, creation of discontent by manipulation ?
PROSTITUTES GOING ON STRIKE? Please tell us more.