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TechnoratiBolivian Protesters March on US Embassy
Thousands of demonstrators marched on the U.S. Embassy Monday to demand that Washington extradite a former Bolivian defense minister who directed a military crackdown on riots that killed at least 60 people in 2003.
Former Defense Minister Carlos Sanchez Berzain, now a resident of Key Biscayne, Fla., told La Paz-based Radio Fides last week that the U.S. granted him political asylum more than a year ago.
The revelation sparked outrage in El Alto, a sprawling satellite city outside La Paz where dozens of anti-government rioters were gunned down by soldiers in 2003. On Monday, thousands of residents streamed down the hills into La Paz to demand justice for the killings.
"We've come to the doors of the embassy to say 'Enough with the impunity,'" said Edgar Patana, head of an El Alto labor union leading the protest. "The United States has to prove that they have the justice they're always showing off in their media and movies. Bolivia wants that justice."
Protesters shot fireworks at a U.S. flag flying just beyond the compound's concrete wall, as helmeted Marines looked on from the embassy's roof. When crowds tried to push through a police line, officers cleared the street with tear gas.
Bolivia's government called the use of tear gas excessive. "Security is one thing, repression is another," Government Minister Alfredo Rada told reporters.
La Paz state's police commander was fired Monday night along with top policemen in Bolivia's eight other states. But government officials said the change had been planned since a new national police chief was named last month.
The 2003 "Black October" protests were initially sparked by a government plan to sell Bolivian natural gas to the U.S. by building a pipeline through neighboring rival Chile. The idea angered El Alto's poor, who often struggle to obtain their own gas for cooking and heating.
The protests quickly snowballed as the city's largely Aymara Indian population vented centuries of anger over bitter poverty and political marginalization.
The uprising eventually drove then-President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada from office, fortifying a growing indigenous political movement that brought President Evo Morales to power two years later.
Sanchez Berzain's lawyer, Howard Gutman, declined Monday to confirm whether his client has been granted political asylum. But he and other lawyers acknowledge and cite Sanchez Berzain's asylum status in a motion filed last month in a Miami federal court to dismiss a U.S. civil case against him.
Plaintiffs, including families of the 2003 victims, accuse the former defense minister and the ex-president of authorizing the use of deadly force against protesters and say they are liable for the deaths.
Lawyers for the two exiled politicians say protesters instigated the violence and that their blockade of La Paz, which cut the capital off from food and fuel, justified a military response.
Their legal team includes Washington attorney Greg Craig, an adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Asked for comment, Phillip Goldberg, the U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, said the legal proceeding is "not a political matter, it's a judicial matter, and we have to respect the independent judicial branch in the United States."
President Evo Morales repeated his demands that Washington send the two men home to face trial.
"We want the United States to help us to bring to justice those who have done so much harm to Bolivia," Morales said Sunday.
© 2008 Associated Press
26 Comments so far
Show AllPDJ said: " Well, it's not like they were in much risk of anything more than inhaling some tear gas."
Not true... it's fairly regular for the police to use live rounds in the massive protests from the poor in latin america. Braver than you and I I'd say.
wow, didnt see that on msm msn or yahoo!
Statement from the presidential candidates on this issue?
Statement from the presidential candidates on this issue?
fixthisworld,
Are you familiar with current events in Bolivia?
The protests that got people killed were under the Sancchez de Lozada. I cannot imagine the very progressive Evo Morales/MAS government harming any protestors unless they are CIA organized, right-wing protestors trying to overthrow the government.
Dear Maria, yes you are owed an apology and more; our Boliviar, George Washington fought colonialism and even president Eisenhower warned us of the military/industrial establishment. But those in power either forget or are controlled by by forces we must uncover and remove. Viva Bolivia!!!!
Congratulations to the Aymara of El Alto Bolivia for marching yet again out of the mountains to kick the ass of el gringo diablo. Could the USA be entirely banned from the Southern Hemisphere?
Why is the country of choice for political asylum for brutal third world dictators usually the United States? We need to send all these fascist criminals to the World Court first before we give them asylum! If Hitler were alive today and Germany a former US Colony doing our bidding I'm sure he'd have asylum today in the USA! This is why we need to make sure Obama is our next President and Congress is 61% Democrat at least!
I don't recall us, South American people, having ever voted to have the U.S.A. telling us what's good for us. Since you are always boasting about your democracy I think it's about time you stopped meddling in other countries' affairs. We have suffered enough and are entitled to make our own attempts at thinking for ourselves. No more School of Americas, CIA, IMF trying to "help" us, please. No more pushing South. Did Mr. Bush consult you before starting his wars based on lies? Why did your governments looked the other way and kept mute while Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile and Argentina were bathed in blood, with thousands of young people "disappeared" because they dared think different? You have a big enough territory and big enough problems of your own to waste your time on us.
"Their legal team (defending the accused) includes Washington attorney Greg Craig, an adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama"
In a recent article in Common Dreams "Losing Latinoamerica" we find that : Obama
" essentially endorsed the Bush administration's drive to transform Colombia's relations with its Andean neighbors into the one Israel has with most of the Middle East. In his Miami speech, he swore that he would "support Colombia's right to strike terrorists who seek safe-havens across its borders."
Equally troublesome has been Obama's endorsement of the controversial Merida
Initiative, which human rights groups like Amnesty International have condemned
as an application of the "Colombian solution" to Mexico and Central America, providing their militaries and police with a massive infusion of money to combat drugs and gangs. Crime is indeed a serious problem in these countries, and deserves considered attention. It's chilling, however, to have Colombia — where death-squads now have infiltrated every level of government, and where union and other political activists are executed on a regular basis — held up as a model for other parts of Latin America.
Obama, however, not only supports the initiative, but wants to expand it beyond Mexico and Central America. "We must press further south as well," he said in
Miami."
Now we know what kind of advisers disinform all the leading candidates about foreing police.
Please listen to today NPR program:
"Distraction and Democracy
How our increasingly mobile, multi-tasking and virtual world may be eroding our
willingness and ability to grapple with complex issues, and what this trend could
mean for the strength of our democracy.
Guests
Maggie Jackson, journalist, author of a new book titled, "Distracted: The Erosion
of Attention and the Coming Dark Age" (Prometheus Books) and author of the
"Balancing Acts" column in the Boston Globe.
Rick Shenkman, history professor, editor and founder of George Mason University's
History News Network, investigative reporter and author of "Just How Stupid Are We?
Facing the Truth About the American Voter" (Basic Books)"
In this program is it supposed that Attention is Taken Away from the Realities of the International Political Sphere only in the domain of the governed. Nothing is told of the deliberate driving away of attention of the people supposed to govern.
"Give me your despots, your dictators,
Your petty tyrants yearning to break free,
from the wretched refuse they left on the shore,
and whom the homeless and tortured would make toast,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
"Well, it's not like they were in much risk of anything more than inhaling some tear gas."
PJD, i agree with the general sentiment of your post regarding US citizens' protestaphobia, but when you calculate the risk involved here i think you're underestimating: this article reports a protest of events surrounding a protest in which dozens of protesters were killed. they're risking their lives.
He must be our bastard. We do coddle the bad guys. It should be made clear by now to the Bolivian people that what is shown in the US movies has no resemblence to reality in the USA. We do not have an independent judiciary ever since the Reagun administration.
"Former Defense Minister Carlos Sanchez Berzain, now a resident of Key Biscayne, Fla."
Wow! Maybe he can be roomies with Luis Posada Carriles & Manuel Noriega (if he ever gets parole and not extradition to France or Panama). Birds of a feather and all. We sure do love our U.S. approved terrorists and dictators.
Be interested to know what year this gentleman graduated from the US Terrorist Training Center in Georgia.
"Some of the bravest people on the planet. We could sure learn some lessons, eh?"
Well, it's not like they were in much risk of anything more than inhaling some tear gas.
Most of the reluctance I encounter from people in the US who refuse to engage in mass protest or CD actions is a fear of someone saying something, their bosses finding out they are going to protests, and with it, a teeny-tiny chance of losing their job and debt-leveraged middle-class comforts.
If you are already poor, you don't worry about such stuff, also the poor (outside the US anyway) tend to have good extended family and community mutual aid networks - so you aren't excatly going to be left to starve or freeze.
elmysterio June 10th, 2008 3:06 pm ...They still have that passion which has been "bred" out of Americans. WE will learn the hard way..let us pray it will not be too late!
"What is the nature of the civil case against the former defense minister, sought for extradition, from which he is defending himself in a US court?"
It is explained in the next sentence.
To elaborate, he cannot face criminal murder charges in the US because the murders were done in Bolivia; he would have to be extradited to Bolivia. So the Bolivians are left to suing Sr. Sanchez under the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789. But apparently political assylum may make him immune from even civil claims.
(And i'm not even a lawyer)
willybill said: "Some of the bravest people on the planet. We could sure learn some lessons, eh?"
Indeed they are. Latin America knows how to protest against injustice. We could most certainly take a lesson or two from them. To see these people in action, check out John Pliger's documentary "The War on Democracy".
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-3739500579629840148&q=The+War+on+Democracy&ei=k9BOSPqdA5aYrAP9...
What is the nature of the civil case against the former defense minister, sought for extradition, from which he is defending himself in a US court?
flyerman June 10th, 2008 1:31 pm...Very well said. My guess is that it starts at the top..and since the shrub has the IQ of a grub..well...there you go! The children in the US are unfortunately victims of DE-EDUCATION. Sad, but true.
We have to respect the INDEPENDANT judicial branch in the United States.
Is that funny or what? This is from a spokesman for the unitary executive!
It would appear as if the US government values more highly giving sanctuary to their stooges than applying equally the concept of the rule of law. This could have very bad consequences in the future if Bolivia takes this as an opportunity to abrogate any reciprocal extradition treaty.
The global South keeps showing us the way, but we remain unable to learn. Why isn't our children learning?
The Indigenous Peoples are taking back their country from the European imperialists and demanding justice. Obama promised to support the injustices of Israel but will not lift a finger to support justice in Bolivia. Same Washington, different day...
Some of the bravest people on the planet. We could sure learn some lessons, eh?