A group of 10 Bolivians is suing the country’s former president and defense minister in a federal court in Florida over the government’s response to protests in 2003 that left 67 civilians dead and injured 400 more.
The Bolivians say the two men escaped accountability in Bolivia by relocating to the US and must be forced to pay damages for the deaths of innocent family members.
“We hope the judiciary in the United States will give a fair trial for the victims and defendants. We are asking for justice,” said Juan Patricio Quispe Mamani, whose brother was killed in the protests.
All the people bringing the lawsuit still live in Bolivia.
Former Bolivian president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, who lives in exile in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and former defense minister Jose Carlos Sanchez Berzain — now a resident of Key Biscayne, Florida — say the case should be thrown out. They contend they were doing their constitutional duty to quell a violent uprising and that the events and people involved are purely Bolivian and, as such, are not subject to US laws.
“The actions I took at a time of national crisis in 2003 were necessary to protect lives and property and restore law and order,” Sanchez de Lozada said in written statement to wire agencies.
“Regrettably, lives were lost among both the government forces and armed protesters,” he wrote.
The “Black October” protests swelled into riots following years of resentment and poverty endured by Bolivia’s indigenous Aymara people.
The situation reached a crisis when peasants tried to block roads, set fire to a tourist hotel and then mounted a violent blockade of the capital, La Paz.
Bolivian President Evo Morales, an Aymaran Indian and at the time a first-time congressman, turned the events into a movement that eventually resulted in his election as president.
Berzain called the Miami lawsuit “political persecution” by Morales. But attorneys for those bringing the lawsuit said the two former leaders chose to subject themselves to US law by moving to this country after leaving power.
“They have made this their home. How can they be surprised that they would be subject to US law?” said Judith Chomsky, a cooperating attorney with the nonprofit Center for Constitutional Rights in New York.
Bolivian Ambassador to the US Gustavo Guzman scoffed at the claim that that the two former leaders acted properly during the protests.
“No Bolivian law states that part of the function of state men is murder,” Guzman said in an e-mail.
There were initially two separate lawsuits filed last fall — one against Sanchez de Lozada and one against Berzain — but those were consolidated on Tuesday.
The lawsuit is brought under two US laws: One law allows foreigners to sue in US courts for violations of international law and another permits lawsuits against foreign officials for torture or extrajudicial killings.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
RSS