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.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
RSS