Once Again the US Takes the Side of a Latin American Killer

There are various stories in the Bolivian press today in which Bolivian political leaders express outrage at an official statement by the US government criticizing plans here to prosecute former President Gonzalo Sànchez de Lozada for murder. The ex-President was forced to resign in October 2003 when troops under his command presided over the killing of dozens of citizens during protests against his plan to export the country’s natural gas to the US. Dozens of others died at the hands of his government’s repression the February before, during protests against an IMF belt-tightening package.

Today “Goni”, as he is called here, is living in exile in the US, writing op-eds for US newspapers and spinning some amazingly false tales about what happened to him. I saw him a few months ago, sitting alone in the Miami airport as we waited to board the same flight to Washington.

I haven’t seen the exact words of State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, but from references to it he dismissed the prosecution effort as “political”.

Whether prosecuting Goni is “political” (whatever that means) is not nearly so important a question as whether it is right. The answer to that question, especially through Bolivian eyes, is extraordinarily clear.

In Bolivia and much of Latin America the word “impunity” means something. Recall the history of Bolivia’s neighbor to the west, Chile. There, on that other September 11th (1973), a regime took over whose definition of moral leadership included raping women with dogs and killing people in mass in a soccer stadium. Chileans had to wait until 25 years before they even began to sniff justice and still Augusto Pinochet remains a free man.

Bolivia had it’s own Pinochet, several of them in fact, and the main one among them, Hugo Banzer died without being held accountable (on Earth at least) for the “political” sins of abundant murder and repression.

I am working with a group of young writers here to help them develop a set of stories from Bolivia for readers in the US. We met just yesterday afternoon here and one of them, a young man named Gisel wrote about the importance of bringing Goni to justice. “Will we have to wait 25 years, as with Pinochet?” he asked.

I guess I should stop being astonished by the arrogance of the US government in its meddling with other countries. Did Bolivia ask the US’s opinion? Would the US receive it well if the Bolivian government weighed in on, say, the Michael Jackson case?

Mr. Boucher, probably under the command of his superiors seems to make a habit of saying and doing stupid things about Bolivia. In September 2000 he made a declaration from the State Department praising the constraint of then- President Hugo Banzer who was mulling back and forth whether to start shooting at protesters in a town near here, Vinto. Twelve hours after Boucher opened his mouth and gave Banzer effective license to do his worst 1200 troops opened tear gas fire at dawn on the town. One of the canisters flew into the patio of a home and hit a six year old named Ximena in the face, nearly killing her and destroying her nose and face forever. I visited her in the hospital and The Democracy Center raised funds from friends to help with her care.

Way to go Richard Boucher. How many more stupid things will you say until you collect your federal pension and leave the task to someone new?

A note to our regular readers. I am off in the morning to Brazil for a project we are working on there. So stay tuned as the “Blog from Bolivia” turns temporarily into the “Blog from Brazil” where I am sure I will find some interesting things to share in this space.