Thousands of Bolivians protest at U.S. embassy

[Judi Lynn]

Thousands of Bolivians protest at U.S. embassy
Mon Jun 9, 2008 3:50pm EDT

By Ana Maria Fabbri

LA PAZ (Reuters) - Thousands of supporters of leftist president Evo Morales protested outside the U.S. Embassy in La Paz on Monday, demanding the United States send home for trial two right-wing Bolivian politicians.

The protest followed comments by former Defense Minister Carlos Sanchez Berzain, who told a local radio station last week that a U.S. court had granted him political asylum.

The protesters blame Sanchez Berzain and former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, who also lives in the United States, for the deaths of 60 people and wounding of hundreds more in an army clampdown on anti-government protests in 2003.

"We want Bolivia to be free, not a Yankee colony," shouted the irate protesters, most of whom were Bolivian Indians.

More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN0926071620080609?rpc=401&

[Judi Lynn]

1. Trial of Former Bolivian President Sánchez de Lozada and His Accomplices for the Massacres of 2003

~snip~
On the morning of October 15, 2003, while the demonstrations that two days later would take down a president spread through La Paz and El Alto, the mineworkers’ leaders of Oruro province decided to march to the capital to support the rebels. In the La Salvadora mine, a 36-year-old woman, widow, and mother of six children between the ages of two and twelve, joined the miners’ contingent. Filomena León, who months later would tell her story before the cameras of Verónica Auza and Claudia Espinoza, was among the people who arrived that morning in the town of Patacamaya, a little more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) from La Paz.

“I don’t know how they surprised us. We were getting out of the car peacefully to drink some tea.”

The soldiers had orders to stop the caravan, and held back the miners with gunshots. First, they burst the tires on the miners’ trucks and seized their few belongings, then they attacked the miners, who, armed with sticks of dynamite, resisted the offensive. The palliri (woman miner) was among those injured in the clash. “I felt the bullet, just the bullet. I haven’t risen since. I was ahead of the soldiers and the bullet entered me from behind. I don’t remember anything else.” The high caliber projectile embedded itself in Filomena’s spinal cord. For months, in at least two public hospitals, the brave woman slowly lost her health and will to live; she was paralyzed, and her younger children couldn’t even recognize her.

On April 30, nearly six months after being shot, Filomena León died of a lethal infection at the La Paz Clinic Hospital, according to the Gas War Memorial Testimony – a book put together by Auza and Espinoza to record the dozens of deaths, the hundreds of wounded and mutilated, that were the high price paid by the Bolivian insurrection last year. In the last weeks of her life, one could see a fist-sized hole in her back. Filomena’s sweet voice and black, abundant braids left this land forever. The same happened to Teodocia Morales Mamani (who was pregnant), Marcelo Chambi Mollinedo, Ramiro Vargas Astilla, and many other Alteños (from the city of El Alto), Aymara peasant-farmers, children and grandparents, men and women. And today, despite the Bolivian National Congress having authorized their prosecution, those responsible for so much pain go unpunished.

The Death Sentence

In a story of courage and strength, Bolivia’s poor, most importantly its Aymara indigenous population, defended their natural gas in September and October of last year, blockading highways and paralyzing El Alto and La Paz. Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, serving his second term as president, hoped to export this valuable natural resource to the United States through Chilean ports, against the will of the people. During the conflict, soldiers and police constantly fired on people armed only with sticks, stones, and occasionally dynamite. As in the case of the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico, or of the insurrection in Argentina in 2001, the repressive forces of the Bolivian state had “orders from above”; a license to kill.

More:
http://www.narconews.com/Issue35/article1138.html

Trailer for the documentary "Our Brand is Crisis" concerning "Goni's" 2nd Presidential run, and the campaign James Carville, Bob Shrumb, etc. created to get him elected in 2002:
http://www.filmforum.org/films/ourbrandtrailer.html#

[magbana]

2. Power to the People of Bolivia!

I hope that the people of Bolivia get the chance to kick Sanchez de Losada's ass one day!

[Judi Lynn]

3. Thousands of Bolivians protest against U.S. asylum for genocide suspect

Thousands of Bolivians protest against U.S. asylum for genocide suspect


www.chinaview.cn 2008-06-10 08:27:42

LIMA, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of Bolivians on Monday surrounded the U.S. embassy in La Paz in protest of the U.S. decision to grant political asylum to former Bolivian Defense Minister Carlos Sanchez Berzain who is accused of genocide.

According to news reaching here, protesters also broke off the police security rings which were made up of vehicles.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-06/10/content_8336687.htm

~~~~~~~~~

Bolivia protest targets US embassy



Thousands of protesters and hundreds of police clashed outside the embassy - Reuters

~snip~
The government of George Bush has decided to give refuge to the butcher Sanchez Berzain, and also I suspect to the genocidal Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada ... we cannot tolerate {that}," Roberto de la Cruz, one of the leaders of the protest told a local radio station.

The US embassy in La Paz has neither confirmed nor denied if Sanchez Berzain has been granted political asylum, saying that his immigration status is his private matter.

In September Bolivia's top court asked the government to start extradition proceedings against Sanchez de Lozada.

But US ambassador Philip Goldberg was quoted as saying by the Bolivian daily La Razon on Monday that Bolivia has not made a formal extradition request.

More:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/49B2F165-8B25-45B1-B5AF-0767EF9431B3.htm

[Judi Lynn]

4. Bolivians march on US Embassy as wounds over 2003 riots slow to heal

Bolivians march on US Embassy as wounds over 2003 riots slow to heal

The Associated Press
Tuesday, June 10, 2008

LA PAZ, Bolivia: 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, Florida, 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, residents streamed down the hills into La Paz to demand justice for the killings.

Authorities did not release estimates on the crowd's size, but reporters at the scene put the throng at 15,000 to 20,000.

"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."

More:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/06/10/america/LA-GEN-Bolivia-US-Protest.php