The US Press, Bolivia, and Riots of the Imagination

Perhaps it is more a result of laziness than intention, but a series of US journalists, writing about Bolivia from afar, keep on making the same, whopping mistake. I saw two more such articles in the US press just today.

They keep saying that Bolivia’s ex-President, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, was kicked out of office in October 2003 as a result of violence on the part of the people. In fact, the violence was on the part of the government, directed at the people.

Here are a few examples:

From Jane Bussey of the Miami Herald, September 27, 2004:

"...violent protests against former President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada forced his October 2003 resignation and scuttled proposals to build a gas pipeline through Chile -- Bolivia's long-time archrival."

From William F. Jasper in the current issue of the conservative, The New American:

“Riots in Bolivia caused President Lozada to resign in 2003…”

And from columnist Jackson Diehl in today’s Washington Post:

“In Bolivia, the Chavez-funded Movement Toward Socialism has already driven one democratically elected president from office through violent protests.”

One would think that journalists would feel some responsibility to get the story right; especially if they are reporting on events they never got closer to than, say, a hemisphere away.

If you think bad reporting like this has no effect, take a look at how it became a proclamation by the recent Democratic nominee for President in an article he published in the same Miami Herald:

“In Bolivia, [President] Bush encouraged the election of a pro-market, pro-U.S. president and did nothing to help the country when riots shook the capital and the president was forced to flee.”

Here, in contrast, are the facts.

At least 59 people died in the October 2003 uprising over a proposed gas export deal through Chile to the US. Of those, the vast majority were civilians killed by military and police gunfire, troops sent out under the President’s command. The New York Times reported, at the time, that one of the few soldiers killed was shot by his own superior for refusing to fire on a crowd. Violence on the part of the government grew so extreme that high-level United Nations officials formally called on the President to control his forces. Even the President’s own handpicked Vice President broke with Sanchez de Lozada over the violence. In the end the President was not ousted by violent mobs but by a peaceful demonstrations and a broad nationwide call for his resignation led by prominent human rights officials and leaders in the Catholic Church.

Amnesty International recently published a lengthy and authoritative report on the events of October 2003. Here’s the link.

When I write publicly, whether in this Blog, in our Democracy Center newsletter, or in my newspaper articles in the US, I feel a real duty to get the facts right. I can’t understand why these reporters and others are willing to get the facts so wrong. Bad reporting becomes a false assumption of fact, one powerful enough to sway a Presidential candidate and in turn the foreign policy of the United States.