US Calls Prosecution of Bolivia Ex-Presidents “Politically Motivated”

The US State Department yesterday released its annual “Country Reports on Human Rights”. Like its report a week ago on anti-drug efforts, the report is a lengthy country-by-country assessment of how 193 nations stack up on human rights.

As with the “drug war” report, the country most notably missing is the US itself. In the face of an Iraqi quagmire, abuses at Guantanamo, illegal surveillance of US citizens, and a host of other abuses by the Bush Administration, it is not likely that the US would have scored too well by the standards it set for others. But at this point, pointing out that the Bush Administration has a wanting record on human rights is a little like pointing out that Britney Spears is a bit unstable – it isn’t really news anymore.

That said, the item from the report on Bolivia that the local media chose to highlight was the State Department’s expression of concern about the government’s effort to prosecute all of the most recent still-living residents of the Presidential Palace: "The government attempted to bring criminal charges against five former presidents for reasons that appeared to be politically motivated."

That refers to the Bolivian government’s pending charges against:

Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada (for deaths at the hands of the government during the October 2003 “Gas War”)

Jorge Quiroga (for gas contracts signed under his administration)

Carlos Mesa (also for gas contracts signed on his watch)

Eduardo Rodríguez (for allegedly allowing Bolivian missiles to be handed over to the US government)

Jaime Paz Zamora (for drug offenses).

From my perspective the issue is that the pending charges against Sánchez de Lozada, which are serious and valid, are getting lost in a blizzard of “prosecution overkill”, and that is unfortunate.

I think that the Morales Administration can claim a good deal of the blame for this. I don’t know the specifics of the charges against Mesa, Quiroga, Rodriquez, or Paz, but the real case here is Goni and seeking prosecutions against everyone still alive who has held the Presidency in the last 20 years both trivializes the Goni case and invites exactly the kind of “politically motivated” label that the Bush Administration would like to stick on it.

The Goni case is also a good deal different than the others, in terms of the US, because since October 2003 Sánchez de Lozada has been living comfortably under US political protection in suburban Maryland. The formal request by the Bolivian government (pre-Morales) in June 2005, to the US, that it formally notify Sánchez de Lozada of the case has never received a formal response from US officials after nearly two years (in diplomatic language this is called “blowing you off”).

In mid-January, the Bolivian Supreme Court declared that the US no longer needed to notify Goni for the case to move forward. Citing, among other things, Goni’s chatting about the case on CNN, the Court declared that the ex-President was clearly aware of it already and set in motion a direct extradition request.

To be clear, the Bush Administration (and for that matter none of its likely successors) is never going to send Goni back to Bolivia. I know of no instance in which the US has ever returned a former head of state home to stand trial. Even Jimmy Carter (who arguably was the most sincere in his commitment to human rights of any recent US President) gave refuge to that champion of rights, the Shah of Iran – an act, it should be noted, that didn’t turn out too well for the US, or for Carter.

To be even more clear, the real US response to the requests from Bolivia about Goni has been to lay the groundwork for exactly the charge it launched with the new human rights report – that the prosecution (again, one initiated long before Morales took office) is all politics and no justice. I was one of the people that the State Department consultant interviewed last year in its internal investigation of the case. I was never asked a single question about what Goni actually did or why his prosecution is important to the families of those killed in October 2003. The interview was a search for any tidbit that might help make the case the US already planned to make that the Bolivian courts are incapable of rendering actual justice.

So, for those watching the US moves on the Goni case, look at the language in yesterday’s State Department report as a preview of coming attractions for whatever formal response it might later offer to the Bolivian Supreme Court’s extradition request. And credit the current zealotry to prosecute “en abundancia” as a gift to the Bush Administration in making that case.