A Former Bush Administration Official Takes a Bolivian Spin

Over the weekend the Bush administration’s former point man for Latin America, Roger Noriega, weighed in publicly on the criminal charges against former Bolivian President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, in an op-ed article in the Miami Herald – No Crime, No Punishment. I for one would like to thank Mr. Bush’s former Assistant Secretary of State for doing so. Mr. Sánchez de Lozada’s protected exile in the U.S. ought to be on the pages of U.S. newspapers and Mr. Noriega has done a service to that cause.

The problem arises, however, when one actually analyzes what Mr. Noriega has to say about the case. Whatever it is that has led some Bush foreign policy officials to make up the facts to suit their political needs is apparently something that Mr. Noriega carried with him when he left.

Mr. Noriega vs. The Facts

Mr. Noriega, for example, begins his article with this interesting rendition of recent Bolivian history:

It is a dramatic tale. After losing his bid for the presidency in democratic elections, a cocalero congressman [current President Evo Morales] immediately turns to violent protests that succeed in toppling the man who beat him. At the head of an angry mob, the populist leader forces early elections, leading to his winning of the presidency on his second attempt.

A dramatic tale indeed, however, also a made-up one – in the spirit of “Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction and is prepared to use them.” Here, on the other hand, is a quick look at the actual facts.

The elections that Mr. Noriega is referring to took place in June 2002, when Evo Morales finished two percentage points behind Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. It is worth noting that Mr. Morales' strong finish owed greatly to reaction provoked by rantings against him from Mr. Noreiga's underling at the time, the U.S. Ambassador.

Mr. Morales' first act with the new administration was not "violent protests", as Mr. Noriega would have us believe. To the contrary, one of Mr. Morales’ first acts was to sit down with Sánchez de Lozada – right here at the Hotel Cochabamba – for negotiations over the complex coca issue. There is little question that Mr. Noriega knows this, of course. The careful compromise on coca that the two Bolivian leaders worked out was blocked by the Bush administration while Mr. Noriega was in charge of its Latin American agenda.

Understandably, these facts get in the way of Mr. Noriega’s careful story telling.

With regard to the mass protests that led to Mr. Sánchez de Lozada's departure, those took place more than a year later, in October 2003, and here again Mr. Noriega deliberately paints a misleading picture. He describes those events as a President using “legal and responsible” force against armed mobs and concludes: …respected former President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada…gave up power in 2003 hoping that Morales would spare the country from more violence.

But there are important facts that Mr. Noriega ignores about what led Bolivia’s President to board a commercial jet that night in October 2003 and flee to suburban Maryland.

Mr. Sánchez de Lozada’s downward spiral began when word leaked that he was negotiating a secret deal to sell off Bolivia’s gas and oil at bargain prices through Chile to the U.S. – a deal that the Bush administration did like. Mass protests against Mr. Sánchez de Lozada’s plan sprang up nationwide, including in La Paz where they effectively shut down the capital. Mr. Sánchez de Lozada responded with what had become his signature move, military and police repression so violent that even his own Vice President, Carlos Mesa, publicly broke with him over it. More than sixty people were left dead, including women and children shot by government troops.

With church leaders, prominent intellectuals, social movements, and even key members of his own administration calling on him to step aside, his last remaining ally was Mr. Noriega and his team at the Bush State Department. None of this, however, has a place in Mr. Noriega’s lopsided narrative.

Of the Bolivian criminal case against the former President, Mr. Noriega gives all credit to a vengeance-seeking President Morales:

The new president then grabs the reins of once independent courts, forcing trumped-up criminal charges against the political foe whom he hounded from office.

There are, however, a few major points that Mr. Noriega forgets here as well. To begin with, the Bolivian criminal charges filed against Mr. Sánchez de Lozada were formally initiated before Mr. Morales was elected, and they were approved by a Congress still controlled by Mr. Sánchez de Lozada’s own party. And while President Morales has clearly made the charges a priority for his government, the real push behind the case has always been from the families of the dead and wounded that Mr. Sánchez de Lozada left in his wake.

Histories Better Told in Accurate Shades of Gray

To be clear, there is plenty of real history with which one can question some of President Morales’ actions. In this Blog, we have written about his inability to find competent managers, his needless provocation of opponents, the costs of his new U.S. visa policy, his dilution of the Sánchez de Lozada case with other less warranted prosecutions, and many other topics known to our regular readers.

The real tales of both Mr. Morales and Mr. Sánchez de Lozada are not written in black and white. They come in shades of gray and touch on issues that are more complex. Mr. Noriega might have pondered the question of how ex-leaders can be assured a fair trial, a worthy issue in the Sánchez de Lozada case. Or he might have considered how Presidents can respond to mass protest short of shooting their own people by the dozen. But exploring gray areas does not seem to be Mr. Noriega’s current assignment. Instead, his current mission seems to be coming to the rhetorical rescue of old friends.

[Author’s note: I have sent this article to Mr. Noriega and have invited him, should he wish to do so, to respond in our comments section.]