The U.S.'s Bolivia Ambassador Heads North

Well, this week if you happen to find yourself waiting for your luggage at the rotating carousel at the Miami airport, you might find yourself reaching for your bag alongside of U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia, Philip S. Goldberg. According to the U.S. State Department, Ambassador Goldberg has been called back to Washington this week, "for consultations on Embassy security in the wake of violent protests in La Paz."

This is just the further fallout from a major event a week ago in La Paz, a march of tens of thousands of Bolivians on the U.S. Embassy, angry about Washington's dogged protection of two Bolivian ex-politicians formally charged with murder in their home country – former President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and his top aide, Carlos Sánchez Berzaín.

"The Ambassador’s consultations will provide an opportunity to explore measures to enhance security cooperation with the Government of Bolivia," noted a State Department news release, adding, ''We are concerned by the recent statements of some Bolivian government officials that cast doubt on Bolivia’s commitment to fulfill its Vienna Convention obligations to protect diplomatic staff and facilities in the future."

No doubt, Goldberg's chat with his higher-ups in Washington will focus on the 'unpeaceful' nature of the protests – firecrackers tossed over the tall white granite walls, nearby cars vandalized, conflicts with national police dispatched to protect the fortress-like compound on the city's main street. Would it have been a lot smarter, politically speaking, if the vast crowds descending from El Alto had linked arms and sang, "All we are saying, is give ex-tra-di-tion a chance?" You bet.

But let's take a little reality check here. And let's examine a key point that will not likely make the agenda of Mr. Goldberg's Washington chats, a point repeatedly lost on both Republicans and Democrats alike:

There are a lot of people on this planet who are royally pissed off at the U.S. government for its actions abroad, and in a lot of cases they are royally in their right to be pissed.

Let's pass over for a moment the more news-grabbing examples and look at Bolivia as a case.

October 2003. Sánchez de Lozada, the man who gave away much of the nation's oil resources to foreign companies in his first term is at it again behind closed doors negotiating another highly questionable deal. This comes just months on the heels of his efforts to impose a new income tax on the working poor to help keep the IMF cheery about Bolivia, an event that set off a day of army vs. police shooting and 34 dead. And to make the gas deal even more attractive to Bolivians, he would send the gas and oil through that great 'stealer of the sea', Chile.

People across the country protested with a vengeance. What a surprise.

Were some of the protests extreme? Well there is the small matter of cutting off the road between La Paz and Sorata, stranding 300 tourists. There were also the efforts to keep fuel and food supplies out of La Paz. Did the government have an obligation to act to bring the crisis to the end? Sure. Did that require Sánchez de Lozada and Sánchez Berzaín to declare open hunting season on El Alto and the aliplano, leaving dozens dead, including Nancy Rojas, an eight-year-old shot through the window of her family's home?

Sánchez de Lozada's own Vice-President, Carlos Mesa didn’t think so, which is why he publicly broke with the government. Neither did a wide swath of Bolivia's human rights, academic, religious and intellectual leadership, which went on hunger strike to demand the President's resignation.

But the Bush administration? When virtually everyone save for Sánchez de Lozada's own family had come to the conclusion that the only peaceful exit was for Goni to go, the U.S. State Department and Embassy publicly announced their backing and pronounced any resignation to be an anti-democratic act.

Think August 1974 and what U.S. public reaction might have been if, even as Barry Goldwater was calling on Nixon to leave, the government of China made a public declaration saying "Hang in there Dick!" And then imagine that Air Force One had dropped him off not in San Clemente, but in Beijing where he was given permanent political asylum against prosecution at home.

Yeah, we all would have been fine with that. No problem. U.S. voters even kicked Gerald Ford out of the White House for pardoning Nixon.

There is an easy reason why Sánchez de Lozada and Sánchez Berzaín have been given safe haven by the Bush administration. 'Impunity' is a concept with which the Bush administration feels very, very comfortable. What will history say later about an administration taking the nation to war based on false premises and no one, not a single official high or low, ever being held accountable? What will history say about one President being impeached for perjuring himself about sex while another directly violated the law with illegal surveillance on U.S. citizens without the required court orders, and nothing happened at all?

The Bush administration believes in political impunity the way other people believe in baseball or soccer or well-brewed coffee -- a lucky thing for Goni and Berzaín.

Are there legitimate questions about whether Sánchez de Lozada and Sánchez Berzaín can get a fair trial in Bolivia? Of course. It isn't even clear that they could make it safely out of the Al Alto airport (though they might be welcomed with cheers in Santa Cruz). So what is that supposed to mean – there is no other way to seek justice other than give them happy suburban refuge in Maryland and Miami respectively? The two have also claimed even exemption from the U.S. civil case against them, an argument that didn’t work out so well for ex-Salvadoran dearth squad members living in the U.S. who lost a similar suit.

So who knows what Goldberg and the folks at Foggy Bottom will chat about this week. How to make a massive white granite wall higher still? How much tear gas their small Marine contingent should keep in storage?

In the unlikely event that a glimmer of reality seeps in to those meetings this week, it would probably sound something like this:

You know, there are a lot of Bolivians who are really, really pissed off that we have given effective political asylum to two men with copious amounts of blood on their hands? Got any ideas of what we can do to let a legitimate court listen to all the evidence and make a fair judgment?

But don't stay awake waiting up for that State Department news release.