Bolivia's ex-president targeted in U.S. lawsuit over deaths at protests
The Associated Press
Published: April 16, 2008

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/16/america/NA-GEN-US-Bolivia-Laws...

MIAMI: A group of 10 Bolivians is suing the country's former president and defense minister in a federal court in Florida over the government's response to protests in 2003 that left 67 civilians dead and injured 400 more.

The Bolivians say the two men escaped accountability in Bolivia by relocating to the United States and must be forced to pay damages for the deaths of innocent family members.

"We hope the judiciary in the United States will give a fair trial for the victims and defendants. We are asking for justice," said Juan Patricio Quispe Mamani, whose brother was killed during the protests. All the people bringing the lawsuit still live in Bolivia.

Former Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, who lives in exile in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and former defense minister Jose Carlos Sanchez Berzain — now a resident of Key Biscayne, Florida — say the case should be thrown out. They contend they were doing their constitutional duty to quell a violent uprising and that the events and people involved are purely Bolivian and, as such, are not subject to U.S. laws.

"The actions I took at a time of national crisis in 2003 were necessary to protect lives and property and restore law and order," Sanchez de Lozada said in written statement to The Associated Press. "Regrettably, lives were lost among both the government forces and armed protesters."

The so-called "Black October" protests swelled into riots following years of resentment and poverty endured by Bolivia's indigenous Aymara people. The situation reached a crisis when peasants tried to block roads, set fire to a tourist hotel and then mounted a violent blockade of the capital, La Paz.

Evo Morales, at the time a first-time congressman, turned the events into a movement that eventually resulted in his election as president. Morales, an Aymaran Indian, is a close ally of Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez, while the Sanchez de Lozada government had the backing of President George W. Bush's administration.

Berzain, the former defense minister, called the Miami lawsuit "political persecution" by Morales. But attorneys for those bringing the lawsuit said the two former leaders chose to subject themselves to U.S. law by moving to this country after leaving power.

"They have made this their home. How can they be surprised that they would be subject to U.S. law?" said Judith Chomsky, a cooperating attorney with the nonprofit Center for Constitutional Rights in New York.

Bolivia's ambassador to the U.S., Gustavo Guzman, scoffed at the claim that that the two former leaders acted properly during the protests.

"No Bolivian law states that part of the function of state men is murder," Guzman said in an e-mail.

There were initially two separate lawsuits filed last fall — one against Sanchez de Lozada and one against Berzain — but those were consolidated Tuesday.

The lawsuit is brought under two U.S. laws: one allows foreigners to sue in U.S. courts for violations of international law and another permits lawsuits against foreign officials for torture or extrajudicial killings.

Similar cases brought in U.S. courts have met with some success. Last month a federal judge in Miami ordered that a former Peruvian army major pay $37 million (€23 million) to families of victims killed by his troops 1985.

In 2002, a federal jury in West Palm Beach held two retired Salvadoran generals living in Florida responsible for atrocities committed during El Salvador's civil war two decades earlier.

Howard Gutman, a Washington attorney for Sanchez de Lozada and Berzain, said the lawsuit should be dismissed because U.S. courts have no jurisdiction over actions taken by foreign leaders under their own country's laws. The protests ultimately resulted in the government's ouster on Oct. 17, 2003.

"The Lozada government was toppled illegally," Gutman said. "In essence, the violent demonstrations were a way for the wrongful actors in Bolivia to get back at their former political rivals."

The exiled Bolivian officials have received support from four former legal advisers to the State Department who argued in a brief that U.S. courts should not decide whether foreign governments act appropriately in their own countries.

U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan has asked the State and Justice departments to submit views on the case by June 1.