Continued Impunity Could Aggravate Pending Political Conflict in Bolivia

The Bolivian Supreme Court, Congress, and two presidential administrations have authorized the Trial of Responsibility.(2) However, the difficulty in serving legal papers notifying Sánchez de Lozada, his Defense Minister, and his Energy Minister living in the US, of their legal obligation to return to Bolivia to testify has impeded progress in the case.

Sánchez de Lozada and his ministers have been widely discredited within Bolivia to the extent that their MNR party has chosen to run an unknown as its presidential candidate to avoid the stigma of the October violence.  Unfortunately, in the U.S. Sánchez de Lozada has been able to consistently present himself as a dignified democratically elected statesman who was a victim of subversive forces, participating frequently in public events and even publishing an editorial in the Washington Post.  The gross misrepresentation of the social protest in September and October of 2003 reflects both Sánchez de Lozada’s continuing high-level political connections and a fundamental misunderstanding within the U.S. of the deep-rooted causes of internal discontent and the gravity of human rights violations perpetrated by the Bolivian security forces.

On June 22, 2005, in an effort to notify the three ex-officials living in the United States of the charges against them and give them the opportunity to testify in their defense, the Bolivian government sent a letters rogatory to the U.S. State Department, a formal request to serve a Bolivian subpoena to the three ex-officials. Letters rogatory is a complicated mechanism for serving legal documents to individuals residing in other countries that can take as long as six months to a year. Over five months have passed, and the U.S. government has yet to deliver the documents, a delay perceived in Bolivia as a willful attempt on the part of U.S. authorities to impede the process. President Eduardo Rodriguez sent a note to the U.S. State Department requesting that they serve the subpoenas in a timely manner. Indictments cannot be issued against the three men until they have received these documents.

In an effort to bring to light Sanchez de Lozada’s central role in the 2003 killings and demonstrate that he can be easily located to be subpoenaed, in October 2005 a group of US citizens symbolically served him with the document and the list of victims at a public event in Washington, organized by Princeton University. The formal notification, though, continues in the US Department of Justice with little indication of progress.

Letters rogatory is not an extradition request and, as a result, does not include an enforcement mechanism to oblige the U.S. to turn over Sánchez de Lozada and his ministers to Bolivian authorities. If they decide not to return once they have formally received the documents, investigation into the charges against them can continue in their absence.  They can be indicted, provided there is sufficient evidence against them.  However, they must be present to proceed with the trial itself. Bolivia could request extradition from the United States after the three men are formally charged.  District attorney, Milton Mendoza, wants to avoid any procedural errors when requesting extradition, however: "We don’t want to give him [Sánchez de Lozada] reasons to question the process" and "claim that is he being politically persecuted." (Los Tiempos, Oct. 18, 2005)
 
The case against the remaining ministers could continue even if the process against those in the U.S. does not progress. As the two highest-ranking civilian officials in charge of the armed forces, Sánchez de Lozada and ex-Minister of Defense Carlos Sánchez Berzaín would be considered responsible for ordering the use of force against protesters. If they continue to evade participation, the Trial of Responsibility runs the risk of languishing indefinitely in the overloaded Bolivian court system, like the great majority of human rights cases in the country. 

In this pre-electoral period, the nation’s future remains uncertain, and renewed political and social conflict appears almost inevitable.  Within this tense climate, legal consequences for those who have directly committed or authorized human rights violations would go along way to avoid further loss of life and an escalation of any future confrontations.  In the past, US interference in Bolivian politics, and lack of enforcement of U.S. legislation designed to fight impunity by restricting U.S. aid to security forces that do not face appropriate legal consequences for gross human rights violations (as stipulated by the Leahy amendment) has helped generate political instability.  Delays in the serving of subpoenas to Sánchez de Lozada and others residing the US, as a result of bureaucratic red tape or a lack of political will could continue this trend.  The timely delivery of the letters rogatory, a routine reciprocal legal procedure regulated by international treaties, does not oblige the US to take further actions or a political stance in the Trial of Responsibility. As a result, political fallout would be negligible.  In contrast, the decision to not subpoena Sánchez de Lozada and others or a protracted delay in this already extended process could exacerbate tensions within the nation and contribute to the political instability that the US government fears.

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