SHIELDING "GONI": Why are top Democrats Protecting Bolivia's Former Prez from Trial for Massacres?

[magbana]

Shielding Goni

Why are top Democrats protecting Bolivia's former president from facing trial for the massacres he ordered?

By Nick Buxton

[e-mail]

Top Democratic Party pollster Stanley Greenberg rolled into San Francisco last month to promote his latest book, Dispatches from the War Room — In the trenches with five extraordinary leaders (2009, St. Martin's Press). The slight, bespectacled man spoke at the Commonwealth Club, sharing what he hoped were "honest and frank" accounts of working with leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton.

While he happily pontificated on the lessons these experiences held for President Barack Obama, he was a bit more defensive on why he had proudly featured in the book Gonzalo "Goni" Sánchez de Lozada, former president of Bolivia who is currently wanted for his role in a massacre of 67 people in October 2003.

Greenberg was drafted in 2002 to help Goni, a wealthy University of Chicago-educated businessman, get elected president during a time of social upheaval created largely by U.S.-backed neoliberal economic policies. Branding Goni as the only man who could "resolve the crisis," Greenberg and other U.S. political consultants helped their client scrape an electoral victory with just 23 percent of the popular vote.

The deaths took place less than a year later when Goni announced deeply unpopular plans to privatize the country's natural gas reserves and give foreign corporations more control over Bolivia's resources. Road blockades erected by protesters in the poorest outlying neighborhoods of the high altitude city of La Paz effectively cut off supplies. Goni signed a decree that instructed the army to clear the roads and promised "indemnification for any damage to property and persons which might occur." That effective carte blanche resulted in the army shooting live ammunition indiscriminately at men, women, and children.

Military repression brought to a head one of the country's bloodiest years, in which more than 150 people died in social protests. Rising popular anger led Goni to flee the country to exile in the United States. He has since lived comfortably in Chevy Chase, Md., protected by Republicans and Democrats alike.

Greenberg admits in the book that the violence caused him "to take stock," yet he ends up saying he is now "more certain of my course and his ." He concludes: "I am proud of what we did to help Goni become President." From the podium at the Commonwealth Club, he blamed the atrocities on the supposed "parallel violence" by the protestors.

It seems a surprising conclusion for a man who is supposedly in touch with the electorate. Goni is universally reviled in Bolivia as a corrupt and arrogant politician who devalued Bolivian lives. Even Goni's Vice President Carlos Mesa denounced him and swore that he would never use violence to enforce policies. Two-thirds of Bolivia's Congress — including many who had formed part of Goni's coalition — approved a trial seeking responsibility for the massacres. Disgust at Goni's "free market" (or neoliberal) economic and social policies, which increased poverty and inequality, was partly behind the landslide 2005 electoral victory of one of the leaders of the protest movements, Evo Morales.

Yet sadly, Greenberg's positive spin of Goni seems to be a view that is widely shared with the Democratic Party. At a Washington launch event for Greenberg's book, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi also appeared to hold Goni in high esteem, warmly welcoming him to the event and calling him a "very special man." Goni's former defense lawyer, Gregory Craig, is now Obama's White House counsel. The Democrats' historic loyalty to one of their favored pro-American friends seems to outweigh their commitment to human rights and fair legal process.

Rogelio Mayta, the resolute lawyer representing the families whose loved ones were killed in October 2003, tries to give Pelosi the benefit of the doubt. "We want to believe in the good faith of ... Pelosi and believe that these praises are due to misinformation rather than a concrete line of action and thinking by the U.S. government," he said.

Yet the anger of Eloy Rojas, who lost his eight-year-old daughter when troops entered his village and started shooting indiscriminately, is harder to hide. "Every effort that allies of Sánchez de Lozada make to present the ex-president as a victim and an honest man is for us an offense. It is an offense against the pain and suffering that his terrible actions had for our lives. His determination to defend his and other people's economic interests meant that he stopped valuing peoples' lives ... That is why we continue to seek justice."

In March, Bolivian families who lost loved ones marked a significant milestone in their struggle to end the legacy of impunity for political elites like Goni. After five years of navigating political games and legal loopholes, a date was set for the trial of responsibility for Goni and seven of his ministers. Yet the main defendant, Goni, will be missing because the U.S. government has ignored requests for extradition for several years.

Many in the U.S. and worldwide continue to hope that Obama's inauguration will mark a new chapter in relations worldwide, especially in Latin America, where there has been a new wave of resistance against U.S. attempts to impose its economic interests. Obama has made some important first steps in ordering closure of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility and reinvigorating the use of diplomacy in regions such as the Middle East. But if he really wants to start a new chapter of international relations rooted in human rights, he doesn't need to travel abroad. He just needs to respond to Bolivia's lawful request for extradition and send home the man who lives just seven miles from the White House. 2

Nick Buxton is a British journalist who was based in Bolivia for many years before moving to San Francisco last year. His blog, Open Veins, is at www.nickbuxton.info.

Wednesday April 8, 2009"
http://www.sfbg.com/printable_entry.php?entry_id=8353

[Judi Lynn]

1. They're more interested in maintaining whatever prevalent view is held, than in attempting

to take the time to explain to the American people how it is they have been so wildly misled by our corporate media.

Could be the job of trying to bring the public out of darkness, into the light of reality is just too damned hard, and they don't want to stick their necks off, and get attacked by the absolute a-holes we know for certain are out to destroy anything, anyone they can bring down, in order to reinstate the filthy immoral chokehold our earlier bigoted Presidents held over Latin America.

We have seen the filthy, empty, sneaky bastards who attack progressives. They go after Democrats for any reason they can find, like fast moving huge maggots with teeth and slimy hands for posting on message boards.

Some people are known to cook and eat maggots.

http://www.ananova.com.nyud.net:8090/images/web/276132.jpg
So disappointing to know these Goni supporters go all the way to our House of Representatives.

Did you see the documentary on his campaign advisors? Pathetic, unscrupulous asses. Screw them. They're not Democrats, they are scum.

Maybe the subject of "Goni" will come up in a future OAS meeting. It certainly should, considering his penchant for mass murder, really putting the "poor" in their place, which apparently he feels is six feet under. #### Goni.

http://www.bbc.co.uk.nyud.net:8090/spanish/specials/images/1122_andesbolivia/1123036_goni.jpg

Friday, November 21, 2008
The Clinton Campaign Team Plots a Return to Bolivian Politics

The last Bolivian politician who put his fortunes in the hands of Bill Clinton's political advisors now sits in unofficial exile in suburban Maryland, fighting both a criminal indictment in Bolivia and a multi-million dollar civil case in the U.S.

In 2002, a collection of consultants from Mr. Clinton's former A-team – James Carville, Stanley Greenberg, Jeremy Rosner, and others – headed south to the Andes to work a lucrative contract aimed at putting a staunch U.S. ally, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, back in office after a five year time-out required by the Bolivian constitution. As political achievements go, they did a helleva job. They took a President widely hated for his leading role in a decade of Washington-driven privatizations and maneuvered him through a field of stronger opponents to a razor thin 2% point win.

Both the campaign and its disastrous aftermath were documented close-up in award-winning documentary, "Our Brand is Crisis," by U.S. filmmaker Rachel Boynton.

In Search of a Sequel

Now apparently the former Clinton team is fishing around for a Bolivian sequel. Last month the political consulting firm of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research posted a job announcement for an "International Campaign Representative" in Bolivia. The firm, which bills itself as, "a global leader in public opinion research and strategic consulting," announced that:

{We are} seeking a highly professional individual to work in-country as part of a political campaign in Bolivia as our on-the-ground representative. Applicant must have substantial experience in politics and/or campaigns, preferably including political organizing and communications strategy, and fluency in Spanish. Contract would begin as soon as possible. Contract likely for a few months, possibly longer. Requires very long hours and ability to multitask, deal with senior-level officials, and operate in a high-stress setting.

More:
http://www.democracyctr.org/blog/2008/11/clinton-campaign-team-plots-return-to.html

[Peace Patriot]

2. Oh, god, Judi, you find the most obscure ugly little (but very revealing) truths!

That ad, and everything it represents, is disgusting and appalling!

Nancy Pelosi and the U.S. on the side of the killers, and oppressors, and corporate privatizers of Bolivia! Planning to put those fuckwads back into office, are they?--and toss out the first indigenous president of Bolivia, and the first president in ages who actually won the popular vote--won it big--rather than some fascist asshole like Lozado ("Goni") winning 22% of the vote in a multi-candidate field, and presuming to "neo-liberalize" the country on that basis. Morales actually represents the great majority of Bolivians. Not to mention the scumbag white racists whom Lozado is allied with. Good God!

So, I wonder how they're going to do this. Give free Diebold voting machines to Bolivia, maybe? Cause riots? Use the Bushwhack Financial 9/11 to starve people? Disgusting. Appalling.

[Judi Lynn]

3. After seeing your post, I thought immediately of the odd phenomenon we've seen with that woman

in the Half Moon, an indigenous politician, who suddenly decided she was going to throw herself into the last Presidential campaign.

Ordinarily, considering the obscene suffering, humiliation, abuse, violence, and raw racism heaped upon the indigenous people of Bolivia by the European settlers and their descendants, you'd think the last thing in the WORLD a conscientious indigenous citizen would do would be to screw with the chances a popular leader of being Bolivia's first President, then keeping him there as long as possible so the hideous inequities could be eliminated legally.

I think they just might decide to throw their weight behind a puppet indigenous candidate, knowing the public has been stirred to believe in the rights and future of indigenous people. Divide and conquer, deja vu, all over again.

Would you think that's the direction they'd be traveling?

I'd like to divine a way to learn what these beanbags are up to, for sure. We need to keep our eyes open for them from now on.

I wonder where they were during Humala/Garcia's election.

By the way, you knew that James Carville worked on the recall referendum in Venezuela for the opposition, right? I still can't believe that happened. It's blasphemy for a Democrat to actually work for the oppressors. Why wouldn't he give a #### about Democratic principles? Well, he's wrong. The Democratic Party has a long, proud tradition of Democrats who wouldn't be caught dead doing anything remotely like that.

As your FDR quote goes, "Organized money hates me and I welcome their hatred" or something to that effect.

[Peace Patriot]

4. Yeah, I knew about Mr. Scumbag Carville's activities in Venezuela.

I don't know all the details but I did pick up that he was using USAID-NED funds in the campaign to defeat Chavez.

You make a good point. ("I think they just might decide to throw their weight behind a puppet indigenous candidate.") That is what our global corporate predators have done here, to defeat democracy in the U.S. They took over the Democratic Party. And they have an equally serious "New Deal"-type situation in Latin America to overcome. The Latin Americans have proven themselves impervious to "divide and conquer." They have proven themselves to be impervious to the old butchery-style fascist coups. They are also impervious to the vicious, corpo-fascist controlled media (even worse than here). And they have just gone ahead and elected their FDR's, all over the continent, and now up into the peninsula (Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala). So they need to be subverted, as our poor and middle class were here.

Two countries have remained vulnerable to direct U.S. interference--Colombia and Mexico, both with rightwing (and basically U.S.-installed) governments, both controlled with U.S. "war on drugs" militarization. Colombia is worse off than Mexico, but Mexico is getting there--to a critical point of Rumsfeldian chaos, at which U.S. military domination enters the picture.

But the rest of Latin America has shown a steely spine, and a united front, against U.S. interference. Colombia is a dinosaur, and Mexico is quickly becoming one. Dinosaurs can be dangerous, for sure. But they are way outnumbered. And it is this situation--the strong front of leftist governments that now totally dominate Latin America--that our global corporate predators want to overcome. It is a difficult problem for them. They will use Colombia and Mexico against the others, if they can. But that failing (as it seems to have done, i.e., using Colombia against Venezuela), they must find another way. I think it will take them quite some time--as it did here. It took them 30 years or so to subvert the Democratic Party. But they could start chipping away at the success of the Left, picking off one leader at a time, supposedly within a democratic context, but, in truth, by subverting democracy, as they did here, by various means: out of control campaign spending; erosion of public control over election laws (up to and including outright corporate control with electronic voting machines run on 'TRADE SECRET' code); enrichment for a minority of bureaucrats, techies and upper middle class; subversion of minority causes by enrichment of (and fawning over) a few (Andy Young comes to mind--a MLK lieutenant, who became mayor of Atlanta, then U.S. ambassador to the UN, and ended up on Walmart's board--a thoroughly subverted, one-time revolutionary--a sad tale). There are many means at their disposal, with unlimited funds--both corporate and U.S. taxpayer--to thoroughly subvert the Leftist movement in Latin America without ever putting a bullet in anyone's head, or throwing anybody out of airplanes, or skinning union leaders alive and throwing their body parts into mass graves.

I rather think that the current crop of leaders are too savvy--and the wounds from brutal U.S. interference too fresh--for them to be taken in. That was true in the U.S. also. Despite the JFK, RFK and MLK assassinations, up through the Congressional resolution forbidding a war on Nicaragua, our Democratic Party was in tact, still with savvy leadership, and strong social justice and good government goals. It was still the party of the "New Deal." But by the aftermath of the Reagan war on Nicaragua (in defiance of the law), people like Daniel Inouye (Senator-Hawaii) were thoroughly subverted, and our party was no longer acting in the interests of the people. And it has gone downhill ever since--into the depraved depths of the DLC and the war on Iraq and the 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines.

That could happen eventually in Latin America. I don't think it can happen quickly. However, there is a difference that may be important--and that is the Bushwhack Financial 9/11. If the corpo/fascist fuckwads running things here are able to accomplish their purpose in Latin America--mass starvation, civil unrest--they would have a leg up on getting their operatives 'elected'--by those operatives offering 'relief' for instance in the form of all this World Bank/IMF money that is going to be made liquid. Those who 'elect' the right people get 'relief'; those who elect real leaders like Evo Morales get punished with no 'relief.' This could accelerate the subversion the Leftist movement.

Again, I think you make a very good point. Use a 'picked' indigenous leader against the indigenous. I think of particular interest to our corpo/fascists will be: the election laws; provisions of the new constitutions which make access to water, for instance, a human right, or which enshrine Mother Nature's (Pachamama's) right to exist and prosper--anti- global corporate predator laws; and, of course, especially laws protecting resources like oil.

Mexico's constitutional protection of its oil as a public resource is the main target of U.S. interference in Mexico right now. That interference has zero to do with the drug trade. Our government loves the drug trade. It provides the excuse to nazify other countries, and our own; it is the gravy train for our "prison-industrial complex" and our war profiteers. They would never seriously stop the drug trade. Their goal is control of Mexico's oil.

And if they can't get such control through Bushwhack means--"war on drugs" militarization, bumping off good leaders, etc.--they will conduct a war of attrition on indigenous-inspired environmental laws, using rewards and punishments of various kinds, to get the laws changed, or to subvert their enforcement. I saw them do that here in California--which has the strongest looking laws on the books, against deforestation and other ecological horrors. But the timber corporations have totally dominated enforcement. The laws are worthless. We've essentially lost the redwood forest, as a result. And both Democratic and Puke politicians have permitted this to happen. If they can't knock a law down, there are many other ways to defeat it--if they can gain control of the political system.

The final death blow to the redwood forest was the subversion of the woodworkers' union. The mills are now closed. Most of the redwood forest is now gone. The so-called "sustainable" resource is gone. It will never come back. The ecosystem was destroyed. And virtually all timber jobs have vanished on the northern California coast. Then--then--the Forest Stewardship Council entered the picture, and "certified" these utterly decimated forests for more logging. It's basically a real estate speculation. And they're calling it "green." Jeez.

Anyway, this is the sort of bullshit that Latin America will see more of. (The FSC is headquartered in the Yucatan, by the way.) "Green" bullshit. Fake "green." And I think you are right that it will include fake indigenous.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Had no idea the Forest Stewardship Council is now operating from Mexico.

Just looked for more information on them, and felt sick seeing this. Holy smokes.

You've done a heck of a job, F.S.C.
http://www.fsc.org/about-fsc.html

Well, there's still a remnant of forest surviving. They've got their work all cut out for them.

Thanks for your comments. There's so much to watch, study until the world can feel safe to breathe again. Things seem more critical than ever, as the newspapers are going out of business, and special interests seek to control the internetS, and the only "information" most people seem to get is delivered in very tiny, wholly spun packages on tv news, mostly cable, and the hate radio broadcasts in their cars.

Hoping the "breakdown in communications" will be overcome by "good old American ingenuity" and the breakdown will be superceded by a breakthrough allowing the free flow of actual information to all people even far better than before. It would be heaven thinking this fast closing gloom is actually only temporary, and that a new world will open up just as a nightmarish world opened up when some genius realized he could take the Wright Brothers invention and use it to transport BOMBS far away and kill a lot of innocent strangers quickly and easily! We are OWED a good breakthrough by now!

[Judi Lynn]

6. You might want to take a look at this material. First time I've seen it:

Black October
Victims of a Bolivian massacre seek justice in Miami.
By Tim Elfrink
published: December 18, 2008

~snip~
Bolivia, a land roughly seven times the size of Florida, is bracketed by snowbound Andes peaks to the south and the rain-soaked Amazon basin to the north. It is among the poorest and least developed countries in Latin America. From its earliest days, tensions between wealthy European colonizers and native Indians have divided the nation.

Bolivia broke from Spanish rule in 1825, but that would hardly bring stability to the region. Over the next 160 years, the country would weather more than 200 coups and countercoups. Democratic rule was restored in 1982, but since then, Bolivia's leaders have struggled mightily to govern a sharply divided land.

In the Eighties, foreign companies discovered huge natural gas deposits, and Bolivia seemed poised to transform from the redheaded stepchild of South America into a thriving and prosperous energy hub.

President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, or Goni, was the man Washington entrusted to push for privatization of gas lines, promising his people that foreign investment would mean more schools and economic development for poor villages outside the capital.

In the early days of his first term, Goni, a son of privilege who had grown up in the States, earned plaudits from the West for his comprehensive economic reforms, which privatized many businesses and invited in global corporations — including, prominently, Enron. For the young Clinton administration, Goni's policies represented the heart of what the United States hoped to accomplish across sluggish Latin American markets.

But those same initiatives only deepened divisions between the mostly white ruling class of Bolivia and the impoverished Aymaras and Quechuas in the western highlands. Indian leaders in desperately poor mountain villages had never forgotten the Spanish who raped the land for silver, and Goni's promises of trickle-down wealth from foreign investment had so far failed to materialize.

Goni left executive office in 1997 after one term, with the nation's economy still in turmoil. Five years later, he pulled off a stunning comeback in the 2002 elections, with the help of some expensive hired guns out of Washington: James Carville's political team — Greenberg Carville Shrum — which had helped Clinton win the presidency five years beforehand. In the final tally, Goni picked up 22.46 percent of the votes — just enough to win, but not enough to ensure popular support.

"With those electoral returns, Goni was illegitimate from the start," says Bruce Bagley, a University of Miami expert on Bolivian politics.

By 2003, a long-simmering feud over what to do with Bolivia's natural gas deposits had reached a boil. Goni wanted to bring in foreign companies to pipe the gas through neighboring Chile, to the sea, and eventually to California, but indigenous protesters — who despised foreign companies and Chile with equal aplomb — vowed to stop him. In early 2003, a young, charismatic Aymara coca farmer named Evo Morales (who had come in second to Goni in the election a year before) began gathering indigenous groups to block the plans, pushing instead for nationalization. With little political clout, Morales turned to civil disobedience: Protesters destroyed roads and barricaded towns in the highlands around La Paz, seeking to choke the economy until their demands were met.

Their protests grew in size and ferocity throughout the year, leading into autumn. On September 15, dozens of villagers in the mountains of western Bolivia cut off all the roads to picturesque Sorata, a popular tourist destination for locals and international hikers headed to the nearby peaks and glaciers. Armed with sticks and a few ancient Mauser rifles — many left over from a 1932 war against Paraguay — the campesinos blocked access out of Sorata, stranding several hundred tourists for days.

On September 20, Bolivian Defense Minister Berzaín flew to the town in a military helicopter to negotiate for the tourists' safe passage.

When villagers heard the minister of defense had arrived — the highest-ranking official ever to personally visit — many flocked to the scene to ask for help finding jobs, while others pleaded with him to help fix roads and solve other village problems. According to a Los Angeles Times story about the incident, Berzaín was dismissive and rude.

"I didn't come here to talk to anyone," he told the crowd. "I'm here for the tourists."

"And what are we? Are we just animals?" one elderly woman reportedly shouted at him.

Accounts vary on exactly what happened next, but everyone agrees the negotiations quickly fell apart. The confrontation soon became physical, some said. Others reported Berzaín throwing out an ethnic slur — "indios!" — at the natives.

"One of the campesinos threw a punch and hit Berzaín in the face," says Jim Shultz, an American who lives in Bolivia and has run the nonprofit Democracy Center in Cochabamba for more than a decade. Shultz interviewed dozens of witnesses and village leaders after the incident. "After , he walked away and told his military commanders: 'Just kill them,'" Shultz says.

Berzaín has adamantly refuted those accusations and denies anyone threw a punch at him. This much is certain: Soon after talks fell apart, a full military and police task force moved into Sorata and loaded the tourists onto buses. Villagers tried to block the winding road leading out of the narrow valley sheltering Sorata. At least one elderly local, a man named Demetrio Coraca Castro, was shot and killed when the military forced its way through the protesters.

As the troops drove back to La Paz, they passed through the town of Warisata in the early afternoon. Angry crowds of campesinos again tried to block the military from proceeding. Armed mostly with sticks and rocks, the protesters set up a barricade and pelted soldiers, Jeeps, and buses with stones. Others fled to the hills for safety. By the time the military had left Warisata, one soldier and three villagers were dead, including eight-year-old Marlene Rojas Mamani, who was killed by a stray bullet as she looked out the window of her family's small two-story home.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For the next three weeks, thousands of furious Aymaras and Quechuas blocked roads and marched toward the mountain capital of La Paz. Throughout late September and early October, protesters clashed time and again with the police and the military. Dozens of Indians were seriously injured, and at least eight more were killed.

The conflict came to a head October 12, 2003. Protesters had completely choked off the capital city, blocking the only highways stretching into the canyon harboring La Paz. The day before, Goni — holed up in the executive palace downtown — had signed Decreto Supremo 27209, ordering a state of emergency and declaring the transportation of gas into La Paz a national priority.

That afternoon, a 33-year-old car mechanic named Lucio left his modest home in El Alto, a huge suburb of 650,000 people outside La Paz. Both Lucio and his wife Sonia had spent their lives in the mass of people around Bolivia's capital, and never before had they witnessed the kind of violence that was now gripping the country.

It was a quiet, cool Sunday afternoon, and it seemed as safe a time as any to make the journey. Lucio knew there was danger in leaving his home, but he wanted to pay a quick visit to his brother who lived across town in nearby Senkata. He promised his young wife, who was three weeks pregnant, he would soon be home to play with their four-year-old boy.

Less than an hour later, Sonia's cell phone rang. It was her sister-in-law.

"Sonia, something has happened to Lucio. You must come to the hospital," she said, not sounding too concerned. "I don't believe it's serious."

Still, Sonia couldn't help but feel a pang of panic. She grabbed their son and hurried on foot toward the hospital through El Alto's rough-paved, puddle-strewn streets. When she walked into the clinic, her worst fears were confirmed. The hospital was overrun with bloody, screaming patients. Dozens of Bolivians, nearly all indigenous Aymaras or Quechuas, lay on stretchers — bleeding, unconscious, or worse — yelling desperately for help. Sonia ran through the corridors to find her husband, who was writhing in pain on a cot.

"Sonia, get me out of here!" he cried. "I will die here!"

She lifted his shirt and gasped with shock. A bullet had entered his side and exploded through his back, leaving a grapefruit-size wound in its place. Crimson pooled under his body and caked to his clothes. How, she wondered desperately, would she get him to another hospital with doctors and enough blood to save his life?

Sonia's husband, she learned, had been walking along a street near a large gas plant in his brother's Senkata neighborhood when the military staged a surprise attack on protesters blocking the plant. Officers fired automatic weapons into the air, scattering the hundreds of Indians at the entrance. Then bullets began felling people in the street. One shot killed 35-year-old Eduardo Baltazar Hinto when he peeked out from behind a kiosk. Another hit 19-year-old Roxana Apaza Cutipa in the forehead when she looked over the fourth-floor terrace of her home, killing her instantly. Sonia's husband, Lucio, was shot in the abdomen and lay bleeding in a nearby storefront, waiting for the military to leave so he could find help.

After languishing for hours in the overwhelmed hospital, Sonia eventually found a Catholic priest named Father Overmeyer to drive them to another clinic. Lucio screamed the entire drive. "I'm going to die!" he yelled over and over as Sonia wept by his side. At the second hospital, as they wheeled her husband to the back for surgery, Sonia could see the blood still pouring from his back. A few hours later, at 10 p.m., a doctor found her crying in a front room and told her Lucio was dead.

"It's better that he died," the doctor told the young window. "He would have been in horrible agony if he'd lived."

Lucio was one of 30 bystanders and protesters killed by police and soldiers that day in El Alto, an explosion of violence that shocked the nation and abruptly ended Sánchez de Lozada and Berzaín's second term in the presidential palace. With La Paz still cut off from gas supplies, and Bolivians seething over the deaths, Goni and his defense minister resigned October 17, 2003, hopped an airplane, and fled to Miami.

More:
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/content/printVersion/1280808

~~~~~~~~~~
I am sickened to death by this. Glad I saw it.

http://features.csmonitor.com.nyud.net:8090/politics/wp-content/assets/19/179/picture1.jpg

Greenberg and Carville, two of the three Americans who made this possible.

[Peace Patriot]

7. "...hopped an airplane, and fled to Miami."

:puke: