Bolivia: international crusade for justice

"The machine guns have cut down the bodies of our relatives, and we want [those responsible] to be punished," said a resolute Néstor Salinas, whose brother was among the roughly 70 people killed in a brutal crackdown on the protests known as the "gas war" in Bolivia two years ago. Most of the protesters slain in the demonstrations against a plan to export natural gas to Mexico and the United States through a Chilean port were from El Alto, a sprawling impoverished city next to La Paz. Salinas was addressing the Mayaki Caravan, made up of social and human rights activists from Italy and other countries, which is calling for justice for the victims of the repression carried out under the government of right-wing president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, who was forced out of office on Oct. 17, 2003 by a month-long popular uprising. Sánchez de Lozada was replaced by his vice-president, Carlos Mesa, who had actually handed in his resignation to protest the bloodshed. But Mesa himself stepped down as president last June in the midst of massive protests against the passage of a law reforming the country's natural gas industry and in the face of stiff parliamentary opposition. He in turn was succeeded by then Supreme Court chief justice Eduardo Rodríguez, who will hand over the reins to the winner of the early elections called for in December. The Mayaki Caravan visited El Alto, where most of the victims were killed by the army as it attempted to lift the protesters' roadblocks in order to clear the way for fuel supplies to reach La Paz. On Oct. 12, 2003, a convoy of tanker trucks and military vehicles transported fuel to La Paz. Along the way, 19 people were killed in one of the worst instances of government repression since the restoration of democracy on Oct. 10, 1982. In the ceremony to commemorate the victims, Italian journalist Giuseppe De Marzo, the delegation's legal representative, said: "we are crying because it is very painful." He added that the foreign activists shared in the pain of the families mourning their loved ones, "who died to defend public assets, and who represent the same fight all over the world." The Mayaki Caravan includes Rome city councilor Mónica Cirinna, who represents the Italian Green party, members of Italian social movements and the World Commission on Water, the ¡Ya Basta! Association and newspaper and radio reporters, who came to learn first-hand about the social reality that gave rise to the popular uprisings. De Marzo, a human rights activist, spent a week in prison in Ecuador in 2001 while fighting for indigenous peoples' right to their ancestral land in the face of encroachment by foreign oil companies. Around 40 foreign visitors with the Caravan walked through the dusty, unpaved roads of El Alto, spoke to local residents, and attended the ceremony held to honor the victims of the military crackdown. They were impacted by the terrible poverty that had resulted from "the application of neoliberal economic policies," De Marzo said. They also said there was no justification for the long lines that homemakers must stand in to refill their cooking gas cylinders, in the country with the second-largest reserves of natural gas in South America after Venezuela, with a total of 53 trillion cubic feet. The failure of foreign oil firms to invest in new plants to convert natural gas to liquefied natural gas for household use caused an energy crisis that prompted the resignation of hydrocarbons minister Jaime Dunn recently, after he was censured by Congress. "It's a paradox to see the shortage of gas among the poorest Bolivians, who have given their lives for the fuel and continue to live in poverty," said De Marzo. "This image really shocked us." Mayaki Caravan activists first came to Bolivia in 2003 to promote human rights, and since then the group has backed social movements working to defend public assets, the self-determination of indigenous peoples and participatory democracy in this country, South America's poorest. This week, the group's members heard a moving appeal for solidarity from the families of the "gas war" victims, who are demanding that Sánchez de Lozada be held legally accountable for the decision to authorize the use of military force against the demonstrators. So far, only a few cabinet ministers and military chiefs have testified in court on the events of October 2003. But the trial could be frustrated by the absence of the former president and his then minister of defence Carlos Sánchez Berzaín, both of whom fled into exile in the United States on Oct. 17, 2003. The Mayaki Caravan activists promised to lobby the Italian government and the European Parliament, to get them to urge the United States to extradite Sánchez de Lozada to Bolivia, in order for him to stand trial. Rome city councilor Cirinna said she was moved by "the courage of a long-suffering people paying homage to their dead," while the government stands "confused, absent and unable to undertake initiatives of peace and justice." After visiting the victims' graves, "I had a really beautiful human impression, although painful and somewhat comparable to the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz, which I saw two years ago, because of the sensation of killing and extermination," Cirinna said. She lamented that impunity has gained terrain in the case of the protesters killed in the "gas war" and pledged her support for the families' struggle for justice.