Ex-pres on genocide charges
2005-02-22 12:45
La Paz - Prosecutors on Monday charged Bolivia's former president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada and 13 of his cabinet members with genocide in the deaths of more than 60 people during riots that toppled him in 2003.
"Formal charges were brought against Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada and his entire cabinet," said Jaime Tapia, a judicial advisor to the national prosecutor.
United States-educated Sanchez de Lozada was toppled in 2003 after 60 to 80 persons died protesting his freemarket economics, especially his plan to ship Bolivian gas to the United States via a $5bn pipeline through Bolivia's archrival, Chile.
The former president and his ministers of defence and interior, Carlos Sanchez and Yerko Kukoc, were charged with genocide and the wounding of some 500 persons. The other ministers were charged with "complicity."
Lives in the US
The deaths prompted opposition parties and labour unions to accuse the president of using excessive force and mounting a campaign of repression against his political foes, charges he has repeatedly denied.
"The prosecutor has taken an important step so that laws are not broken with impunity in this country," said a spokesperson for Movement Toward Socialism, headed by Evo Morales, who led unions of workers and coca growers in the demonstrations that toppled Sanchez de Lozada.
In October, a congressional vote to indict Sanchez de Lozada got backing even from legislators of his own National Revolutionary Movement.
Sanchez de Lozada, who now lives in the United States, was replaced by his vice-president, Carlos Mesa, who has gone to great lengths to resolve the gas export dispute.
In July, Bolivians overwhelmingly approved in a referendum increased state involvement in the gas industry and higher export royalties for multinationals. Bolivia has some of the largest gas reserves in South America.
They also struck down a 1997 oil and gas exploration law that Sanchez de Lozada used to give generous concessions to foreign companies.
The 74-year-old former president, who studied in the United States, is credited with using economic "shock therapy" to cut down Bolivia's rampant hyperinflation caused by excessive government spending in the mid-1980s, when he served as economy minister in the cabinet of president Victor Paz Estenssoro.
He was first elected to the country's highest office in 1993 and served out his four-year term.
He returned to power in August 2002, promising to modernise the country's economy and implement market reforms.
If the Supreme Court agrees to go ahead with the case, Sanchez de Lozada will become the second former head of state to face trial since Bolivia's return to democracy in 1982.
Rural workers took to the streets on Monday, demanding that the process be speeded up. They cut off roads to and from Sucre, 700km outside La Paz.
- AFP