Me the President of Bolivia detained illegally in Europe ! - An Open Letter to the International Community

On July 2 occurred one of the most unusual events in the history of international law: the prohibition on the presidential plane of the multinational State of Bolivia to fly the French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese territories, and my confinement at the airport of Vienna ( Austria) for fourteen hours. 

Several weeks later, the attack committed against the lives of members of an official delegation by the so-called democratic and law-abiding states, continues to raise indignation, however condemnations abound, worldwide, by citizens, social organizations, international organizations and governments.

What has happened? I was in Moscow , moments before I began my meeting with Mr Vladimir Putin, an assistant alerted me to technical difficulties : impossible to go to Portugal as originally planned. However, when I concluded my interview with the Russian President, it was already clear that the problem was not technical ...

From La Paz, our Foreign Minister, David Choquehuanca managed to organize a stopover in Las Palmas deGran Canaria , Spain, and to get the confirmation for a new flight plan . Everything seems in order ... But while we're in the air, the group captain Celiar Arispe, in charge of the Presidential Air Group and who was piloting the plane that day, came to see me, " Paris withdrew the permission to fly ! We cannot enter the French airspace.“ The surprise was equalled only by his concern: we were about to fly over France.

We could have, of course tried to return to Russia , but that would be at the risk of running out of kerosene. Colonel Arispe had contacted the control tower at the airport in Vienna to seek permission to make an emergency landing. The Austrian authorities should here be thanked for having granted the permission.

Sitting in a small office-room at the airport, which was arranged for me, I was discussing with my vice president , Alvaro Garcia Linera , and Choquehuanca to decide upon the sequence of events and above all, trying to understand the reasons for the French decision , when the pilot informed me that Italy also refused our entry into its airspace.

Then only, I received a visit from the Spanish ambassador in Austria, Alberto Carnero. He announced before me that a new flight plan had just been approved to carry me to Spain .

Only all that he will need, beforehand, he said, is the permission to inspect the presidential plane. This is even a prerequisite to our departure for Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

When I asked about the reasons for this requirement, Mr. Carnero evokes the name of Edward Snowden, an employee of a U.S. company to which Washington outsources some of its espionage activities. I replied that I knew about him only through the press. I also reminded the Spanish diplomat that my country respects international conventions : on no account I was trying to extradite anyone to Bolivia .

Mr. Carnero was in constant touch with the Spanish Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Rafael Mendívil Peydro , who obviously asked him to insist. "You are not going to inspect this plane, I had to hammer . If you do not believe what I tell you, that would mean, you are treating the President of the Sovereign State of Bolivia as liar. The diplomat went out to take instructions from his superior, then came back. He then asked me to invite him to "take a cup of coffee " in the plane. "So you take me for a delinquent ? I asked him. If you really want to get into the plane, you will do it by force. And I cannot resist a military or a police operation : I do not have the means. "

Having been definitely scared , Ambassador rejects the option of force, yet he did clarify to me that in these circumstances he cannot allow our flight plan : "At 9:00 am, we will tell you whether you can or cannot leave. In the meantime, we will discuss with our friends" he explained to me. "Friends"? "But who are these " friends " of Spain which you are referring to ? France and Italy, perhaps?" He refused to answer me and went out ...

I took this opportunity to discuss with Argentine President Cristina Fernández, an excellent lawyer who guides me on the legal issues , as well as with the presidents of Venezuela and Ecuador, Rafael Correa and Nicolás Maduro. Both were very worried about us. Correa also called me several times during the day for our news. This solidarity gave me strength, " Evo, they have no right to inspect your plane ! , " He repeatedly said to me. I was not unaware of the fact that a presidential plane has the same status as an embassy.

But these advices and the arrival of the ambassadors of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA ) (1) increased tenfold my determination to show myself firm . No, we will not offer to Spain or any other country – the United States much less than the any other - the satisfaction to inspect our aircraft. We will defend our dignity, sovereignty and the honour of our country, our great motherland . We will never accept this blackmail.

The Spanish ambassador returned. Concerned, worried and nervous, he told me that I had finally all the permissions and could go. Finally, we took off ...

The ban on the flight, decreed simultaneously by four countries and coordinated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) against a sovereign country on the sole pretext that we were carrying Mr. Snowden with us, brings to light the political weight of the main imperial power: the United States.

Until July 2 (date of our detention), everybody understood that the States are equipped with security agencies to protect their territory and population. But Washington has exceeded the limits of the conceivable. Violating all the principles of good faith and international conventions, he transformed a part of the European continent into its colonized territory. An insult to human rights, one of the achievements of the French Revolution.

The colonial spirit which led to the submission of so many countries demonstrates once again that the empire recognizes no limits - neither legal nor moral or territorial. It is now clear to the world that, for such power , any law can be broken , all sovereignty can be violated , all human rights can be ignored.

The power of the United States, is of course its armed forces involved in various wars of invasion and supported by a military-industrial complex, which is out of the ordinary. Stages of their interventions are well known: after the military conquest , the imposition of free trade, a singular conception of democracy, and finally the submission of the people to the voracity of multinationals. The indelible marks of imperialism - be it military or economic – are defacing Iraq , Afghanistan , Libya and Syria. Some of the countries which were invaded on suspicion of possessing weapons of mass destruction or harboring terrorist organizations. Countries where thousands of people were killed, yet the ICC could not institute any legal actions.

But American power also comes from underground devices of spreading fear, blackmailing and intimidation. Some of the recipes gleefully used by Washington to maintain its status: the "exemplary punishment" in the purest colonial style which led to the suppression of Abya Yala Indians ( 2). It now falls on the people who have decided to be free and the political leaders who have chosen to govern for the poor. The memory of this policy of exemplary punishment is still strong in Latin America: one thinks of the coup against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela in 2002 , against Honduran President Manuel Zelaya in 2009, against Correa in 2010, against Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo in 2012 and , of course, against our government in 2008 , led by the U.S. ambassador to Bolivia , Philip Goldberg ( 3). The "example" is set, so that the indigenous people, workers, peasants , social movements do not dare raise their heads against the ruling classes . The "example" is set to bend those who resist and to terrorize others. But an "example" now leads the poor of the continent and around the world to redouble their efforts of unity to strengthen their struggles.

The attack we suffered reveals the two faces of the same oppression, against which the people have decided to revolt: imperialism and its political and ideological twin, colonialism. Sequestration of a presidential plane and its crew - that one was entitled to consider unthinkable in the twenty-first century - illustrates the survival of a form of racism in some European governments. For them, the Indians and the democratic and revolutionary process in which they are incurred are obstacles on the path of civilization. This racism, now, takes refuge in the arrogance and the most ridiculous "technical" explanations to disguise a political decision born in a Washington office. Here are governments which have lost the ability to recognize themselves as colonized , and which are trying to protect the reputation of their master ...

The empire and the colonies go hand in hand. Having opted for the obedience to the orders given to them, some European countries have confirmed their status as subject countries. The colonial nature of the relationship between the United States and Europe has increased since the attacks of 11 September 2001 and was unveiled to all in 2004, when we learned of the existence of illegal U.S. military flights supposedly carrying prisoners of war to Guantánamo or to European prisons. We now know that these alleged "terrorists" were subjected to torture, a reality on which even the organizations of human rights often keep mum.

The "war against terrorism" has reduced the old Europe to the rank of colony; an unfriendly, even hostile act, which can be analyzed as a form of state terrorism, in so far as it leaves the private lives of millions citizens to the whims of the empire.

But this snub to the international law represented by our sequestration, constitutes perhaps a breaking point. Europe gave birth to the noblest ideas of liberty, equality, fraternity . It has widely contributed to the scientific progress and the emergence of democracy. It is only a pale copy of itself: a neo-obscurantism threatens the peoples of a continent which, a few centuries back, lit up the world with his revolutionary ideas and raised hope.

Our sequestration could provide for all the peoples and governments of Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe , Asia , Africa and North America, the opportunity to form a united bloc condemning the shameful attitude of the States involved in the violation of international law. It is also an ideal opportunity to strengthen the social movements to build another world, of fraternity and complementarity. It is to the people to build that world.

We are confident that the people of the world, particularly those in Europe , are feeling the same aggression  we were victims of. And we interpret their indignation as an indirect way to introduce the excuses always refused to us by some of the responsible governments (4).

Evo Morales
President of the Multinational State of Bolivia.

Translation from the French by Trinanjan Chakraborty

(1) of which Antigua and Barbuda , Bolivia, Cuba , Ecuador, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Venezuela are members. ( All notes by the Monde Diplomatique. )
(2) Name given to the Americas by the Kuna ethnic of Panama and Colombia before the arrival of Christopher Columbus. In 1992, the name was chosen by the Native American nations to designate the continent.
(3) On these various events , see the page " Honduras " on the site of the MD and read Maurice Lemoine, " État d’exception en Équateur " La valise diplomatique , October 1, 2010, and Gustavo Zaracho " Le Paraguay repris en main par l’oligarchie, " La valise diplomatique, July 19, 2012 , Hernando Calvo Ospina ," Petit précis de déstabilisation en Bolivie " , Le Monde diplomatique , June 2010.
(4) Since then, Lisbon , Madrid, Paris and Rome have formally apologized to La Paz .