WASHINGTON (AFP) — Bolivia's former defense minister Carlos Sanchez Berzain was granted political asylum in the United States last year, after saying he feared persecution by the government of Evo Morales, according to documents released in Washington Tuesday.
Sanchez Berzain received political asylum in April 2007 after telling US authorities that he feared he would be "persecuted and tortured" by the government of Bolivia's newly-elected leftist president, according to documents released by La Paz's embassy in Washington.
"I have endured numerous unfounded allegations against me by Morales in the past, and now I fear that his new powers as president will allow him to silence me once and for all," Sanchez Berzain wrote in his asylum petition.
The former defense minister added that Morales was particularly opposed to his efforts to combat drug-trafficking, in a country famous for its cultivation of the coca plant used in the production of cocaine.
The current Bolivian government is said to be considering an extradition request against Sanchez Berzain for his role in a 2003 army crackdown that led to the deaths of some 60 civilian protesters.
Bolivia's Ambassador to Washington, Gustavo Guzman, said the revelation about Sanchez Berzain's US asylum "complicates" already strained bilateral relations.
"It is irritating, it complicates relations between Bolivia and the United States," he said.
Guzman added that his government had summoned US Ambassador to La Paz Philip Goldberg to a meeting Tuesday about the matter.
"We are not satisfied with the explanations the ambassador gave this morning," Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca told reporters in La Paz afterward, adding that his government would seek further clarification.
Guzman said it was "very likely" that former president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, who currently lives in the Washington suburbs, had also received asylum.
The 2003 massacre occurred during Sanchez de Lozada's second term in office as his government tried to rein in raging civilian protests.
The US State Department would not immediately confirm whether the two Bolivians had received asylum, and calls to Sanchez de Lozada were not returned.
However Yerko Kukoc, Sanchez de Lozada's former interior minister, said that his ex-boss asked for political asylum in the United States five years ago and it has already been granted, according to state news agency ABI.
Kukok, speaking in the city of Santa Cruz, said he did not know if Sanchez Berzain was granted political asylum.
Kukoc said that the ex-president's political asylum case was filed during the 2003-2005 presidency of Carlos Mesa, not under Morales, "and was probably concluded during the presidency of Eduardo Rodriguez Veltze" in 2006, he said.
News that Sanchez Berzain had received political asylum in the United States sparked large protests Monday in parts of El Alto, a poor suburb of La Paz where the 2003 crackdown took place.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
