Forced detour of Bolivian President Evo Morales' plane causes international incident.
| Autor | Gaudin, Andres |
An incident that played out in the theater of the Global North and whose actors are from there unexpectedly spilled over to the Global South and coalesced a group of countries that, in recent years, with greater or lesser intensity, has challenged US policies in the region. It all began in the third week in June, when Edward Snowden, a US National Security Agency (NSA) contract analyst, revealed that the intelligence service used a software program that allowed it to spy on US citizens and especially on diplomats and official agencies of its allies in the European Union (EU).
After 10 days during which the White House was unable to dodge questions from its Western European allies, chagrined to learn that they had been spied on, a huge intelligence error convinced the US on July 2 that Snowden was secretly traveling on the plane of Bolivian President Evo Morales. Morales was returning to La Paz that day from Moscow. His small French-made Falcon 900EX plane with limited unrefueled flight range needed to make a technical landing at a Spanish airport, and Bolivia had arranged this with authorities in Madrid. However, without explanation, the government of conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy refused to allow the plane to land at its terminals or enter its airspace. As if in synchrony, Portugal, France, and Italy repeated the same abusive refusal, putting the South American president's safety at extreme risk.
After flying for almost two hours without a definite destination, and with fuel running low, the official Bolivian plane received authorization to land at the Vienna, Austria, airport. After waiting 14 hours at a site some distance from the airport, the plane was allowed to take off for La Paz.
While this was happening in the European skies, the US diplomatic mission in Bolivia asked the Morales administration to extradite Snowden, who was not in Bolivia and therefore had not received asylum there.
"The strange, unfounded, and suggestive request for extradition of a person who is not in the requested state's territory will be returned to the US government immediately," said a communique from the Bolivian Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores.
Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca said that the US request for extradition "explains the decision of the European governments to block their airspace," fearing that the presidential plane was carrying Snowden. "It is not a coincidence, the note arrived at our ministry because the US thought that...
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