Bolivian president's treatment stirs up fury in Latin America

Fury in Latin America

I would love to hear from Latin American ATSers on this matter.

Is this headline true? Are you guys really pissed at the way President Morales was treated by the EU yesterday?

Do you agree that "Nothing justifies an action as disrespectful to the highest authority of a country"?

The fact is this act is truly unprecedented. As a long-time resident of Europe, I am absolutely shocked that this happened. I anticipate tremendous fallout from this, both from EU citizenry and South America... what do you think?

There's a lot more to the story apparently. An Air Traffic Control tape has popped up (there's always a tape), where the plane requests permission to land in Austria, before it ever got to France, due to a mechanical problem.

www.theatlanticwire.com...

audioboo.fm...

Apparently upon reaching Austria the pilot reported a problem with a fuel gauge in the cockpit, and said they had to make a precautionary landing to check it out.

Sounds like someone's cover up to me since France apologized for the incident.

Cleveland Press

After initial hedging from France, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius issued a statement Wednesday night acknowledging that Morales' plane was initially refused and saying he called his Bolivian counterpart to apologize. The statement didn't explain why.

and this

The U.S. refused to comment on whether it was involved in any decision to close European airspace, saying only that "US officials have been in touch with a broad range of countries over the course of the last 10 days," about the Snowden case.

Looks like Latin America is about to get even more ticked -

Snowden row intensifies as hidden bug found in Ecuador's embassy

The international wrangle over the future of Edward Snowden took a further twist when Ecuador declared it had found a listening device in its London embassy and threatened to reveal who had planted it.

In another day of drama and diplomatic indignation, Ricardo Patiño, Ecuador's foreign minister, said the device had been discovered a fortnight ago when he had been in the UK to discuss another fugitive, the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

www.guardian.co.uk...

Wonder what country is NOT "upset" with the US and UK right now?

Snowden rumors temporarily ground Bolivian president's plane : edition.cnn.com...

Rumors that U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden hitched a ride on Bolivia's presidential jet have sparked a global diplomatic feud that's roiled leaders throughout South America.

The drama started Tuesday after Portuguese authorities wouldn't let Bolivian President Evo Morales' plane land in Lisbon for refueling while on his way back from a conference in Russia, Bolivian Defense Minister Ruben Saavedra told CNN en Español.

France, Spain and Italy also wouldn't let the plane enter their airspace, Bolivian officials said.

With no clear path home available, the flight's crew made an emergency landing in Austria.

reply to post by Zaphod58


The information about this incident is going to blossom like a rose over the upcoming weeks.

I was looking at some French papers this morning and - as though Hollande was not deep enough in the stew already - this is about to really make him sink deep down. Imagine the Bolivians calling a socialist President a "facist"!

reply to post by Echoes


It's that emergency landing that is leading Bolivians to say that the Presidents life was put in jeopardy.

I don't believe that has ever happened before.

The usa most reallly thin snowden still has something big up his sleve, my advice to the citecins of the amaraca is stand up to your goverment they could end up starting a war over the way they are acting...

Originally posted by liveandlearn
Sounds like someone's cover up to me since France apologized for the incident.

Cleveland Press

After initial hedging from France, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius issued a statement Wednesday night acknowledging that Morales' plane was initially refused and saying he called his Bolivian counterpart to apologize. The statement didn't explain why.

and this

The U.S. refused to comment on whether it was involved in any decision to close European airspace, saying only that "US officials have been in touch with a broad range of countries over the course of the last 10 days," about the Snowden case.

really? what he accused them of was forcing his plane to land but they landed for technical reasons and there's proof of the pilot requesting to land, what France apologised for was refusal to enter their airspace not what he's accusing them of and besides that this snowden theory is nonsense since he took off from an airport on the opposite side of Russia from snowden, so there was no reason to suspect snowden's presence by Europe. i think this is a distraction created by Russia, Bolivia and a third party to take attention off snowden while he's moved out of Russia in secret on another plane or Bolivia is just lying so they can take a shot at Europe and in turn the U.S diplomatically.

Tin foil hat on: Just speculation here, they have stated that they learned of the bug in the Ecuadorian office 2 weeks ago, what if they deliberately started a conversation near the bug about the Bolivian plane to see who would bite?

Because if this was the case they have found who was responsible for the bug, if it wasn't already obvious enough.

reply to post by Hawksage


I agree - wars have been started over far less.

It will be interesting to see if any other leader is given this "very special treatment" if they sympathize with Snowden!

reply to post by namehere


I have to disagree with you here...

‘An act of aggression and violation of international law’ is how Bolivia described the situation in which the Presidential plane was grounded in Vienna for almost 12 hours, over fears that Snowden could be on board.

So Morales is accusing the EU of violating international law by refusing airspace to the legally elected leader of a sovereign nation.

That said... I do agree it may just be a distraction to actually move Snowden.

So are South Americans angry?

So I heard:

Lapaz, Bolivia - About 100 protesters threw stones and burned the French flag at Paris's embassy in La Paz Wednesday, as Bolivians expressed rage over France's decision to deny their president's aircraft permission to enter its airspace.

“Hypocrite France! Colonizer France,” shouted the protesters, who included representatives from indigenous groups.

“Fascist France, get out of Bolivia!” they chanted.

Hi all,

I'm Portuguese, and i'm truly sorry the way my stupid government behave on this matter, this is really serious, and just prove Europe is a total american puppet! They say jump we jump, they say sit we sit, they say catch we catch, they say play dead we comply!
What is even more outrageous, is we are living a internal serious crises at the moment, we should not even should have time to play with this matters, since we have far more bigger problems to care right now, since our political system have collapsed or is almost collapsing. Plus our minister of foreign affairs, have resign one day earlier! Collapsing our government,

The Bolivian government has become rather anti-American over the past 10 years or so.
So I can see the Bolivian government using this situation as an excuse for anti-American
and Anti-Euro rhetoric.

Side note - when we were in Bolivia (1996) we found the people to be exceptionally nice.
The economy ran on a system of pay offs and bribes... which was rather interesting.
But the people of the country were wonderful.

reply to post by antoinemarionette


He can accuse them all they want, but it's not a violation of any law. A presidential plane can be told to land, and it can be searched without breaking any laws.

reply to post by antoinemarionette


I share your sentiment on this situation, however I am not entirely sure what options are available to the South American Bloc to impose some kind of consequence.

It will most likely be a strongly worded condemnation of the act and a grievance filed with the UN. That is really the only viable options available in my opinion.

I was shocked the actions taken by France, Spain and Italy, most likely at America's behest. It certainly sets a concerning precedence for any foreign diplomat or political figure who can be influenced in such a blatant manner.

In any case, at the end of the day there is not much anyone can do. The only real consequences would be economic or militaristic and I dont think any South American nation is prepared for either option. Though I would not blame them if they did.

What are they going to do?

No one will challenge the USA militarily. They can't.

So they can huff and puff and posture but what else can they really do?

Anyone know?

reply to post by khimbar


Apparently misconstrue things, considering the real reason they landed in Austria was because the plane was broken. But saying that those countries refused them permission to fly through their airspace, breaking some imaginary law sounds so much better, doesn't it.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Bet it never makes the news though. Can't let the truth get in the way of the spreading worldwide hatred of America.

(Not that there aren't enough reasons to hate the American government without making them up).