U.S. jury strikes a vital blow for human rights elsewhere

At a time when the current U.S. president is doing everything he can to project the image of the Ugly American abroad, a U.S. court took an unprecedented step to bolster the cause of justice and human rights in other nations.

On April 3, a Fort Lauderdale jury found former Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada and his former defense minister, Jose Carlos Sanchez Berzain, responsible for the murders of indigenous people in 2003 during a horrifying month of violence when the Bolivian military was used to squelch protests over the government’s efforts to privatize natural gas reserves.

Estimates place the killings at more than 60, with 400 more Aymara injured. Sanchez de Lozada resigned, fleeing to a suburb of D.C., and his defense minister found safe haven in an affluent community in Miami-Dade County, Fla.

In a legal smackdown that reverberated globally, the jury awarded survivors of the victims $10 million in damages. The trial was the first time that an ex-president of a foreign nation has had to sit before his accusers in a U.S. court for human rights abuses.

It’s about time. Hopefully this will set a new standard for U.S. involvement in international human rights. Those guilty of unleashing their armed forces on defenseless civilians will not find shelter in the U.S.

The case of Sanchez de Lozada is an old story in many ways: politically connected and business interests clashing with indigenous peoples over land rights. Sanchez de Lozada had family connections to the Roosevelts and the Rockefellers, and he hired Democratic campaign guru James Carville’s firm to help secure the Bolivian presidency in 2002.

What’s perhaps even more unusual, and inspiring, about the case is that it evolved from a student project when its creator was a young man at Harvard Law School.

Thomas Becker is probably better known in his hometown of Kansas City for his performances with bands. But by the time I first met him in 2001, Becker had already witnessed the aftermath of the genocide in Rwanda, worked amid the poverty of Cape Town and traveled with Subcommandante Marcos, a leader of Mexico’s Zapatista movement.

During his law studies, Becker traveled in Bolivia, where he heard stories of the “Octubre Negro,” or Black October, a time of violence and protests when the indigenous blocked roads, keeping access of gas reserves from reaching La Paz.

The lawsuit against Sanchez de Lozada and Sanchez Berzain was filed in 2007 on behalf of surviving relatives of eight victims.

Becker is quick to acknowledge that the victory was the work of many people. The case was led by a legal team from the Center for Constitutional Rights and Harvard’s International Human Rights Clinic, in addition to several law firms.

The claims were brought under the Alien Tort Act, a little known law initially intended to hold pirates accountable for crimes in international waters, and the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991, which was passed to pursue justice after such extrajudicial killings.

The families of the victims, Becker insists, are the heroes of the case.

He’s right, of course. And at least at this juncture in the case, U.S. law is standing alongside them.