The International Action Center expresses its outrage at the international crime committed by the U.S. imperialist government and its NATO allies in Europe in denying a refueling stop to the plane carrying Bolivian President Evo Morales home from an energy conference in Moscow.This plane was refused overflight permission by France, Spain, Italy and Portugal on July 2 while in the air. It couldn’t land to refuel before crossing the Atlantic Ocean. The plane finally had to touch down in Vienna, Austria, where it sat for 13 hours, until the Indigenous President Morales allowed an Austrian official on board.
That the countries involved gave only technical reasons for refusing to allow the plane to fly over and land on their territory is a clear sign that they were aware that the forcing down of Morales’ plane is a violation of international law: Aircraft carrying government leaders have diplomatic immunity.
Behind this unprecedented and criminal action was Washington's panic that whistleblower Edward Snowden would receive asylum in Bolivia or some other Latin American country. Snowden was not on board Morales' plane. Snowden is the contract worker for the National Security Agency who sacrificed his career, risked his freedom and safety by releasing to the world documents showing the vast extent of U.S. electronic spying on scores of countries. The NSA uses this same electronic spying on people in the U.S. too, many of whom consider him a hero for exposing "Big Brother."
Snowden, like Pvt. B. Manning and other whistle blowers who are enmeshed in the vast bureaucratic and repressive state apparatus, discovered in their work that the government they identified with was engaged in criminal and often murderous activity in the interest of a tiny few billionaires and multi-millionaires at the pinnacle of wealth in the United States. They rebelled against being used for these ends. Their exposure of U.S. imperialist crimes is a contribution to the freedom of the people of the world and to the working class inside the United States, who have no interest in protecting and extending the wealth of a tiny few.
It is nothing new for the United States to infringe on the sovereignty of nations south of the U.S. What distinguishes this case is that the leaders of Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador and other Latin American countries are attending an extraordinary meeting of the Union of South American Nations on July 4 in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba to demand respect from the imperialists and to show solidarity with Morales.
We too, as anti-imperialists in the United States, want to express our solidarity with the Bolivian leader and his regional allies in the defense of their sovereignty, and to defend Snowden, Manning, Julian Assange and all others who expose the truth about the repressive international U.S. spy and murder machine.
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