He is 37 years old and is impressively calm when it comes time to talk about his work. Since 2000, he has worked as a District Attorney in La Paz, where he has handled some of the most talked about cases in recent history, such as the so-called “Blas Gang” case in which a police colonel ran a gang of young delinquents. Because of this case and for always being ready to take on a challenge, Milton Mendoza has been commended by the Attorney General’s office. Yet for these same reasons he also receives regular death threats. Today, he is the one who represents his fellow Bolivians in an attempt to find justice amidst massacre.
We therefore asked Mendoza for an interview as he puts the finishing touches on a complex process. We wanted to know who is this man in charge of making sure ex-President Gonzalo “Goni” Sánchez de Lozada and his collaborators pay for the September and October 2003 “Gas War.”
Before beginning, it’s important to note that this mild-mannered yet visibly strong man does not seek to be a super star, like for example, Spanish judge Baltazar Garzón believes himself to be. Nor does he play the tough guy, like some TV series justice-seeking lawyer. Rather, he is a man of the law. In his informal attire, as he was the day of our interview, he seems like a regular guy. Perhaps it is for this reason that we find him worthy of our trust.
On April 24th, exercising his rights to investigate all aspects of a crime and the accused defendants, Milton Mendoza carried out an action that demonstrates just how much Bolivia has changed recently: with an Supreme Court-approved search warrant in hand, the DA stormed Sanchéz de Lozada’s house in the La Paz neighborhood of Obrajes. Journalists and old oligarchical lackeys later lamented that, inside the house at the time of entry lived Goni’s mother-in-law and sister-in-law of the ex-President, as well as a groundskeeper who, according to later discovered facts, was once a Captain in Bolivia’s national Military Intelligence Office. How coincidental.
Though perhaps a normal reaction to the inopportune incident, Mr. Guido Meruvia—a current leader of the Sánchez de Lozada’s political party—characterized the break-in as an “idiotic move.” Similarly, ex-President Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga doubted whether entering his colleguea’s and friend’s house had any positive result. In fact, it did.
Mendoza defends his actions and calmly explains how this action, though three and a half years after Sánchez de Lozada left that house, allowed him to find documents that will be key to his case. Firstly, there were things found that will enable the DA to get to know the ex-President a little better, an important element of any criminal investigation. “The domestic elements of his communication with his grounds-keeper are going to help us understand the personality of the person charged in this case,” noted the DA, referring to a series of emails sequestered during the entry.
In fact, the civil servant recalls that the team uncovered a rather interesting photo in the house. The image, as explained by Mendoza, is of the President of the United States, George W. Bush, who signed the picture underneath personal dedication: “To Gonzalo, Forever.” Beyond the fact that both politicians are prone to killing unarmed people, the friendship that binds the two makes one wonder if this relationship is connected to current hindrance “of the legal process against Mr. Sánchez de Lozada and the fact that he currently resides in the United States,” comments Mendoza, explaining the pending extradition orders and other related aspects of the case.
Mendoza also found a copy of peculiar document entitled: “Loyalty to Bolivia.”
On April 17th, Goni’s former cabinet member and close friend, Mirtha Quevedo, augmented her deposition in what’s known as the “Black October” case. That day, in the Attorney General’s office in the city of Sucre, Quevedo—in an attempt to clear herself of any responsibility—created the first significant rupture among the defendants in the case thus far.
Basically, Quevado said that she was not consulted on the release of Supreme Decree 27209, the document signed by Sánchez de Lozada and his entire cabinet (including Quevado) legalizing the massacres by ordering the military to use force against the protesters. She didn’t think that lethal arms would be used to repress the people, Quevado says. And, she noted, just hours before fleeing Bolivia on October 17, 2003, the infamous document “Loyalty to Bolivia” was signed.
Given Quevado’s declarations, Milton Mendoza drew a simple conclusion: if Sánchez de Lozada’s ex-collaborator is telling the truth, the document was some kind of pact to ensure the impunity of those involved. He therefore began to plan for the depositions of those in the inner circle, such as ex-Presidents Jaime Paz Zamonra and Carlos Mesa.
The entry into Goni’s residence also clarified a few things for the DA: “We found the original ‘Loyalty to Bolivia’ document, but that’s not all. We also found original Armed Forces documents.” All of this, he says, is very valuable for the ongoing investigation..
But “Loyalty to Bolivia,” was not a pact of silence. A few hours after the break-in into the ex-President’s house, retired General José Antonio Gil Quiroga approached the daily newspaper El Deber in the city of Santa Cruz in order to divulge what the document he helped to develop really contains.
In 1003, Gil Quiroga was the Executive Secretary of National Defense Council (Cosdena in its Spanish abreviation)—the highest institution regarding national intelligence and coordination between the Armed Forces and the executive branch. “Loyalty to Bolivia,” explained Quiroga, was a military analysis document during the conflicts of 2003 in which the Goni government was told that “it is necessary to carry out a series of activities in order to avoid the rupture of democracy stability and in order to prevent confrontation between Bolivians, the Armed Forces must not be used against its own people. In other words, the government was being told that it was wrong.”
Basically, dear readers, the document found in the house of Sánchez de Lozada, written by military officers and of which he had direct knowledge was a call to not use armed force. Five of his ministers also received a copy of the text. So, given the case against the ex-President for over 60 deaths and hundreds of injured, was the break-in into Goni’s house in La Paz worth it?
Oh, and Gil Quiroga didn’t just give an interview to El Deber, he also delivered a copy of the document and gave his assurance that he is available to testify and shed light on the “Gas War” events.
But that’s not all. As we mentioned above, Milton Mendoza found “original documents of the Armed Forces” in Sánchez de Lozada’s house. When consulted regarding this issue, attorney Rogelio Mayta, legal coordinator for the civic association committee demanding the trial against the ex-President, told us that these documents (military commands, orders, reports, etc) should have never left the high military command offices. “But they were under Goni’s power,” he says. “This means one basic thing: Goni know what was happening in September and October of 2003 in Bolivia.”
So, was the entry into the Goni’s house useful? Sorry for asking again, but this journalist believes that it was, that Milton Mendoza did well by crossing power’s threshold. It seems that this has already cost a police investigator his life, in addition to the constant death threats that the attorneys on the case receive. But we’ll explain all this at another time…
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