My current take on the Bolivia plane story [View all]

[struggle4progress]

REMARK: There is in my mind no question that during the Bush era, the US made serious efforts (1) to limit Morales' prospects as a Presidential candidate, and (2) to destabilize Bolivia by supporting secessionist movements in various regions; for more details, check the Latin America forum archives in DU2. So Morales' touchiness here isn't a product of mere fantastic paranoid projections: it is rooted in his personal experience and in rather recent history

PORTUGAL. Portugal claims that it originally approved overflights and landings for Morales' round trip, but the day before the return notified Bolivia that although overflight posed no problem, refueling in Lisbon would be impossible for some unspecified technical reason. That could actually be a consequence of the multiple strikes affecting the Lisbon airport in the last days of June: there might have been maintenance or staffing or supply issues, for example, resulting from repeated disruptions of normal airport routine, for which recovery might take a while. According to Portugal, Bolivia was at first quite insistent that it could not re-route its continental fuel stop to elsewhere than Lisbon, though eventually Bolivia agreed to refuel elsewhere. It is unclear to me where Bolivia intended to refuel prior to heading over the Atlantic, if refueling at Lisbon was denied

AUSTRIA. Austria apparently received an emergency landing request associated with low fuel, or perhaps a fuel indicator problem, and allowed the plane to land in Vienna. The stories available in English diverge here: some assert that Austria demanded to search the plane but Bolivia refused; some assert Austria searched the plane; some assert Austrian officials walked through the cabin checking passports but did not otherwise search the plane; some assert the Austrians conversed with the Bolivians at the cabin door. It might not be unusual to check the passports of international travelers in the case of an emergency landing; in any case, Bolivia does not seem to be complaining about its treatment by the Austrians.

FRANCE. France's current posture towards the US does not suggest that the French would immediately agree to every possible US request regarding Snowden: France, for example, is currently suggesting that upcoming trade talks should be postponed until the US provides satisfactory answers to questions about Snowden's allegations that the US monitors conversations in the EU and attempted to penetrate EU government offices. The official French story is that France was confused about the number of planes involved and who was aboard. According to France, overflight permission was granted as soon as France understood the request was simply for Morales' plane; France has apologized for the confusion. Such confusion is not at all impossible: if Bolivia filed a second overflight request with France, after failing to convince Portugal to allow the original Lisbon refueling, miscommunications might indeed have led French aviation authorities to wonder why they had TWO different overflight requests from Bolivia

SPAIN. Spain says that it originally approved overflight and refueling in the Canary Islands, then re-approved the re-scheduled overflight and refueling in the Canary Islands after the flight delay. The plane refueled in the Canary Islands, as originally expected. There have been some unclear claims about Spanish demands to search the plane, but as far as I can tell these claims do not involve the Canary Island refueling stop. Did the Bolivians, denied access to Lisbon, plan a refueling landing in Spain, without seeking advance permission from the Spanish and then turn back to Vienna, upon being told that such a stop would require the passengers to exhibit passports?

ITALY. Italy apparently received a request that it regarded as moot after the plane landed in Austria. The natural guess here would be that the request to Italy was an emergency landing request, like the request to Austria, made as a contingency in the event that a Vienna landing was infeasible