Press TV – September 20, 2013
Bolivia’s President Evo Morales plans to file legal action against the US president for crimes against humanity, condemning Washington’s intimidation tactics after it denied Venezuelan presidential jet entry into US airspace.
“I would like to announce that we are preparing a lawsuit against [US President] Barack Obama to condemn him for crimes against humanity,” President Morales announced at a Thursday press conference in the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz, RT reports.
He further described the American president as a “criminal” who willingly violates international law.
“The US cannot be allowed to continue with its policy of intimidation and blockading presidential flights,” Morales stated.
He added that Bolivia intends to prepare legal action against the US president and file the lawsuit at the International Court.
President Morales has called for an emergency meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to confer about the US action, which has been slammed by Venezuela as “an act of intimidation by North American imperialism.”
Additionally, the Bolivian president has implied that the CELAC members should recall their ambassadors from Washington in an effort to convey a strong message to the Obama Administration.
According to the report, Morales further wants to urge member nations of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas to boycott the next meeting of the United Nations in New York.
Members of the Alliance include Antigua and Barbuda, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Saint Lucia.
The anti-US measures called by the Bolivian president comes just months after Morales’s presidential aircraft was denied entry into several Western European countries, forcing it to land in Austria.
The May 2013 incident was widely described as a US-led effort out of a false suspicion that American spy agency whistleblower Edward Snowden may be onboard the aircraft.
At the time Bolivia was among a few countries that offered political asylum to Snowden, a US fugitive and former contract employee of American spy agencies, CIA and NSA, who leaked documents showing massive US electronic spying operations around the globe, including its European and Latin American allies.
Several Latin American heads of state joined Bolivia to censure the illegal move by the European countries, including Italy, France and Spain, which led to their official apologies.