France has officially apologised to Bolivia after the French Government refused to allow Evo Morales’ presidential aircraft to fly of its airspace.
Written by Chris White
Blaming false information that the US fugitive Edward Snowden was on board, France’s President Hollande said in Berlin that he had reversed the decision to deny the jet entry into French airspace, as soon as it became clear that the jet was that of President Morales.
Yesterday French foreign ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot issued a statement saying: “The foreign minister called his Bolivian counterpart to tell him about France’s regrets after the incident caused by the late confirmation of permission for President Morales’ plane to fly over French territory.”
Earlier this week President Morales’ presidential jet was flying back to Bolivia from Moscow via Spain, when the flight was forced back to Vienna, after several EU states denied the aircraft entry into their airspace.
Meanwhile he incident has sparked furious anger and demonstrations in Bolivia, culminating in Large Bolivian demonstrations outside the French Embassy in the Bolivian capital La Paz, with demonstrators burning the French tricolour and demanding the French Ambassador be expelled from the country.
Other South American nations are also angered by the incident, culminating in President Correa of Ecuador calling for an urgent meeting to be held over the matter between all South American governments.
Joining the condemnations was Secretary General of the Organization of American Nations Jose Miguel Insulza, who expressed his “deep displeasure” at the “lack of respect”, shown by countries which denied airspace to President Morales’ diplomatic mission.
The Austrian Government has confirmed that airport authorities have searched the plane, but that they did so with President Morales’ permission, something which the President later denied.
Snowden is currently wanted in the US on charges of leaking thousands of classified documents, which illicitly gathered whilst working as a private contractor for America’s electronic spying agency known as the National Security Agency or ‘NSA’.
The documents, which Edward Snowden claims to have more of, reveal the United States has been systematically seizing vast quantities of phone and internet data, thereby monitoring the entire US population and all communications both to and from the United States.
China, the Russia and several EU states have since expressed alarm over of the scale of the surveillance programme, the existence of which was previously flat-out denied by NSA directors in hearings before Congress.
The French apology to Bolivia comes amid a breakdown in EU-US trade talks after recent revelations suggesting that US intelligence bugged several EU diplomatic offices in United States and spied on their internal computer networks.
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