VivirLatino

The “Winds of Change in the Americas” conference, taking place this Sunday in Burlington, Vermont, will be without its keynote speaker because the United States labeled her a terrorist. Leonida Zurita Vargas, a Bolivian coca farm organizer was told at the airport in Santa Cruz, Bolivia that her visa was revoked because of ties to terrorists. A section of the USA-Patriot Act which bars anyone from entering the US that poses a security threat or has participated in or incited terrorist activity was cited as the reason for the visa revocation. According to Jim Shultz of the Democracy Center in Cochabamba, her visa was cancelled allegedly because:

In 2003 [Zurita] was accused of “terrorism” by the government of ousted-President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, she served a brief time in jail in Cochabamba, and was released for lack of evidence.

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