Bolivia mobilises its Armed Forces against organised crime with four new laws
COSDEP approved four bills to combat organised crime in Bolivia, including a new legal framework for deploying the Armed Forces.
Bolivia deploys its Armed Forces in response to advancing organised crime
The Supreme Defence Council of the Plurinational State of Bolivia (COSDEP) approved four regulatory bills on Wednesday to tackle organised crime, according to infobae.com. The initiatives include reinforcement of security measures and a new legal framework that will allow the Armed Forces (FFAA) to intervene against criminal organisations. The bills will be analysed by the Unit for Analysis of Social and Economic Policies (UDAPE) before being sent to the Legislature.
The president of COSDEP and head of state, Rodrigo Paz, justified the measures by noting that criminal organisations "can resort to any illicit source, whether narcotics or illegal mining production or other instances", according to the Bolivian newspaper El Deber.
Defence minister Ernesto Justiniano warned during the presentation that the state response must be commensurate with the structure of these organisations, since "they do not function solely by transporting drugs, but can have logistics, financing, weapons, technology, international routes and structures capable of exercising violence".
Justiniano detailed the contents of each bill: the first measure is a Security and Defence law; the second seeks for COSDEP to coordinate strategically with the state; the third establishes an intelligence system to anticipate criminal organisations; and the fourth creates a regulation that defines an "exceptional tool" for confronting serious threats from transnational organised crime and narco-terrorism.
Regarding the role of the FFAA, Justiniano stressed to the Bolivian media outlet Unitel that this is not a "general intervention, but an exceptional, temporary, complementary and controlled participation, within the constitutional framework and with respect for rights and guarantees".
Paz, for his part, maintained that coordination between the Police and the FFAA has constitutional backing and that the Police will remain "a fundamental factor in meeting the objectives defined by COSDEP".
Justiniano concluded that defence policies must evolve towards "greater intelligence, better control of borders and airspace and river systems, and improved institutional coordination and greater cooperation with neighbouring countries".
Source: Google News BO — Crime