Bolivia strengthens cooperation with Brazil and neighbours against organised crime
Officials from Bolivia and Brazil meet in Santa Cruz to strengthen anti-drug efforts. The Paz government is also preparing meetings with Chile, Peru and Argentina.
Bolivia and Brazil intensify joint efforts against drug trafficking and violence
Officials from Bolivia and Brazil met from Wednesday in La Paz to strengthen cooperation in the fight against drug trafficking, according to courant.com. The meeting was held as part of the XIII Joint Commission on Drugs and Related Issues, held in the eastern region of Santa Cruz.
The meeting takes place two months after Bolivian president Rodrigo Paz met with his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva in Brasilia. Brazil is represented by the director of International Cooperation at the Federal Police, Felipe Tavares Seixas, and the consul in Santa Cruz, Carlos Leopoldo de Oliveira. Bolivia is represented, among others, by the government minister, Marco Antonio Oviedo.
Oviedo acknowledged to Bolivian media that the country is experiencing "an increase in violence associated with organised crime". Santa Cruz records the highest levels of insecurity linked to these criminal networks; last Thursday, a magistrate of the Agroenvironmental Court was shot dead by alleged hitmen in that city.
The authorities are also linking a series of recent homicides to score-settling following the capture and extradition to the United States of alleged Uruguayan drug trafficker Sebastián Marset.
Bolivian foreign minister Fernando Aramayo announced at a press conference that on 28 May he will hold a meeting together with Oviedo with Chilean foreign minister Francisco Pérez Mackenna and Chilean interior minister Claudio Alvarado Andrade. Aramayo clarified that representatives from Peru and Argentina will also participate in that meeting, with the aim of working jointly on security matters.
The arrival of conservative Paz to power in November last year marked a shift in Bolivian foreign policy. Unlike his predecessors Luis Arce (2020-2025) and Evo Morales (2006-2019), Paz reactivated the exchange of information with the United States anti-drugs agency (DEA) and attended in March the summit convened in Florida by president Donald Trump, described by the White House as "Shield of the Americas", which was attended by several Latin American presidents with conservative leanings.
Source: Google News BO — La Paz