Wave of murders in San Ignacio: Paz confirms joint military and police operation
President Rodrigo Paz expressed solidarity with San Ignacio de Velasco and announced joint action by the Armed Forces and Police against organised crime.
Paz pledges to win battle against organised crime in San Ignacio de Velasco
President Rodrigo Paz spoke on Tuesday about the wave of murders recorded in the municipality of San Ignacio de Velasco and announced a coordinated operation between the Armed Forces, the National Police and the Regional Government. According to El Deber, the president made the statements during a public event held in the municipality of Okinawa Uno.
"I want to express my solidarity and the joint work that will be carried out; today the Armed Forces gave me a report to make the greatest effort with the National Police and the Regional Government for the events that have occurred in San Ignacio," Paz stated.
The president noted that international mafias "want countries that do not have control of their institutions, of the rules, of the standards and of the laws" in order to convert them into territories for illicit activity. He added that those organisations would have used Bolivia as a scene of criminal activity over the last 20 years.
Paz acknowledged that combating those criminal structures "has a high cost," but guaranteed that the State will win the confrontation because, in his words, it is "a necessary part of the future development of the nation."
For his part, presidential spokesman José Luis Gálvez attributed the increase in violence in San Ignacio and other municipalities to the detention and expulsion of drug trafficking leaders. Among those mentioned are Uruguayan Sebastián Marset and a PCC leader who, according to Gálvez, had accumulated 126 years of sentences in his country of origin.
"Unfortunately, taking the measure of arresting them, apprehending them and expelling them has brought about disorder in organised crime and today we are seeing these symptoms," the spokesman declared. Gálvez compared the situation to a process of bodily cleansing: "you have to clean the body that is contaminated," he said, while repudiating the manifestations of violence recorded in the country.
Source: El Deber