BOLIVIA | Legislation on arms control and aircraft shootdown. On 6 June the senate approved an arms control bill that imposes strict penalties on anyone trafficking illegally in arms or munitions (10-15 years imprisonment; 25 if the guilty party is member of a criminal organisation), manufacturing arms (4-8 years; 5-10 if linked to a criminal organisation), bearing unauthorised arms (2-6 years; up to 8 if military-use arms are involved). Theft of arms or munitions from military or police arsenals is punished by up to 30 years imprisonment without entitlement to pardon if the thief is a member of the police…

Defence Minister Pedro Cateriano has announced that by the end of this year there will be 21 new antiterrorist bases in areas where guerrillas and drug traffickers are active. This comes in the wake of a recent spate of Sendero Luminoso (SL) actions in which the government forces suffered several casualties. In the public part of Cateriano’s 17 June testimony before the congressional committee on national defence, he said that the number of new bases to be built this year had been increased from 10 to 11. ‘This batch of bases,’ he said, will be finished this year and will…

On 10 June news agencies and media outlets in Venezuela quoted the Fuerzas Bolivarianas de Liberación (FBL) as having announced ‘the preparation and immediate execution of an admirable offensive against all the interests of the bourgeoisie and the transnational companies that promote and support foreign interference and intervention; consequently all of their spokesmen, representatives and agents become a military objective.’ This came after official announcements that a plot to assassinate President Nicolás Maduro had been thwarted and another, involving the purchase of warplanes and the use of a US base in Colombia, had been uncovered. The FBL story, entitled Chavista…