Andean Group - November 2006 (ISSN 1741-4466)

The agreement between Bolivia and Venezuela, at executive level, to build military installations along Bolivia's borders is causing increasing concern in neighbouring Peru and Paraguay (surprisingly not in Chile), which complain that Bolivia is altering the balance of power in the region.

The exact details of the military agreement are so sketchy that the Bolivian Senate, in which the opposition narrowly outnumbers the ruling Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), is refusing to ratify it. This has not stopped the foreign ministers of Peru and Paraguay, José Antonio Garcí­a Belaúnde and Roberto González, from expressing serious concern at the development. Paraguay's bicameral budget commission increased the 2007 budget for the military by nearly 30% to US$103m in response to the new strategic threat ostensibly posed by Bolivia. 

When Garcí­a Belaúnde visited Bolivia on 6 October; he reported back to Peru's Senate defence committee not only his "concern about this agreement and its projection, which may imply new bases along the border" but also his concern that it could pave the way for Venezuelan troops to be called in to help Bolivia if it faced an internal conflict. This came after Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez announced that, "Venezuela will not keep its arms crossed if the Bolivian government and people are attacked from outside or within. (It) will do whatever it can so that the (next) government lasts as long as the Carmonazo," a reference to the two-day stint of Pedro Carmona after the coup in 2002.