Bolivia Ministry of Defense

The Ministry of National Defense, according to the organic law of the armed Forces no.1405 "Commanders of the independence of Bolivia", constitutes the normative political level of the Defense Sector and represents legality before the public authorities. According to the law organic of the Executive power. No 2446, concurrent with the mission established for the armed forces, the Ministry of defence is organized into various subdivisions. It formulates the budget, subsequently represents it before the pubbic powers; maintains discipline and military justice through the courts, prepares the development of human resources, promotes the integral development of the country. It protects the air, River and Lake navigation; and finally performs actions of Civil Defense and care of disasters and emergencies, within the framework of the preservation of the environment.

The National Armed Forces under the President of the Republic and take their administrative orders through the Minister of Defense, and technically, the Commander in Chief. They are essentially obedient, not deliberate and are subject to the State Constitution, laws and military regulations. In time of war the commander in chief of the armed forces conduct operations.

The Commander-in-Chief has the rank of Minister of State, and constitutes the highest body of command and decision concerning the technical aspects and operations. He may attend the meetings of the Executive Cabinet, when they are concerned with aspects related to the security and national defense, to this effect receive orders of the President of the Republic, and coordinates on a permanent basis, the direction of the Armed Forces.

The Ministry of defence is a public institution of the executive organ, dedicated to the formulation and implementation of policies on security and defense, whose purpose is to manage and administer economic resources that benefit the armed forces, to ensure the control and border security, protection of natural resources, participation in comprehensive development and civil defence of the plurinational State of Bolivia"oriented under principles of legality, transparency, discipline, gender equity and equality of opportunity.

In Bolivia — a country that since independence has been synonymous with armed coups d’etat, and where Indians had until recently been disenfranchised although they make up a solid majority — self-declared indigenous President Evo Morales has remodeled the armed forces (by all accounts successfully) under his control along the lines of his ethnic refoundation of the republic. Key to his appeal is his call for a new military-peasant pact, this time led not by a general or a fractious colonel, but rather by indigenous peoples themselves.

Newly elected President Morales announced the 16 members of his cabinet 23 January 2006, the majority leftist, indigenous and from the altiplano. Minister of Defense, Walker San Miguel Rodriguez was formerly President of the La Paz Lawyer's Union, as well as a practicing lawyer specializing in commercial and constitutional law. He previously worked for a Bolivian airline (LAB) as an executive. Rodriguez is viewed as a leftist opportunist and not necessarily a MAS true believer. The new Morales government made some erratic and potentially troubling decisions in its first week. In naming a new military high command, Morales cleaned house, using the still-brewing MANDPADs scandal as pretext. He skipped over three classes of eligible generals and sent large numbers of capable officers into mandatory retirement so he could appoint MAS supporter Wilfredo Vargas Valdez as the new commander of the armed forces.

Minister of the Presidency Juan Ramon Quintana was initially responsible for intelligence and military issues, and for coordinating Venezuelan and Cuban support. Quintana is a disgruntled former military officer who was fired from his position in the Ministry of Defense in 2000 during the Banzer regime. He long suspected that the US was behind his firing, a suspicion that has some merit, and became stridently anti-U.S. as a result. Quintana, upon assuming his current duties, was responsible for the recent removal of 29 flag-rank members of the armed forces, most of whom were cooperating with the United States.

Minister of Defense (MOD) Walker San Miguel was a well-established lawyer (and a political survivor and even something of an opportunist). Walker San Miguel is a long time member of the Bolivian political establishment. He comes to the government not from Morales' MAS party but rather from a middle class coalition partner, the Movement without Fear led by La Paz Mayor Juan del Granado. Having grown up in La Paz, he recalls the fear incited by the various military coups. His childhood was punctuated by political events. When his parents were exiled, he was forced to give up his studies. In 1981, he returned to school and earned a law degree. Upon graduation he took a job at Bolivia's Central Bank, where he served a few years before attending the Diplomatic Academy.

The Ministry of defence is one of the first entities that managed to develop an institutional Strategic Plan within the framework of national rules of development, with four major axes. The first corresponds to the security and defence system for strengthening and modernizing the system of security and defence. The second is related to risk management, to develop a comprehensive information system that articulates in a timely manner the mechanisms, tools and sectoral instruments for risk reduction, care of disasters and emergencies in Civil defence.

The third axis deals with the support of the armed forces to promote the productive and integral development, improve national defense system with a proper strategic deployment, which promotes the effective presence of the military institution in the areas of border security and the whole of the territory, strengthening programmes of education and technological innovation, health, food security, infrastructure and equipment.

The fourth axis refers to the strengthening and institutional innovation, to enhance the capacities of the Ministry of defence and the armed forces, through mechanisms of specialization of human resources in the field of governance and public administration, integrated development through the plan for infrastructure and equipment, geared to meet the operating conditions and their efficient development.

Public accountability was held in the Corporation of the armed forces for national development (Cofadena) with the presence of the Deputy Ministers of Defense and cooperation for Integral Development and Civil Defence, the military high command, representatives of social organizations, military and civilian personnel and media.

The Ministry's vision is that by 2015 it will be a model institution, leading to the generation of security and defence policies, protagonists in productive and integral development and timely attention on risk management, with the participation of the armed forces; recognized by the population of the plurinational State of Bolivia.