Armed Forces of Bolivia
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| guide | |||
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| Commander in Chief : | Jeanine Áñez | ||
| Military Commander: | Armando Pacheco Gutiérrez | ||
| Military strength | |||
| Active soldiers: | 31,500 | ||
| Conscription: | No | ||
| Eligibility for military service: | 18 years | ||
| household | |||
| Military budget: | $ 0.47 billion (2009) | ||
| Share of gross domestic product : | 1.9% (2006) | ||
| history | |||
| Founding: | 1825 | ||
The armed forces of Bolivia ( Fuerzas Armadas de Bolivia , FF.AA for short) are divided into the army ( Ejército Boliviano ), the navy ( Fuerza Naval Boliviana ) and the air force ( Fuerza Aérea Boliviana ). The National Police ( Policía Nacional de Bolivia ) is also organized militarily .
history
The struggle for independence began in 1809. Bolivia remained a Spanish colony until an international independence army under Antonio José de Sucre on behalf of Simón Bolívar in 1825 enforced independence militarily. The country was then named after Bolívar. Bolivia is the only state in the world whose namesake was a person who was still alive at the time it was named. The presidency of Andrés de Santa Cruz (1829–1839) followed a chaotic period . In this, the German Otto Philipp Braun , a veteran of the South American War of Independence and the European War of Liberation, became one of the government's most important military and political pillars. After the defeat in the Peruvian-Bolivian Confederation War against Chile and Argentina (1836-1839), the administration of Santa Cruz disintegrated. In the Saltpeter War (1879-1883) Bolivia finally lost large parts of the disputed territory with access to the Pacific to Chile since independence. In the Chaco War (1932–1935) Bolivia lost huge parts of the country in the south to Paraguay . In 1964 René Barrientos Ortuño launched a coup against the elected President Víctor Paz Estenssoro , the military dictatorship Hugo Banzer Suárez lasted from 1971 to 1978. It was not until 1982 that the country returned to democracy.
organization
Conscription
There is a basic conscription , but if there are enough volunteers, conscription is waived. The volunteers must be at least 18 years old; However, the law allows the age limit to be reduced to 14 when convening a meeting. It is estimated that 40% of the armed forces are under 18 years of age, half of them under 16 (source: CIA World Factbook ).
The military service lasts 12 months. The total strength of the armed forces fluctuates between 31,500 and 35,000 men, about 20,000 of them doing military service.
Military spending
The military spending amounted to 2,018 comparatively low 657 $ million, representing 1.8% of gross domestic product.
equipment
army
The Bolivian Army (Ejército Boliviano, FF.EE. for short) is by far the strongest part of the Bolivian military with around 25,000 men. With 36 light main battle tanks of the SK-105 Cuirassier type , 24 EE-9 Cascavel and 50 M113 armored personnel carriers as well as approx. 76 artillery and 50 anti-aircraft guns , it is comparatively weakly equipped for a war against an external enemy. The army of Chile - with which relations are still strained - for example, not only has a 24 × larger budget, but is also much more heavily equipped with hundreds of more modern heavy and light armored vehicles, including 250 Leopard tanks.
Since the Saltpeter War , the army has concentrated more and more on " internal security ".
marine
Although Bolivia has been a landlocked country since it lost its access to the Pacific in the Saltpeter War (1879 to 1884) , the country still maintains a 1,800- strong navy ( excluding marine infantry ) (Fuerza Naval Boliviana, also called "Armada", abbreviated to FNB) limited to securing inland border waters ( Lake Titicaca and larger rivers in the Amazon basin ). The formal maintenance of a militarily unnecessary independent “navy” is a political expression for the striving and the hope of regaining access to the Pacific, the aim being a corridor between Chile and Peru . The command structure comprises six naval districts, each equipped with a flotilla . One district includes Lake Titicaca , the rest are on the major rivers.
The largest ship is the ocean-going freighter " Libertador Bolívar " ( "Liberator Bolívar " ), which is manned by the Navy to ensure that the Navy has nautical trained members should the country regain access to the sea via a corridor should and the Navy can operate again from a Bolivian port on the Pacific coast. The ship is used as a normal merchant cargo ship, the income of which goes to the Ministry of Navy. It is a gift from Venezuela and its home port is Argentina . The remaining Marine consists of about 60 patrol boats and barges, as well as from a patrol of Marine belonging patrol aircraft type Cessna U 206 .
Another 1,700 men belong to the marine infantry . The main unit is the marine infantry battalion "Almirante Grau" ( " Admiral Grau " ) with a detached company in each naval district .
Air Force
The Bolivian Air Force (Fuerza Aérea Boliviana, FAB for short) comprises around 3,000 men. The equipment is mostly outdated; this includes u. a. Lockheed T-33 A / N fighter aircraft built under license by Canadair from the 1950s (depending on the source between 12 and 18; some recently modernized in Canada) and probably 11 training aircraft of the Swiss Pilatus PC-7 type , which are also used for combat purposes of drug cultivation. There are also around two dozen transport aircraft and around 50 transport helicopters of various types. The Bolivian Air Force operates nationwide public scheduled flights under the name Transporte Aéreo Militar (TAM), even to remote parts of the country - not to be confused with the commercial airline TAM Airlines from Paraguay , which also flies to destinations in Bolivia, or its even better-known Brazilian parent company TAM . On January 16, 2014, the Bolivian Air Force signed a contract with Airbus Helicopters for the delivery of 6 AS332 C1e Super Puma that have been running since 2015.
Others
The armed forces of Bolivia have played a major role in the history of Bolivia through numerous coups .
In March 2009 the Bolivian Defense Minister announced that a resolution would prohibit military training and killing exercises on numerous dogs. This is historically significant as it was the first ever animal welfare ordinance in Bolivia and led to further animal welfare laws that same year.
literature
- Jutta Deide: Ideology and legitimation of a dependent military dictatorship. The example of the Banzer government in Bolivia (1971–1978); an ideology-critical and military-sociological contribution to the political sociology of peripheral societies in Latin America . Haag and Herchen, Frankfurt / M. 1981, ISBN 3-88129-368-X (also dissertation, University of Hamburg 1980).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Robin Kiera: The great son of the city of Kassel? The Grand Marshal Otto Philipp Braun as a symbol of local history politics , Kassel 2009
- ↑ Los Tiempos May 4th 2018
- ↑ Source: www.globaldefence.net ( Memento from April 25, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Jürgen Vogt: Border conflict Bolivia and Chile: The old dispute over the sea . In: The daily newspaper: taz . March 22, 2017, ISSN 0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed September 9, 2019]).
- ^ Sailors Without a Sea in Zeit Online of April 3, 2008
- ↑ Navy without a sea in Der Tagesspiegel of March 23, 2007
- ↑ Bolivia dreams of the sea at Welt Online from March 21, 2010
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento from April 11, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Animal circuses prohibited by law in Bolivia ( Memento from June 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
