Bolivia will sign agreements with the United States and Brazil in September to monitor and destroy excess coca crops, Deputy Social Defense Minister Felipe Cáceres announced on September 7.
Bolivia will sign agreements with the United States and Brazil in September to monitor and destroy excess coca crops, Deputy Social Defense Minister Felipe Cáceres announced on September 7.
“In order to implement a pilot project on the verification and eradication of illegal coca crops, the information was released that two bilateral conventions, between Bolivia and the United States and Bolivia and Brazil, will be signed in the month of September, within the framework of the Action Plan,” he said at a press conference.
These agreements – initially in three-party form – were going to be signed in July of this year, according to the date previously foreseen by Cáceres, but they suffered repeated delays and modifications for reasons that Cáceres avoided explaining.
The pilot project with both nations consists in verifying the eradication of excess crops, which also includes equipping and modernizing state institutions linked to the fight against drug trafficking.
The initiative will make it possible to obtain information “in real time about the hectares of coca eradicated,” Cáceres indicated.
Meanwhile, Bolivia and Brazil also have an agreement to monitor drug trafficking using Brazilian unmanned planes.