Bolivian President Luis Arce and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi have vowed to strengthen bilateral relations as well as strategic cooperation in health, education, agriculture, and telecommunications, among other sectors, increasing the Islamic Republic’s footprint in Latin America, and setting off alarms in the hemisphere about the various threats to security, including potential terrorist attacks, international experts say.
The Bolivian president and his Iranian counterpart met in early March during the 7th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, held in Algeria.
“The activism and defiant posture of the Iranian regime threatens the international balance of power,” Fabián Calle, professor of International Relations at Argentina’s Austral University, told Diálogo on March 8. “Without the weight of other key areas in the world, Latin America is becoming increasingly important in Tehran’s foreign policy.”
Continental risk
Bolivian Hydrocarbons and Energy Minister Franklin Molina reported that during the summit, Arce was open to the possibility of reaching agreements with state-owned National Iranian Oil Company. Bolivian newspaper La Razón reported that the state leaders discussed fuel imports.
“Iran’s expansion in the region is an issue of enormous gravity. There has been a coordinated action for decades, which has different manifestations in practice and already has regional reach,” Argentine political analyst and historian Sergio Berensztein told Cadena 3 radio station.
In July 2023, Iran and Bolivia signed a memorandum of understanding to “expand bilateral cooperation in the field of security and defense,” the BBC reported. The memorandum involves assistance in border and migration control, which, according to Infobae, threatens peace and stability in the continent, as Iran and its proxies forge deeper alliances with autocrats, support criminal networks, and carry out illicit activities.
The agreement also included the transfer of drones to Bolivia for border surveillance. Venezuela, Iran’s main partner in South America, already uses Iran-made drones to monitor its borders, which experts have warned could be used by Iran for its own agenda.
According to Argentine daily La Nación, the defense agreement between Iran and Bolivia has been a cause of concern for the Argentine government, which is taking a closer look at the role of the Tehran regime in Latin America and beefing up security at its border with Bolivia.
In addition, the Argentine intelligence and the Defense Department are analyzing how the relationship between Bolivia and Iran is evolving. Among the events closely followed is the severance of Bolivia’s diplomatic relations with Israel on October 31, 2023, La Nación added.
“The fact that Iran has made a military agreement with Bolivia to transfer state-of-the-art technology, breaks a regional balance in terms of defense,” said the former Secretary of Intelligence of Argentina Miguel Angel Toma to Buenos Aires-based DNews television network.
Agreements in the dark
The scope and details of the agreement between Iran and Bolivia were not made public, but it was made known that Tehran sold to Bolivia several drones and boats, among other military equipment, La Nación reported.
“Iran has three times more officials in its Embassy in La Paz than it has in Madrid, Spain,” Toma said. “It is a key fact that Bolivia has become a base of operations for Iran, in its project of penetration in Latin America.”
According to Toma, Iran is using Bolivia as a base to develop different activities linked to terrorism and drug trafficking. “There is concrete data that Bolivia is providing Iranians with Bolivian passports with fake identities. This allows them to operate in Latin America and the rest of the world, but fundamentally in Latin America, linked to the Quds Force and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security [VEVAK], which are Iran’s intelligence structures.”
The Iranian regime’s relations with Bolivia’s political party, Movement for Socialism (MAS), have strengthened since Evo Morales’ first term in office in 2006, which included a visit by then President Mahmud Ahmadinejad in 2009 to Bolivia, and the opening of an Iranian television channel.
“Since the Morales government took office and currently with Arce’s administration, ties and agreements with Iran have deepened in various areas, which should get the attention of the democratic governments of the region to be vigilant against Iranian interference,” Calle said.
For Berensztein, another problem is that there are Iran-backed groups such as Hezbollah in Latin America that are involved in drug trafficking, money laundering, and organized crime networks, which seek to erode the rule of law. As Bolivia is a cocaine producer, drug trafficking is a crucial factor in the financing of terrorism.
“In recent years Iran has begun to strengthen its diplomatic, economic, and apparently security activity in Latin America, especially with regimes that oppose the United States, such as Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua. There are also ties with non-state actors such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia [FARC] and groups linked to drug trafficking and smuggling,” Calle added.
