Living on the edge: Life in Bolivian border towns
Surrounded by land on all sides, it is not surprising that Bolivia can call itself a neighbour to no fewer than five countries in total.
Brazil, Peru, Chile, Paraguay and Argentina, each one of these borders is home to numerous border towns. Hotbeds of crime, points of migration, melting-pots of culture – one thing is certain, each pueblo fronterizo has its own story to tell.
‘People who have a strong sense of identity don’t kill. Mercenaries, people like that, don't have much sense of identity, that’s why they can kill.’ The words of journalist Domingo Abrego Faldín surprise me as we talk about the violence in the town of San Matías, located in the far east of Bolivia, on the Brazilian border. Plagued by murders which are very often linked to drug trafficking and land negotiations, San Matías is a difficult place to live in. As Domingo tells me, ‘It’s the most dangerous part of all Bolivia.’
In January of this year, Domingo wrote an article for the cruceño newspaper El Deber, focusing on problems facing the inhabitants of San Matías. The article tells the story of an elderly inhabitant of the town who, having just lost a grandchild to violence, laments the loss of tranquility. The San Matías of nowadays seems a town which innocence has forgotten.
The porous, immense, jungle-ridden Brazilian border provides an excellent setting for drugs, arms and just about any other type of trafficking. Those who live close by become collateral damage. Domingo himself has lost family to the violence. Showing me a photo of men holding a long, club-like weapon, he tells me, ‘My grandmother was killed by one of these things, una macana. This is the type of thing that happens here.’ It seems that no one is safe.
In recent years, the number of consumers of cocaine and other drugs in Brazil has increased. Its vast coastline is widely used for the exportation of cocaine to countries across the Atlantic. Bordering the three principal cultivators of the drug, supply is not hard to come by. Yet, given the levels of violence induced when trafficking and transporting narcotics, it comes at a price.
Read the full article on Bolivian Express