International

Luis Arce appoints new Bolivian Foreign Minister, Celinda Sosa

Photo: @LuchoXBolivia

November 28 |

On Monday morning, President Luis Arce Catacora swore in Celinda Sosa as Bolivia’s new Minister of Foreign Affairs, replacing Rogelio Mayta.

The new foreign minister, once in office, expressed that “I have no doubt that this is the biggest commitment I have assumed in my life, be assured (President Arce) that I will respond to the height of this new challenge; I will be the first woman foreign minister of the Plurinational State and of the process of change from the legitimacy and legality that the Bolivian people gave to our government in 2020”.

According to the words of the Foreign Minister, she assumes the position “at a time when humanity is facing the urgent challenge of building and consolidating a new and fairer world order, but also in a context in which internal and external threats put democracy at risk”.

The Bolivian president recalled that Mayta now serves as a magistrate in the Court of Justice of the Andean Community (TJCA) “where we had to bring a specialized jurist so that he could adequately perform those functions”.

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Arce recalled that “she left us here a vacuum that we have happily filled now with the presence of a woman (…) very committed to the process of change from the beginning, a woman who has shown that the process of change is built little by little and therefore, seeing her work of many years, today we invite her to be part of the team of ministers of the Government”, he said.

Celinda Sosa was a minister in the government of Evo Morales, and when she was sworn in as the new foreign minister, she did so with expressions of support for Palestine, Cuba, Venezuela and the integration of her country into the BRICS economic bloc.

Sosa was born in a community in the Cercado province of Tarija and during her swearing-in ceremony she remarked that she has always been linked to working with “the people and social organizations”.

In 1983 she was part of the founding team of the Single Federation of Bolivian Peasant Workers and that same year she was a leader of the peasants, also general secretary of the National Federation of Peasant Women “Bartolina Sisa”.

For 18 years she was director and founder of the Training and Research Center for Peasant Women. In 2005, after the triumph of Evo Morales in the presidential elections, she was called to join the social transition commission and in 2006 she was called to join the cabinet as Minister of Production and Microenterprise until 2007.

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In 2008 she assumed the presidential representation in the department of Tarija, she also worked in the Governor’s Office presiding over the Social Development Secretariat and until recently she was part of the board of directors of the Productive Development Bank (BDP).

Related Topics:Bolivia Celinda Sosa Luis Arce

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