REUTERS/David Mercado
- Bolivia signed a treaty ending the War of the Pacific in 1884, granting Chile 240 miles of coastline.
- That coastline is Bolivia’s only outlet to the sea.
- More than 130 years later, Bolivia’s government has taken Chile to the The Hague to reclaim access to the Pacific.
In April 1884, Bolivia signed a treaty ending the War of the Pacific, granting Chile 240 miles of coastline — and Bolivia’s only outlet to the sea.
More than 130 years later, Bolivia’s government has taken Chile to the The Hague to reclaim access to the Pacific.
Bolivia won the right to argue its case before the court in late 2015, and the two countries delivered their final arguments this month. On March 28 — the day Chile made its final statement to the court — Bolivian President Evo Morales led his country’s army in a recreation of its 1879 victory at the Battle of Canchas Blancas.
Chile granted Bolivia trading access to the Pacific through its territory in a 1904 treaty in exchange for making the territorial loss permanent. But Morales said this month that Chile offered “no guarantee of free movement of people or goods,” and Bolivia’s lawyers have said the country only wants the court to ensure “Chile return to the negotiating table in good faith.”
Chile has argued that previous treaties settled the matter, telling the court Bolivia wants “to force Chile to negotiate in perpetuity until its obsession is fulfilled.”
Below, you can see how Bolivia recreated a victory in a war it’s still contesting today.
The War of the Pacific sprung from competing claims over a mineral-rich portion of the Atacama Desert, over which Bolivia, Chile, and Peru all claimed control.
REUTERS/David Mercado
Source: Business Insider
The three countries had claimed the area since they gained their independence from Spain in the 1820s, and a tax dispute prompted the war in 1879.
REUTERS/David Mercado
Source: Business Insider
The Battle of Canchas Blancas took place in western Bolivia on November 12, 1879. According to the recently discovered diary of a Bolivian colonel, several hundred Bolivian soldiers, peasants, and indigenous people armed with machetes, clubs, and stones defeated a force of about 1,500 Chilean soldiers backed by cavalry and artillery.
REUTERS/David Mercado
Source: Latin American Herald Tribune
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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