Chile - "Booooooo"

BEING ENGLISH i guess i am supposed to have some kind of affinity with Chile, with Mrs Thatcher being such good pals with that former murdering dictator, them helping us when we kicked the Argies out of The Falklands, and i hear we supposedly helped them when they "stole" the coast from Bolivia and left this place landlocked.

Now this is a weird one. Every year on March 23rd Bolivians get together to parade and celebrate the day they LOST their coastline waaaaay back in 1879. Fair enough, Dunkirk, what a piece of mastery in, um, retreat, But the thing here is, this was a war and Bolivia lost. This then leads to much confusion to how loosing in a war can lead to this hardcore flag burning hatred of their western neighbours and accusations from many quarters that Chile 'stole' the area of coastline called the Litoral.....128 years ago.

It's 1879 and in UK news Michael Caine was off fighting the Zulu tribes in Africa and over the other side of the planet Chilean troops were invading parts of Bolivia and Peru which were rich in, well, to put it politely 'bird poo'.

The nitrate deposits of crap were some of the best fertilizer in the world at the time, which is why Chile, backed by certain interested British companies waltzed up and simply took this shite rich territory for their own gains.

It's kind of cute to see each year school kids in Bolivia marching down the main street with little boats on their heads dreaming of the sea. It does bring a certain unity to the country i guess, with football games against their neighbours being even more public demonstrations against the 'thief’s'. But lets put it this way, the people who live in Chile in the area claimed by Bolivia, would they want to be Bolivian? Generations before them have been Chilean i am sure they feel Chilean and, unfair or not, the Bolivian economy does not compare too favourably with Chile either.

Bolivia, even though landlocked does have a small navy of boats on Lake Titicaca and pretty much every president that comes into office pipes on about the importance of getting 'their sea back'. But there is no reason why Chile would give up this mineral rich area of land.

There are examples of Bolivian business ignoring Chile and even one phone company giving cheap rates for calls to every country in South America EXCEPT for Chile. Bolivia has the second largest reserves of natural gas in South America and in 2002 it was proposed to pipe this gas through Chile and eventually via boat up the Pacific to the USA. A pipeline through Chile would be according to some estimates US$600 million cheaper than putting it through Peru. This plan was scuppered after protests against putting anything through Chile. As far as i know nothing has been done about this as current Pres Evo Morales wants to process and use the majority the gas within Bolivia, therefore keeping all profits Bolivian.

But we don’t want to pick just on Bolivia here, lets get onto The Argies....

The Falklands, another war that was won, but Argentina still claims 'Las Malvinas' as their own. Like Bolivia, every president that comes into power rallies the supporters with cries of "we will reclaim Las Malvinas". Signs on entry to Argentina welcome people to the lands of Argentina AND las Malvinas.

Since when have the results of a war not been final? In that case i think Britain should try and get its Lost Empire back!!