130 years later, a sense of defeatism still dominates Bolivia

It couldn’t be otherwise. Today marks the 130th anniversary of Bolivia’s loss of access to the Pacific when, after a short expansionist war motivated by Chile’s desire for nitrates, Bolivia was left landlocked at the heart of South America. The fact that, years later, rich copper deposits were found in the conquered land only sealed the fate of Bolivian demands in the international stage that have gone from demands to return this land, to appeals for some form of access to the sea.
Not a sausage. Chilean-Bolivian diplomatic relations have been severed since 1962 on account of this single issue. Although Michele Bachelet and Evo Morales have managed to maintain the most productive and cordial relations between presidents of these two countries for generations, nobody assumes a quick resolution will soon be found to this most intractable problem.
But if the loss of access to the sea is still an issue that permeates Bolivian collective consciousness, it is by no means the only war that affects national identity. For Bolivia has been involved in few wars throughout history but has lost all of them and, in the process, has lost about half of the country’s original territory and the vast natural resources that accompanied them.
At the turn of the twentieth century, it was the northern region of Acre that, due to the rubber boom, found itself in the mire of Brazil and eventually seceded from Bolivia. But the war that marked a turning point for Bolivia was the war of el Chaco (1932-35) with Paraguay, another terrible and costly defeat that discredited the rule of traditional elites and marked the beginning of a sense of consciousness amongst the indigenous majority sent to fight.
Countries tend to create an imaginary view of themselves often based on successful military campaigns. For Bolivia, unfortunately, the last century only serves to reinforce a pervasive sense of humiliation, exploitation and pillage of natural resources, commenced with the Spanish exploitation of Potosi in the 16th century.