Bolivia had a seacoast until it and Perú lost the War of the Pacific (1879-1883)
to Chile. The boundaries in that desert region had been poorly defined until
the exploitation of vast guano deposits along the coast in the late 19th
century. In an 1874 treaty, Chile had recognized Bolivian sovereignty to the
coast in exchange for exemption of Chilean guano operations from taxes. When
Bolivia reneged on the tax exemption, Chile went to war. Perú allied itself
with Bolivia, but Bolivia soon caved. Perú continued to fight, but it was no
match for the Chilean military. Chile occupied Lima for two years. In 1883,
Perú ceded the provinces of Tarapacá, Tacna, and Arica to Chile by the Treaty of
Ancón as the price of peace, but with certain conditions on the last two. The
following year, Bolivia similarly ceded its Atacama province (now the Chilean
provinces of Antofagusta and Atacama) to Chile. The Ancón treaty conditions
proved very troublesome. US President Calvin Coolidge arbitrated to no avail in
1925. A new treaty in 1929 gave the Tacna province back to Perú, along with use
of a terminal at the port of Arica. That treaty was fully implemented only in
2000. Bolivia now accesses the sea via a railroad and a pipeline through
Chilean territory practically against the Peruvian boundary and down to the
Chilean port of Arica, but it's now agitating for a sovereign corridor as an
export outlet for its considerable natural gas reserves.
Lowell G. McManus
Leesville, Louisiana, USA
----- Original Message -----
From: "L. A. Nadybal" <lnadybal@...>
To: <BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2004 9:33 PM
Subject: [BoundaryPoint] Re: Four or five new enclaves?
I located the correponding postage stamp issue from Peru commemorating
the treaty, which is inscribed "Encuentro Presidencial Bolivia Peru en
Ilo". What does that mean? "Presidential encounter in Ilo"?? The
design of the stamp is a map - nothing showing presidents. The
Bolivian issue shows them meeting.
On one Bolivian stamp in a series of three there is inscribed "Nuestra
Bandera Nuevamente en el Pacifico 1879-1992" and on a value showing
the beach, is "Vista de la Zona Franca Boliviana en Ilo".
What's odd, is that the Chilean province of Tacna, directly to the
south of Boliviamar, 8 miles or so across the border, is customs free
zone, too, of Chile in Chile proper, and inside it is the Peru Zona
Franca at Arica. Can there be a Zona Franca (Peru) inside a Zona
Franca (Chile)?
I've since found a couple of articles about Bolivia's fight to regain
sovereign control over sea coast it apparently had up to the 1860s,
and on a government website from Peru, it is asking "does Bolivia have
a right to access to the sea?". This is apparently a source of
friction and a topic we might hrar about in the news some day soon.
Regards
Len Nadybal
--- In BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, "Lowell G. McManus"
<mcmanus71496@m...> wrote:
> Len,
>
> At http://tinyurl.com/34msm [find within that long page
"Boliviamar"] there's a
> Peruvian proposal for modernizing the 1992 agreements with Bolivia
concerning
> the "Zona Franca Industrial" at Ilo and the
> "Zona Franca Turística de Playa (BOLIVIAMAR)" by re-creating them
into a "Zona
> Económica Especial para Bolivia en Ilo" and "Zona Turística Especial
para
> Bolivia en Ilo," respectively, for 99 years, renewable.
>
> To me, these sound more like leases or franchises, not enclaves.
>
> Lowell G. McManus
> Leesville, Louisiana, USA
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "L. A. Nadybal" <lnadybal@c...>
> To: <BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2004 10:58 PM
> Subject: [BoundaryPoint] Four or five new enclaves?
>
>
> > I don't think we've discussed any of this before, but has enyone heard
> > of or studied the border complexities between Chile, Bolivia and Peru?
> >
> > I came across a set of Bolivian postage stamps from 1992 commemorating
> > the establishment of and the raising of the Bolivian flag over
> > "Boliviamar" and part of the harbor of Ilo, both in Peru. Boliviamar
> > is a 3 mile long recreation beach. The harbor provides otherwise
> > landlocked Bolivia access to the Pacific. It's not clear to me if the
> > territory comprising the beach is contiguous with the harbor or not.
> > I've not been able to find a good map.
> >
> > While trying to find a map, I came across a Chilean map that shows
> > that Peru possesses three pieces of land in the northern Chilean
> > harbor of Arica. On these three pieces sit the town train station, a
> > customs house and a large dockside warehouse on a mole in the harbor.
> > An administrative map published by the Chilean foreign ministry marks
> > off the pieces and shows them as not being under Chilean control. This
> > has existed since June 3, 1929, as a result of the Treaty of Lima.
> >
> > The design and the wording on the Bolivian stamps do not lead one to
> > believe we're dealing with extraterritoriality here, but a cession of
> > some sort. Anyone know more or have a copy of the reelevant treaties?
> >
> > Regards
> >
> > Len Nadybal
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