20 October 2010

PERU/BOLIVIA: Evo Leases A Patch Of Sand For 99 Years To Build A Pacific Port.

C.PRESS/      Long landlocked, a frustrated Bolivia has finally won access to a small patch of Peru's shoreline after President Evo Morales signed a deal with President Alan García that allows Bolivia to build and operate a small port about 10 miles from Peru's southern port of Ilo. Bolivia will lease a 1.4 square mile patch of sand for 99 years.
"It is unjust that Bolivia has no sovereign outlet to the ocean," said García."This is also a Bolivian sea."
The new accord is seen as a poke at Chile, which seized Bolivia's coast and a swath of Peruvian territory in the 1879-84 War of the Pacific. Garcia said the deal also ends years of rancor: "Words are carried away by the wind but the brotherhood of peoples ... remains forever."