The head of state vindicated the judgment of The Hague and said that without a solution to the sea issue there will be no reestablishment of diplomatic relations with Chile.
In his speech for the Day of the Sea, President Luis Arce quoted Salvador Allende, former socialist president of Chile, and said he hopes that his leftist counterpart Gabriel Boric, who presides over a progressive government, will put an end to the national isolation.
The president, in a ceremony held in the Abaroa square, also vindicated the ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and expressed that it opens a new scenario in the bilateral dialogue.
"We call on the government of the sister republic of Chile to make their own the words of Salvador Allende and that remain alive in the hearts of many Chilean brothers and sisters: 'Chile has a century-old debt with Bolivia and we are willing to undertake a historic solution. Bolivia will return sovereign to the Pacific coast'", he said.
The president quoted Allende's words to writer Néstor Taboada Terán days after taking office in La Moneda. Allende was a leftist leader whose government was overthrown by a coup led by Augusto Pinochet.
"We are sure," Arce added, "that sooner rather than later the injustice of our enclosure will be rectified and we will reconstitute our ancestral and sovereign relationship with the seas, a right with which we were born as Bolivia and which we will never renounce.
The act began when Arce arrived in the vicinity of the Abaroa square, which he entered flanked by Vice President David Choquehuanca; the president of the Senate, Andrónico Rodríguez, and the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Freddy Mamani.
During his speech, the head of state stressed that recently took office in Chile as president Boric, who leads a progressive government, which adds to the constituent that develops in that country to change its constitutional text.
"A progressive government has recently assumed the leadership of our sister republic of Chile and the Chilean people are moving forward in a historic constituent assembly, so we hope that under the leadership of brother President Gabriel Boric, the Bolivian people will put an end to the imprisonment, an open wound in our great homeland for 143 years," said Arce.
Both presidents met in Chile last March 11, the same day Boric took office. After the meeting, Arce indicated that he presented his counterpart with an agenda that included the sea issue and the use of international waters.
However, on March 14, Boric maintained that his country's sovereignty is not negotiable, but offered to resume bilateral relations. "Chile, of course, does not negotiate its sovereignty, as I imagine no country does," he assured then.
Yesterday, Arce maintained that the reestablishment of diplomatic relations "can only take place within the framework of the solution to the pending maritime issue", and added that Chile is aware that the Bolivian encirclement is one of its most serious international faults.
Bilateral relations have been broken since 1978, when Bolivia decided to take this step because the negotiation with Chile, which remained for history as the Abrazo de Charaña, ended in a stalemate.
Arce also vindicated the ICJ ruling of October 1, 2018, and called it a "sentence", something that contrasts with the word "report" used to refer to that verdict by former President Evo Morales, who filed the lawsuit in The Hague.
"The ICJ, in its judgment of October 1, 2018, made it clear that there is a long history of dialogues, exchanges and negotiations aimed at identifying an appropriate solution to Bolivia's Mediterranean situation, following the War of the Pacific and the 1904 Treaty, without concrete results having been achieved to date," the president assured.
Arce added that the Court's decision "far from defeatist interpretations, opens a new scenario in the bilateral dialogue, in which the cycle of confrontations has been closed and a phase of rapprochement is opened, based on the integration of twinned peoples, through dialogue, cooperation and complementarity".
At the end of the event, the pro-government senator Leonardo Loza highlighted Arce's speech and underlined the call he made to Boric to influence the issue. "A calm speech, a speech of work, a speech of agenda, a speech of call to our brother government of Chile so that it can put its good offices to solve this historical demand of the Bolivian people", said the legislator.
Meanwhile, Alejandro Reyes, deputy of Comunidad Ciudadana, indicated that there is improvisation in the government, given that Arce went to Chile, to Boric's inauguration, "thinking that he was going to improve our condition with respect to the issue of sovereignty in the Pacific", however, late he realized the harsh reality. "Our foreign relations are becoming more and more amateurish", he affirmed.
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