IQUIQUE, Chile — Landlocked in the heart of South America for the last 125 years, Bolivia wants its beach back, a stretch of sand much like the one in this Chilean city where the world's driest desert meets the sea.
Chile conquered all 250 miles of Bolivia's coastline in the 19th century War of the Pacific. Now the controversy is simmering anew, thanks to the insurrection by nationalistic Indians and workers that overthrew Bolivia's president in October.
New President Carlos Mesa has made "an ocean for Bolivia" the centerpiece of his administration, winning favor with those who were angered by his predecessor's proposal to export Bolivia's natural gas reserves through a Chilean port.
This month, Mesa announced that the Bolivian government would stage a series of public rallies across the country -- and in Bolivian embassies abroad -- beginning Tuesday to remember the dead of the War of the Pacific and to call for Chile to grant Bolivia a corridor to the sea.
Many analysts believe poverty-racked Bolivia may once again descend into anarchy if Mesa fails in his campaign to restore his country's long-wounded national honor. And here in Iquique, the site of a key battle in the war, a few people think giving the Bolivians some land isn't such a bad idea.
Enrique Anguita, a hotelier, says he's willing to sell a piece of property he owns near the city's port to the Bolivians for $5 million.
"Esto es [this is] strictly business," Anguita said, mixing Spanish and the international language of commerce, English.
Few people expect Bolivia to take Anguita up on his offer, although pro-Bolivian statements made by a few civic leaders in northern Chile have given the Bolivians hope.
Mesa has said he wants a diplomatic solution to the problem. In January, his government announced that it would present its demands before the Organization of American States. Mesa made his case most dramatically at the Summit of the Americas that month, confronting Chilean President Ricardo Lagos in a room full of regional leaders. He cast the controversy as a matter of social justice between South America's poorest nation and the continent's rising economic powerhouse.
"There is a country that has lost an essential part of itself, a loss which brought incalculable economic loss and difficulties which it still suffers today," Mesa said. "I agree that we should look forward, toward the 21st century. But we can only go forward with a definitive resolution to a just Bolivian claim."
