ACCESS TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN, MAR PARA BOLIVIA...

MAR PARA BOLIVIA! MAR PARA BOLIVIA! MAR PARA BOLIVIA! we all shouted enthusiastically as we all stood together with our flags in Trafalgar Square, to support our government and lawyers, as they battled it together against the Chilean government, MAR PARA BOLIVIA in La Haya in Holland. It was a time for the Bolivian community in London to come out into the open air with Bolivia and Bolivians all over the world fighting for our country to have a fair access to the Pacific ocean.
Although we were all together on that Saturday afternoon in support of MAR PARA BOLIVIA, it was also a time to remember "Dia Del Mar" remembering how Bolivia on the 23rd of March continues to celebrate this significant anniversary every year. It is a poignant sad reminder, how Bolivia once owned a huge part of the Pacific ocean, and how it was all taken away so savagely through a cruel invasion by the Chileans. We also remembered the fallen, one brave hero who didn't give up to the very end as he fought alone defending our territory was Eduardo Abaroa and many others like Juancito Pinto are still remembered until today. Although we will never recover what was once ours, our long strip of coast and Pacific waters, we still until today stand together with the hope very soon in the very near future we will all be back on the Pacific coast soaking our feet in the warm waters of the Pacific ocean. This is what the Bolivian people want and as a Bolivian, I am extremely thankful with our President Evo Morales and his government to have taken up this difficult case against the Chilean government. This is an unresolved case which has hanged to long....... to be fair many say it should off already had been resolved a long time ago, not difficult if only the Chilean government had stuck to their promises of a fair negotiation to give Bolivia access to the Pacific Ocean. The Bolivian government and the people of Bolivia didn't had to take the Chilean government to the international court in the first place.
In the past ten years there has been a huge change in Bolivia as it continues to progress economically and socially and it's fair to say Bolivia does need access to the Pacific Ocean to move on freely into the future and it's Chile who owes this to Bolivia. There are many people in Bolivia who don't have the resources to have a holiday and soak their feet in the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean and swim. My children are fortunate, they have had the experience not once but many times to play on the sand building sand castles, splashing and swimming in the sea. When my youngest son made a little boat out of cardboard, we pained it together while I reminded him how fortunate he was, to have had so many great memories of his own experience of the sea. "Many children like you in Mummy's country have never seen the Pacific Ocean, yet alone they have never swam in it, you have" I said. "Let me tell you why?"  As we all stood in Trafalgar Square and sang an old Bolivian Hymn, El Himno Del Mar, it was so lovely to see my boy enthusiastically rocking his boat gently as we all sang. The event was filled with music and dance, finishing our day together with a lovely Bolivian dish and Chilean wine in an Ecuadorian restaurant.

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