A new stage for Chile and Bolivia: Experts analyze the benefits that the shared use of the Silala River will allow

By Joana Carvalho

International relations specialists maintain that the end of a conflict of more than ten years between the neighboring countries will allow the creation of an agreed agenda and integration between both parties.

The Foreign Ministry led different meetings during today in which they referred to the ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) of The Hague, regarding the rights of use of the Silala River.

Radio y Diario Universidad de Chile spoke with experts in international relations who assured that the verdict of the international organization means the beginning of a new stage in bilateral relations between Chile and Bolivia, after the end of a conflict of more than ten years.

After the interministerial Committee for international economic negotiations, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Antonia Urrejola, and the Undersecretary of the Ministry, Ximena Fuentes, referred to the bilateral agenda with La Paz and the central aspects of the roadmap that will be carried out the chancellery from the determination of the Court.

Given the speculation that the ICJ ruling was not declarative, the undersecretary, Ximena Fuentes, explained that the result shows that the Bolivian State changed its determination on the illegitimate use of the Silala River by Chile.

Let us remember that Bolivia’s initial position was that said natural current was not international, but rather a river with water diversion that Chile was using illegitimately. For this reason, the neighboring country originally demanded that the Chilean State compensate a possible misuse of the Silala River.

The undersecretary also maintained that the agency determined that “the parties reached an agreement that the Silala River is an international river that crosses naturally from Bolivia to Chile, that both States have the right to use it in accordance with the rule of equitable and rational use and that Chile has nothing to pay for the use it has made of those waters”.

In this sense, Fuentes stressed that there is no room for the neighboring country to back down from the entity’s decision, given that the ICJ is the main judicial body of the United Nations.

Former Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs and Public International Law academic at the Central University, Edgardo Riveros, said that the result provides legal certainty that will benefit both parties involved, along with allowing relations between the two nations to be thought “with meaning.” of the future” to take advantage of the potential of Chile and Bolivia in a virtuoso way.

“It can be a real process of integration and thinking about the perspective of strengthening our processes of different nature, of cooperation in various fields and of generating normal diplomatic relations, because it is not logical that two neighboring countries have their diplomatic relations interrupted by so long,” he told our medium.

In the same way, the academic of the Institute of International Studies of the University of Chile, Astrid Espaliat, explained that the resolution of a conflict that put tension in relations with Bolivia will allow working on an “agreed agenda” on issues of use of the Silala River, as well as the use of other water resources that are also shared among the countries. In addition, it will allow work on migration and border issues, along with “advancing in a fruitful relationship.”

Regarding the extent of this conflict between neighboring countries, Pablo Lacoste, an academic from the Doctorate in American Studies at the University of Santiago, blamed the former Bolivian president, Evo Morales, because the dispute ended through the courts instead of by the diplomatic way. Thus, he accused Morales of using Chile to “promote a nationalist and xenophobic discourse to increase its internal political power.”

“This can close the stage and show that Evo Morales’s strategy of conflict and putting lawyers instead of having normal relations does not lead to anything. Bolivia gained absolutely nothing with this hostile attitude against Chile”, highlighted the international analyst.

For his part, Espaliat explained that the former Bolivian president’s statements in which he “maintained that Silala was only under the jurisdiction of Bolivia and that Chile would have been stealing the waters, evidently deepened an already tense relationship.” Likewise, Riveros believed that the position adopted by the ex-president of the neighboring country was indeed not a good strategy.

On the other hand, the head of Foreign Relations, Antonia Urrejola, explained that the Government of former President Sebastián Piñera agreed on a road map with the Bolivian Foreign Ministry to establish the new link between the nations, an agenda that was agreed again this year by Urrejola.

On this point, the former Undersecretary of Foreign Relations Edgardo Riveros, spoke in favor of this position, since he believed that the most appropriate thing is for the national authorities to begin this new chapter between Chile and Bolivia with a policy of continuity.

With information from diarioUchile