This War Over Fertilizer Won on the Water

The War of the Pacific, also called the Saltpeter War in reference to its original cause, was fought between Chile and the joint forces of Bolivia and Peru, from 1879 to 1883. Chile gained substantial mineral-rich territory in the conflict, annexing both the Peruvian province of Tarapacá and the Bolivian province of Litoral, leaving Bolivia as a landlocked country. For Bolivians, the loss of the territory which they refer to as the litoral (Spanish for "littoral," the coast) remains a deeply emotional issue and a practical one, as was particularly evident during the internal natural gas riots of 2004. Popular belief attributes much of the country's problems to its landlocked condition; conversely, recovering the seacoast is seen as the solution to most of these. However, the real issue is the fear of being too dependent on Chile or Peru. Chile fared better, gaining a lucrative territory with major sources of income, including nitrates, saltpeter, and copper. The national treasury grew by 900 percent between 1879 and 1902, due to the taxes coming from the newly acquired Bolivian and Peruvian lands. The division of the world into what are often arbitrary nation states means that resources are unevenly distributed. Until the ideal of a world government is achieved, economic disparity and unequal access to resources, including the sea, will continue to advantage some to the disadvantage of others.