Bolivia marks Independence Day, builds ‘Bolivia House - Korea’

It also had a good number of famed photographs on display at the entrance lobby of the reception room showing various aspects of the life of Bolivia.

The reception was attended from Korean society by many distinguished guests including 1st Vice Minister Cho Tae-yong of Foreign Affairs, Chairperson Shin Sang-jeong (Justice Party) of the Korean-Bolivian Parliamentary Friendship Association and representatives from the government, business, cultural and media organizations of Korea as well as Bolivian citizens in Korea. From the media came Publisher-Chairman Lee Kyung-sik of The Korea Post and from the tourist industry came Vice President Lee Myung-hoon of KOTFA.

From the foreign community came many mission chiefs who included Ambassadors Albino Malungo of Angola, Elisabeth Bertagnoli of Austria, Ramzi Teymurov of Azerbaijan, Md. Enamul Kabir of Bangladesh, Edmundo Sussumu Fujita of Brazil, Dato Haji Harun Ismail of Brunei Darussalam, Grecia Fiodalicia Pichardo of Dominican Republic, Michel Idiaquez Baradat of Honduras, Ahmad Masoumifar of Iran, Aingeal O’onoghue of Ireland, Zahid Nasrulah Khan of Pakistan, Bill Veri of Papua New Guinea, Dr. Alba Florio Legnani of Uruguay, Bakhtier N. Ibragimov of Uzbekistan (CDA) and Yadira Hidalgo de Ortiz of Venezuela (CDA).

Among the distinguishing features of the party were performances presented by the Bolivian singers and dances clad in extremely colorful traditional costumes of Bolivia, which attracted keen attention from the Korean and international guests.

Welcoming the guests, Ambassador Palomeque de Taboada of Bolivia introduced the process of her people’s winning their independence and then, in reference to Korean-Bolivian relations, she said that friendship and cooperation between Bolivia and Korea relationship, which takes already 49 years of history, continues to increase and that the friendship has not only between the two governments “because this time I want to announce that recently the Bolivian community living in Seoul, has been organized and established the "House Bolivia - Korea." Excerpts from the speech follow:

It is on August 6th, 1825, when the General Assembly of Deputies of Upper Peru which was then administered by the Royal Audience of Charcas - decided its independence, giving birth to what was once the Republic of Bolivia.
Since then, and for 184 years, the Bolivian state possessing natural resources in each of its regions; with a wide cultural diversity, which is reflected in its 36 indigenous people with their own languages, customs, folklore and with different economy systems within their own population. In 2009, the Constituent Assembly faced the challenge of reflecting the identity and diversity of our people and the Political Constitution drew up the current Plurinational State of Bolivia.

This new Bolivian state, is based on political pluralism (to respect the different views and thoughts of the citizens) in economic pluralism (guaranteeing the various forms of ownership and economic organization of the State) in legal pluralism (recognizes ordinary justice and indigenous justice), and in the cultural and linguistic pluralism recognizes the 36 indigenous nationalities that exist in our country.

Currently, distinguished audience, the effort and commitment of each of the Bolivian citizen inside and outside of our borders has achieved to register a rate of growth of 6.8%.

We hope to keep this historical GDP Bolivian expansion.
Politically, in the past Bolivia was known as a country with successive changes of government.

Since 2006, we live in a political stability that reflects the leadership of the Government and the maturity of its people, who again will go to the polls, next October, to elect a President, Vice President and representatives of the Legislative Assembly.