Peru drags Chile into a border dispute

Chile and Peru have become entangled in a border row after Peru’s Congress passed this Thursday, legislation redrawing its sea border with Chile, contravening two treaties signed in 1952 and 1954. The view from Santiago is that Peru wants to claim 35,000 square kilometres of sea from Chile, home to rich fishing grounds.

This began when the Peruvian government of President Alejandro Toledo sent last week a bill seeking to redraw the southern sea border with Chile. The Toledo administration said the objective of the legislation is to only define the land marks that sets the 200 miles of ocean.

“All Peru is doing is devising land base points to define its 200 miles of ocean,” Peruvian Senator Antaro Flores-Araoz said. “If these measurements contradict Chile’s sea border measurements then we will go to an international arbitration,” Flores-Araoz said.

After unanimously voting in favour of the legislation that will redraw the sea border with Chile, congressmen pleaded for calm. “We have to quash any talk sabre rattling” Congressman Ronnie Jurado told journalists.

But Peru’s media today was awash with sabre rattling headlines.

The tabloid La Razón in its headline screamingly asked “War Again?”; while the staid broadsheet El Comercio twisted opinion from Chile with its headline: ”Chileans asked (President Ricardo) Lagos not to manipulate the sea issue.” Another tabloid Expreso said in its headline: “Face-off” accompanied with the pictures of Presidents Lagos and Toledo. And the usually staid tabloid La República said “Lagos stirs the waters”.

Reading Peru’s press and hearing the comments from Lima, it would seem Chile is being intransigent by becoming involved in the internal matters of a sovereign nation.

But the reality lies elsewhere.

In Santiago, the public, media and politicians were caught by surprise. However, in government circles they have been expecting this move for the past few years; when Peru began making informal noises of redrawing the sea border with Chile. After two years of veiled and not so veiled musings from Lima it became a reality today.

Former Foreign Minister, Soledad Alvear, who left the post just under a year ago said she was aware of Peru’s potential move.

“The government will continue to exercise full sovereignty over all its territories,” a forceful President Lagos said, adding that “this issue should be kept in a low profile.”

Foreign Minister Patricio Walker handed today a letter of protest to Peru’s ambassador to Santiago. "This legislation violates all signed treaties between the two countries,” Walker said.

“Chile reaffirms its adherence to the rule of law, respects all signed treaties, and it exercises its sovereignty over Chilean territory,” Walker said.

It appears the border dispute will end up on the lap of the International Court in The Hague. If Chile is forced to go to The Hague it will bring all the treaties it has signed with Peru that clearly demarcate all land and sea borders.

Looking at this issue bluntly, it looks like Peru wants to drag Chile into a humiliating defeat as a way to save honour and face after losing the 1879-1883 War of the Pacific. In that war Peru lost to Chile the province of Tarapacá and Bolivia lost all access to the ocean.

To this date the result of that war is felt in Chile with an uneasy relationship with both Peru and Bolivia. Today is Peru’s turn to agitate the bilateral relations with Chile.