Peru-Ecuador peace agreement:

Hemisphere’s last armed territorial dispute finally settled

• Area of contention between Peru and Ecuador to become a demilitarized ecological protection zone.

• Final demarcation agreement ends often incendiary and mainly inexplicable 456-year-old conflict that cost hundreds of lives, tens-of-millions of dollars, and wasted rare opportunities for both countries for their economic development.

• Economic incentives persuade Peru and Ecuador to accept guarantor’s peace-proposal, providing the basis for ending the arms’ races.

• The new status quo provides the opportunity for the indigenous Secoya community to reestablish cross-border relations.

• Active land-mine fields all but guarantee more deaths in the future.

 

The presidents of Peru and Ecuador today have formalized their acceptance of a clearly defined common border between their two countries in the Oriente part of Ecuador. Peru’s Alberto Fujimori and Ecuador’s Jamil Mahuad may have just signed a peace agreement in Brazilia, but it needed three wars, the sacrifice of hundreds of soldier’s lives as well as three years of inconclusive negotiations followed by the intervention of the four guarantor nations -- Brazil, Argentina, Chile and the U. S. -- to end the intensely emotional conflict over otherwise obscure pieces of jungle to be found astride the Condor range. Now this last disputed area is being declared a demilitarized ecological park incorporating territory on both sides of the border.

The solution: a diplomatic slight of hand

To a considerable extent, the border agreement was the result of a diplomatic slight of hand that was first conjured up by the guarantor nations at the end of 1997, when Peru and Ecuador were at an impasse in their border discussions. The guarantor diplomats added three new components to a proposed peace settlement package. This included a commerce and navigation clause guaranteeing Ecuador’s free navigation on the Amazon, a mutual security agreement designed to prevent future conflicts, and a border integration agreement aimed at stimulating development in both countries. The latter includes major financial assistance from the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Andean Development Corporation, with the overall package involving three billion dollars over next 10 years in new external investments in Peru and Ecuador. By linking the above agreements to the inflammatory topic of staking out the disputed border segment, strong incentives were created, which hopefully will now finally allow the two countries to see eye to eye.

The guarantor’s strategy lead to a diplomatic success-story with the final trick being placed on October 9th, when Mahuad and Fujimori asked President Clinton for a formula to be drafted by the four guarantors to solve the crucial remaining negotiation point: the highly charged issue of the 49-mile stretch of unmarked border. The guarantors’ condition was that Peru and Ecuador’s legislatures had to approve the proposal in advance to avoid interminable negotiations. This made a "fast track peace agreement" possible, and was an elegant way for Mahuad and Fujimori to politically survive the consequences of this potentially explosive issue in their own countries. Being perceived as having capriciously ceding national territory would undoubtedly be a political disaster for both presidents.

The four guarantor countries initially were agreed upon to help defuse the longstanding conflict between Peru and Ecuador beginning in the 1940s, just after the fighting had temporarily been ended between the two foes by the 1942 Rio de Janeiro Protocol of peace. However, the demarcation process broke down by the late 1940s and both sides accused each other of illegally occupying the other’s territory. The most serious combat since 1941 occurred only three years ago, when in 1995 over 300 soldiers died in the struggle for a piece of jungle in one of the most inhospitable areas in the world. The recent peace agreement gives Peru and Ecuador as well as the rest of Latin America the hope that the 1995 war would be the last armed strife involving the two neighbors or anywhere else in Latin America.

Pride for territory at any price

The reasons why the conflict has been seemingly insolvable can be partly explained in plausible terms: both sides had contrary historical claims on many chunks of their common border, according to different interpretations of treaties and agreements that they had been entered into over the last two centuries. Demarcation also has been complicated by the fact that much of this sector’s dividing line runs along the Condor range. Each country aspires to gain the military and intelligence advantages from possessing the higher elevations. In addition, both nations have self-perceived economic reasons for claiming the territory. Ecuador needs access to the Amazon, which will now be secured by being based on a commerce and navigation treaty with Peru. The border region is also potentially rich in petroleum and minerals. However, "there are definitively no crucial resources in the disputed area," emphasizes Brian Penn, Deputy Public Affairs Advisor for the State Department’s Bureau of Inter-American Affairs. However, such historical, strategic and economic factors can only explain modest grounds behind the dispute.

A large part of the enmity between the two neighbors has had to do with strong nationalist feelings held by the populations of both countries for the disputed territory at any price. Diego Stacey, Minister of the Ecuadorian Embassy, says: "We have a difference in mentality to other continents. I hope that this is changing with integration in the future, but during this century many Latin-Americans have been feeling very strong and partly sentimental of borders and the defense of their territory."

The fear over any loss of national self-esteem is at the heart of the conflict and therefore goes a long way in helping to explain the difficulties encountered in ending the dispute. Both countries, for example, still bicker over whether a Spanish expedition in 1542, that "discovered" the Amazon River, set out from Cuzco, Peru, merely stopping in Quito for supplies (the Peruvian version), or whether the expedition was in fact, organized in, and led from, Quito. Learning by rote these different historical versions, until now students in both Peru and Ecuador were taught that different border dividing lines existed, depending on the country in which they live. Fortunately, the schoolbooks now will have to be rewritten. The latest victims of this intensity over the border question were three Peruvian who were killed when thousands of demonstrators rampaged though Peru's border town of Iquitos on Saturday, demonstrating against today’s peace agreement.

The future: economic development, arms race stop and new dangers

The prospective settlement of the border conflict, together with the implementation of a commerce and navigation treaty and the kicking in of a border integration compact, provides the momentum to stimulate the economy of the two countries by increasing bilateral trade, which has remained at a very low level due to the intermittent strife bedeviling Ecuadorian-Peruvian relations. Both countries also hope to increase their general trade opportunities within the Andean Pact and can now dream of eventually beeing integrated into Mercosur. Achieving sustainable economic growth is now the most crucial question on the ancient adversaries’ respective agendas. According to the most recent World Bank figures, 54 percent of all Peruvians and 35 percent of all Ecuadorians live below the national poverty line. Infant mortality lies above the average for Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition, Ecuador in recent years has been suffering through a bitter economic crisis, with an estimated inflation rate of over 35 percent in 1998. Peru as well fears the effects of the current global economic crisis on its exports and the lagging pace of new foreign investment.

The border agreement should also provide the grounds for halting the regional arms race. In 1995, Ecuador received an illicit shipment of Argentine arms that ostensibly were earmarked for Panama and Venezuela, which included ground-to-ground missiles. The mushrooming scandal in Argentina over this apparently involves the commander of the country’s army, several cabinet ministers, and an aid of President Menem. In 1997, Peru bought 18 MiG-29 fighter planes and both countries supposedly are still attempting to purchase additional arms. Critics in both countries argue that such funds can be more constructively used to repair the extensive damages caused by El Niño that hit both countries with tremendously devastating flooding last year. Ecuador alone is considered to have suffered about three billion dollars in damage due to the weather, representing 15 percent of its annual GDP.

Aside from the fact that both Peru and Equador have a very young population (37 percent of Ecuador’s population is under 15 years old) that is better able to adjust to new realities than their parents, the peace agreement also gives new hope for the future prospects of the semi-nomadic Secoya civilization, which once roamed over more than 30,000 square miles spread over Peru, Ecuador and Colombia before the border became Balkanized.

Ironically, solving the demarcation question will bring a new problem in its wake. If people begin to move across possible parts of the border to engage in commerce or to try to contact family members, they could become victims of the bitter legacy posed by the planting of 100,000 land mines, which analysts estimate are to be found in the affected former war arena. If those mines are not detonated fast enough, the end of conflict is likely not to mark the ending of the killing.

 

 

Prepared by COHA research associate Balthas Seibold.

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