Ecuador and Peru settle maritime boundary

Ecuador and Peru's maritime boundary will be a straight horizontal line

Peru and Ecuador signed an historic agreement on Monday 2nd May, settling their maritime border, but raising tension with Chile.

The agreement, proposed by Ecuador in March, establishes the maritime border on a horizontal line from the land terminal point at Boca de Capones. Any islands to the north of the line will belong to Ecuador, while those south of the line will be Peruvian.

This new agreement will supersede previous maritime treaties signed by Ecuador, Peru and Chile in 1952 and 1954, which will now be relegated to fishing agreements.

The agreement was approved by Peru's President Alan García and Foreign Minister José Antonio García Belaunde of Peru and their counterparts President Rafael Correa and Ricardo Patiño of Ecuador.

This agreement, while positive, has deeper political implications relating to border principles in the Pacific as Peru and Chile are currently contesting a case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague on their maritime border.

In it, Chile has argued in favour of a horizontal or parallel line extending from the coastline, whereas Peru has argued that the maritime border should follow the downward curve of the land border. That Peru has now accepted a boundary based on logic they are contesting at the ICJ is being seen as hypocrisy by Chile.

Moreover, Ecuador based its line on the 1952 treaty, which is something that Peru has specifically rejected in its dealings with Chile, arguing it, and the 1954 treaty, are merely fishing agreements.

According to national media in Chile, government authorities believe Peru complied with Ecuador's proposal so that Ecuador would not support Chile at the ICJ. Chile had hoped Ecuador would side with it and uphold the treaties of 1952 and 1954, but Ecuadorian involvement will now not occur.

Ecuador has certainly put pressure on Peru and the agreement is being seen as a victory for Ecuador's President Correa. In recent months, Correa has publically called on his Peruvian counterpart García to accept their borders map, or Ecuador would be 'obliged' to take them to court, according to Chile's Santiago Times.

Despite the loss of potential ally Ecuador, Chile will take some positives from Ecuador and Peru's agreement, especially in regards to the legitimacy of its preferred methods of border delimitation.

Peru, however, is also seeing the agreement as strengthening its ICJ case and has defended itself against Chile's complaints.

Peruvian foreign minister García Belaunde told reporters, "The Santiago Declaration of 1952 is very clear. Only in the case of islands should a parallel maritime boundary be considered, which is not the case of the maritime border with Chile."

Peru said that Ecuador's proposed limits were accepted based on the 1952 treaty, which allows for a demarcation line to be established through a parallel 200 miles away when there are islands close to the border. Peru said that there are no islands close to its border with Chile, and so the treaty does not apply.

Garcia Belaunde said the new agreement "is important because it ratifies the premise that Peru has always held up that the agreements of 1954 and 1952 are fishing (accords), and that will strengthen our position at The Hague."

The agreement between Ecuador and Peru still needs to be ratified by the parliaments of both countries, although this is not thought likely to be problematic. After the agreement is ratified, the 1952 and 1954 agreements will be considered only fishing accords.

The Chile-Peru maritime dispute dates back to the War of the Pacific, from 1879-1883, in which Peru and Bolivia lost territory to Chile. Peru and Chile both claim 14,500 square miles of sea, rich is fish, which Chile controls.

In January 2007, Peru began proceedings against Chile at the ICJ. A ruling is not expected until 2013.

Sources: Americas Quarterly, Living in Peru, Santiago Times, UPI

For more information, please see the Menas Borders website, here.

Wikileaks cable renews Peru-Chile tensions

A new pair of confidential US Embassy cables released on Friday 18th February by whistle blowing website WikiLeaks has reopened the political quarrels between Peru and Chile over their ongoing maritime border dispute.

The cables focus on Peru's decision to take the border dispute case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. The two countries have no formal treaty designating marine borders, although Chile considers the matter settled after two treaties in 1952 and 1954 addressed fishing rights in the Pacific Ocean.

Peru argues the maritime border should follow the downward curve of the land border, rather than the current configuration, which stretches out from the coast along longitudinal lines. Their interpretation of the maritime border area would give Peru control of an additional 37,900 square kilometers of the Pacific Ocean. The claim is backed by 99 per cent of Peruvians, according to Peruvian newspaper El Comercio.

In the January 2008 cables sent from the US Embassy in Lima to embassies across Latin America and to Washington, the Peruvian perspective repeatedly discusses the case in The Hague as 'not an unfriendly action' and reaffirms a desire for continued dialogue to improve bilateral relations.

According to the cables, the Peruvian government sees their case in The Hague as a way to depoliticize the border dispute, which has been a source of tension between the two countries since the War of the Pacific (1879-84). The case was initiated by former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, and current President Alan Garcia informed the Chilean government that while the issue would not be a priority for his administration, they would see the case through.

The cables however, also report that the border dispute with Chile is used as a political tool domestically by Peruvian politicians to improve their poll positions. For example, the cable says, "In 2004 then-President Alejandro Toledo, as his poll numbers dropped to single digits, stirred up the border dispute by publicly calling on Chile to open negotiations."

According to the leaked cables, Chilean officials felt 'betrayed' when Peru took the border dispute to The Hague, although they admitted that the Peruvians had kept them well-informed of the situation. While they remain confident over their legal claims, the officials concede that once the case arrived at The Hague 'anything can happen.'

In particular, a Chilean official, unnamed in the cable, said his government had been more concerned that the Hague could grant concessions to Peru after a unanimous Court decision in late 2007 to adjudicate a similar maritime dispute between Colombia and Nicaragua.

"That decision could effectively invalidate a bilateral agreement demarcating the territory, according to XXXXXXXXXXXX , on the grounds that only a full treaty can make such demarcations. XXXXXXXXXXXX feared this argument would provide a small window for Peru's contention that the 1952 and 1954 fishing accords were not legally sufficient to settle the boundary," the cable said.

Chile officials also expressed their opinion that Peru's lawsuit was hypocritical, as Peru benefits from their northern maritime boundary with Ecuador that follows longitudinal lines rather than the path of the land border.

General observations are made by the cables' author or authors, among them a suggestion that Chile might sacrifice the northernmost city of Arica, close to the Peruvian border, in favor of creating a military strong line further south at Iquique, in the case of military advances across the border.

Chilean officials have reacted fiercely to the leak. Jorge Tarud, a congressman of the Party of Democracy (Partido por la Democracia-PPD), and member of the Chilean congress Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, accused Peru's Ministry of Foreign Affairs of 'manipulating' the WikiLeaks cable published in Peru's El Comercio newspaper.

Tarud said “Among the dozens of cables that were written by the U.S. embassy in Lima, the majority of them favour Chile.” He did not show any evidence to sustain what he said though.

Alberto van Klaveren, Chile's representative to The Hague in the dispute with Peru said to Chilean newspaper El Mercurio that Peru's media was giving the cable a 'very biased interpretation'. He added “if there is something quite clear is that the court will always respect the supremacy of the treaties, and those treaties are obviously giving the reason to Chile.”

The case in the Hague is ongoing.

Sources: Living in Peru, Santiago Times

For more information, see the Menas Borders website, here.

The cables can be found at the Wikileaks website, here.

Chile backtracks on Bolivian sea access deal

Chilean President Pinera celebrates the miners' rescue in October

Bolivian hopes of securing access to the sea through agreement with Chile took a major hit last week as Chilean Foreign Minister Alfredo Moreno confirmed that the new government of President Sebastian Pinera would not be supporting the agreement that had tentatively been reached between his predecessor Michelle Bachelet and Bolivia's Evo Morales providing land-locked Bolivia with sea-access in northern Chile.

Putting Chilean security concerns over bilateral relations, Moreno, speaking on a Chilean talk show on Sunday 5th December, said that while they were willing to cooperate and collaborate with Bolivia, they would never be willing to cede sovereignty. Moreno said, “we will never accept something that divides the country in two…Sovereignty is not on the table.”

This has proved to be an unpopular move in Chile, as Pinera's approval rating continues to slide after peaking after the miners' successful rescue in October, and many blogosphere commentators have argued that good neighbourly relations are more important than control of a small area of territory.

Bolivia had a Pacific shoreline until it lost it to Chile in the 1874-84 War of the Pacific, in which Bolivia allied with Peru to fight Chile, but lost. Indeed Bolivia has lost vast swaths of its territory to its neighbours since its independence from Spain in 1925. Bolivian bitterness towards the Chileans has persisted since, although Bachelet and Morales took important steps to mending relations.

In 2006, a 13 point agenda was established that included La Paz's demand for access to the Pacific. It appears that just before he took office, Pinera stopped Bachelet from signing an agreement with Morales in which Chile would cede a 'non sovereign coastal enclave' to Bolivia in the northern region of Tarapaca.

In October 2009, Morales and his Peruvian counterpart Alan Garcia, signed a deal giving Bolvia a 99-year lease to four square kilometres of desolate shoreline near Peru's southern port of Ilo.

When finalising the deal in a ceremony with Garcia, Morales said, "This opens the door for Bolivians to have an international port, to the use of the ocean for global trade and for Bolivian products to have better access to global markets.”

Pinera, however, has in this case blocked Bolivian access, arguing that handing the enclave to Bolivia would bring great "migratory, free transit, administrative and infrastructure problems" for Chilean authorities. Foreign Minister Moreno said that Chile will “analyse all the proposals for a (Bolivian) better access to the sea, but will always guard the interests of Chile, and that interest will never be to have the country divided in two.”

It seems therefore likely that Bolivia may still gain access to a sea outlet, but only under clear Chilean sovereignty. Pinera has been taking a tough line on security, increasing border security and signing new contracts with defense suppliers. Senior officials have recently said that the immediate security threats to Chile include large-scale immigration from its poor neighbours, as well as organised crime and narcotics trafficking.

The toughening of Pinera's stance towards Bolivia must be seen in this light: he is clearly worried that giving Bolivia control - even in a non-sovereign capacity - will compromise Chile's ability to control its territory. It seems he is also worried that offering access once could revive Bolivian ambitions towards other territories lost in conflict.

Bolivia, however, is likely to continue to press for sea access. According to the Bolivian minister for planning and development, Viviana Caro, direct access to the ocean wouldl cut the distance goods have to travel to Asian markets by 40per cent. Bolivia is keen to become competative in the Asian markets, to take advantage of its plentiful resources of zinc, tin and silver.

Sources: UPI, MercoPress, Democratic Underground