SUNS  4312 Thursday 29 October 1998


LATIN AMERICA: ECONOMICS KEEPS FRONTIER DISPUTES IN CHECK

Montevideo, Oct 27 (IPS/Marcelo Jelen) -- As the fresh agreement between Ecuador and Peru goes to show, the countries of South America are ready to either resolve or shelve territorial problems in order to meet economic targets and facilitate integration.

The long-standing dispute over a stretch of unmarked frontier along the headwaters of the Cenepa river ended Monday with the signing of an agreement in Brasilia between presidents Jamil Mahuad of Ecuador and Alberto Fujimori of Peru.

The two countries had fought a war over possession of this area in January and February 1995, running against the current of economic and political integration strongly underway in the Andean Community and the Southern Cone Common Market (Mercosur).

Meanwhile, other South American countries have made efforts to keep the frontier conflicts they inherited from the colonial period well out of the way of political and economic relations.

The most recent war between Ecuador and Peru, both members of the Andean Community, is an example of what can happen when a frontier problem is left without a permanent solution, even when the countries are economic partners.

The final agreement comes at a time when the Andean Community and the Mercosur are negotiating a trade agreement and the entire hemisphere, except Cuba, is discussing the Free Trade Area of the Americas planned for the year 2005.

Four South American presidents and King Juan Carlos of Spain joined Mahuad, Fujimori and the host, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, in Brasilia. It was a small summit, celebrating the removal of yet another hurdle to regional integration.

All the countries of South America have some pending frontier problems with one of their neighbours as a result of the chaotic way in which these States were marked on the map according to rulings made by the Spanish Crown.

Battles for economic and political power between the main colonial cities in the nineteenth century broke up the viceroyalties, royal courts, governorships and captaincies which made up the Spanish empire in the Americas.

The new States applied the rule of "uti posidetis juris," (you will have what you have possessed), whereby they inherited the frontiers set by the Crown. But this alone was not enough to consolidate frontiers.

In the current integration process, the governments of South America all appear to separate territorial conflicts from the rest of relations, in order to avoid obstacles to economic and political
exchange.

Hence wars on this front have been more of an exception than a rule.

Apart from trouble between Ecuador and Peru in 1941, 1981 and 1995, and the Chaco War, between Bolivia and Paraguay (1932-1935), there have been no prolonged confrontations over border disputes in South America.

Even Venezuela, which has two of the most complex disagreements, has not run into war with any of its neighbours since the separation of Venezuela and Colombia in 1830.

Venezuelans and Colombians are still waiting for a final decision on the frontier in the gulf of Venezuela, and a binational commission has been working on a peaceful solution since 1990.

But this matter has not prevented the growth of a fruitful relationship of neighbourliness and cooperation between Colombia and Venezuela, members of the Andean Community - along with Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru - and the Group of Three - with Mexico.

Venezuela also has claims on the region of Essequibo, 159,000 sq. Km area which make up two thirds of the territory of Guyana. The lawsuit was put in the hands of the United Nations by the two governments in 1983 after they gave up on seeking a bilateral solution.

Brazil and Uruguay have been arguing since the frontiers were set in 1909 over ownership of the territories of Pueblo Albornoz or Rincon de la Invernada, and an island in the river Cuareim which runs along the frontier. All the Uruguayan claims have gone through correct diplomatic channels.

These two countries have intense trade and, along with Argentina and Paraguay, make up the Mercosur - a free trade zone which implemented a customs union in 1995.

In 1991, presidents Carlos Menem of Argentina and Patricio Aylwin (1990-1994) of Chile, signed an agreement to overcome 23 frontier disputes.

Both Argentine and Chilean legislators objected to the proposed solution on only one of these - the Southern Ice Fields which cover an area of 2,374 km sq. And parliamentary ratification has become bogged down.

Aylwin's successor, Eduardo Frei, announced he would present Argentina with a new formula, while Argentine and Chilean members of parliament and academics are carrying out discreet negotiations.

Argentina and Chile were on the brink of war in 1978, when both countries were governed by military dictators, over the Beagle Channel, on the southernmost tip of both countries.

The Beagle question was finally surmounted in 1985, with Vatican arbitrage, and in the second half of this decade there was also agreement over resolving the issue of the Laguna del Desierto, an area of 532 km sq at the northern end of the Southern Ice Fields. Chile has a tight trade agreement with Mercosur, a bloc it drew closer to when its efforts to join the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) along with Canada, Mexico and the United States came to nought.

Bolivia is claiming a corridor to the Pacific ocean from Chile and Peru, something it lost after a war in 1883. And in the same war, Peru lost the "captive provinces," or modern-day Arica, which it continues to claim from Chile.

Bolivia's president, Hugo Banzer, said Monday in Brasilia he aims to follow the example of Ecuador and Peru to obtain access to the sea, but Chile's consul in Bolivia, Adolfo Carafi, officially denied there being any territorial disputes pending between the two States.