Peru accepts Ecuador maritime borders, much to Chile’s chagrin

Wednesday, May 4th 2011 - 22:58 UTC

Peru accepts Ecuador maritime borders, much to Chile’s chagrin
Peru recognized maritime borders with Ecuador on Monday employing the same criteria they took Chile to The Hague in 2008 for using.


In a diplomatic note sent to the United Nations on Monday, Peru officially accepted the proposal Ecuador submitted in March, despite the fact that Quito proposed the same limits that Chile is defending before The Hague – the border agreements signed by Ecuador, Peru, and Chile in 1952 and 1954.

The maritime disputes date back over 120 years to the War of the Pacific.

On Monday evening Chile’s President Sebastián Piñera asked his Ecuadorian counterpart, Rafael Correa, to clarify comments by Peruvian President Alan García on the nations’ maritime borders agreement.

García publicly announced that Peru’s “exchange of border documents” with Ecuador “greatly strengthens our case at The Hague.” Officials in Santiago, however, were not impressed, alluding to the hypocrisy of the move.

More:
http://en.mercopress.com/2011/05/04/peru-accepts-ecuador-maritime-borders-much-to-chile-s-chagrin

...much like the dispute over Bolivia's access to the sea--in '08, when Chile had a leftist president who resolved that 120 year old dispute with Bolivia, in the context of a U.S. coup attempt in Bolivia.

Both of these disputes arise out of the War in the Pacific, 120 years ago--a situation, like the 70 year old civil war in Colombia, that the U.S. can exploit for "divide and conquer" purposes, on behalf of its transglobal corporations and war profiteers. In Bolivia's case, Peru (a Bushwhack ally at that time) immediately started causing trouble about the Chile/Bolivia sea access agreement, later joined by Chile's new RW billionaire president who rescinded the deal that Chile had made.

Chile is now the outlier in South America, because they elected a rightwing billionaire as president (despite the leftist Michele Batchelet's 80% approval rating on leaving office--something I still find strange, that her successor didn't win). Colombia (U.S. client state--$7 BILLION in U.S. military aid) has chosen peace, for the moment, for reasons that are not yet entirely clear (--possibly that they are outnumbered in South America and really couldn't get anywhere on south-south trade deals while they remained belligerent). That leaves mainly Chile to stir up unnecessary trouble. Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay and Paraguay all have leftist governments pledged to peace and social justice, and committed to South American, and, indeed, Latin American, unity in dealing with the U.S. and their local fascist bullies and coupsters.

Peru is in an interesting position, in this respect. Leftist Ollanta Humala is leading in the polls, to replace the U.S.-friendly, corrupt RW Alan Garcia, who made the U.S. "free trade for the rich" deal with the Bushwhacks. That deal has not benefited most Peruvians (duh). Thus, the people are likely to vote the RW out and the Left in, to try to repair Peru's economy so that it is more equitable and to align with the new leftist democracy movement in the region for mutual benefit. Our corpo-fascist press has been heavily lobbying Humala (they call it "journalism") to move him to the right (toward corporate interests), with threats about loss of investment and the horror of what happens to leaders who ally with Chavez (har-har! they get elected, is what happens to them, cuz the Left is good for the economy, benefits most people and is the majority in Latin America).

This electoral situation in Peru may be influencing how the outgoing Garcia government is handling this border dispute with Chile and Ecuador--siding with Ecuador (leftist government) against Chile (rightwing government), and, in the new spirit of cooperation that the Left has brought to South America, trying to settle things amicably.

Peru's position is very similar to the electoral situation in Paraguay in 2008, with the Left on the rise after 60 years of rightwing rule. PRIOR to the election of leftist Fernando Lugo, Paraguay rescinded its non-extradition law and its law immunizing U.S. soldiers from prosecution for crimes committed in Paraguay. They also joined the Venezuela-inspired Bank of the South. The "powers that be" in Paraguay were already realizing the advantages of south-south trade and cooperation, before Lugo was elected.

Peru is surrounded with leftist governments covering most of its border areas--Ecuador, Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina. It has only a very tiny border with Chile and a shortish border with Colombia. It also has its own vast coastline on the Pacific (unlike landlocked Bolivia and Paraguay). In the new South America, it is the leftist countries on its border and their allies (Venezuela, Ecuador) that Peru needs to cooperate with, for the advantages of south-south trade and the general prosperity that the Left has brought to the region.

Chile has a long history of post-colonial disputes with Peru and Bolivia and many in Chile were ambivalent or opposed to Chile helping Peru-Bolivia throw off Spanish rule. They've always been something of an outlier in regional affairs and somewhat insular and myopic on regional cooperation (as opposed to, say, Lula da Silva's and Hugo Chavez's "raise all boats" philosophy). Batchelet's peacemaking and alliance with other leftist leaders was unusual. She was THE motivator in pulling the region together to defeat the U.S. attempted coup in Bolivia. I can't imagine RW billionaire Pinera doing that. He would likely have let the white separatists topple Morales and split up Bolivia, taking Bolivia's gas reserves with them. Though the interests of the poor majority in Chile are the same as the interests of the poor majority elsewhere, Pinera represents the interests of the rich--and he is quite clever at stirring up Chilean nationalism and exceptionalism to serve the interests of the rich. And his actions perfectly align with the main goal of U.S. corporate/war profiteer interests at the moment--breaking up South American unity and returning them to the squabbling "War of the Pacific" era.