The treaty ending
the border conflict
divided public
opinion in both
Peru and Ecuador,
fanning
the
virulent flames
of nationalism in
both countries.
Latin America’s nation-states
were born of the wars of independence against the Spanish Empire, and the borders
adopted were based on the admin-
istrative divisions established by
the colonial regime. It took several
decades to define these borders,
which were clearly fixed to suit the
interests of the colonial power
rather than the characteristics and
necessities of the peoples separated
by these new frontiers.
A long-standing dispute between
Ecuador and Peru over the defini-
tion of their common border culmi-
nated in a brief war in 1941. The
military conflict ended with the A child carries the Peruvian flag in the border town ofAguas Calientes, located on the signing by the two countries of the a disputed section of the border between Peru and Ecuador. Rio de Janeiro Protocol, which was
backed by four guarantor coun- Nelson Manrique is a Peruvian historian who teaches at the Catholic University of Peru. tries-Argentina, Brazil, Chile and
He is author of several books, including La historia de la Reptblica (1995) and Vinieron a
los sarrecenos: El horizonte mental de la conquista de Am6rica (1993). the United States. The treaty did R
Translated from the Spanish by NACLA. not, however, resolve the problem. ,
NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 6ESSAY / BORDER WARS
In the following decades,
successive
Ecuadorian
gov- S ernments chose to ignore
the treaty with the hope of
renegotiating it, and ba opposed the placing of bor-
der landmarks to close the
47 miles that remained to
be mapped along the 1,000-
mile border.
During the 1980s, know-
ing that it was impossible
to obtain international sup-
port to overturn a recognized
treaty, the Ecuadorian authorities
opted to recognize the Rio
Protocol while at the same time
proclaiming its inapplicability due
to the technical problems of map-
ping the final strip of the border.
The result was two brief military
conflicts, in 1983 and 1995, and
subsequent negotiation efforts.
The failure to reach a resolution
made the role of the guarantor
countries increasingly important.
In this context, the guarantor coun-
tries secured the agreement of the
current presidents of Ecuador and
Peru, Jamil Mahuad and Alberto
Fujimori, to cede to them the task
of coming up with a proposal to
resolve the crisis. The legislatures
of both countries voted to abide by
this solution.
On October 25, 1997, the pro-
posal developed by the guarantor
countries to bring an end to the
Peru-Ecuador border conflict was
signed by Presidents Mahuad and
Fujimori. The proposal divided
public opinion in both countries,
with numerous discordant voices
protesting the proposed solution as
a “betrayal” and a “sell-out.” In the
Peruvian department of Loreto,
where the undefined portion of the
border is located, violent protests
against the treaty resulted in a
series of confrontations with police
in which several people were
killed. The inhabitants of the
region-who have long suffered
from the marginalization of a
crushingly centralist system-mis-
adly, the left was also guil
of waving the nationalist
nner, preaching the discot
of the offended nation
and the humiliation of
the fatherland.
trusted the government’s decision,
fearing that Ecuador would take
advantage of the right granted by
the Rio Protocol to freely navigate
along the Amazon River to launch
a military attack.
It is worth noting that in Peru,
politicians spanning the ideological
spectrum, including many avowed
Marxists, have denounced the
accord, arguing that it betrays the
country’s interests and that it is an
affront to the Peruvian people. The
surprisingly vociferous nature of
this nationalist sentiment prompted
these reflections on the perils of
nationalism.
n his seminal work, Imagined
Communities: Reflections on
the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism, historian Benedict
Anderson discusses the paradoxes
of nationalism. The first paradox
he discusses is that unlike other
important “isms” (Marxism, liber-
alism, anarchism, fascism, etc.),
nationalism does not have a major
theorist. There is no Marx, Smith
or Bakunin of nationalism. Yet, no
other idea has had a greater impact
on human societies in the past two
centuries. The biggest conflicts of
the past 200 years–including the
two world wars–were spurred on
by nationalism.
The second paradox of national-
ism is that the basis of national
identity is a constructed version of
history that is often inaccurate.
Peruvians, for example, tend to
believe that we are the descendants
Ity
urse
of the Incas, although in
terms of our indigenous
heritage, we are in fact
descendants of a number
of cultures-the Chancas,
the Huancas, the Chimties,
the Huancavilcas, the
Chachapoyas, etc.-that
had been militarily con-
quered by the Incas, often
with great cruelty, creat-
ing animosities that in
some cases pushed these
groups to ally themselves with the
Spanish conquistador Francisco
Pizarro against their hated oppres-
sors. The same can be said of the
Ecuadorians, who proclaim them-
selves descendants of the
“Kingdom of Quito”- a controver-
sial claim, but one that awakens
such passion that few Ecuadorian
historians dare to openly challenge
the inconsistency of the data claim-
ing to prove the existence of this
kingdom.
The third paradox is that for
nationalists, the nation is above
history-it is eternal, without a
beginning or an end–despite the
fact that the history of the twenti-
eth century has demonstrated
repeatedly that nations are in fact
quite fragile constructions that
may appear and disappear sudden-
ly and, usually, painfully. This is
evident by a look at the changing
map of Europe over the past cen-
tury as a result of the world wars
and the recent collapse of the
Soviet empire, or the explosive
emergence of the new nations of
the so-called Third World after
decolonization.
Yet when nationalist passions
are ignited, nothing else matters.
As Anderson points out, it is
impossible to comprehend nation-
alism if one tries to equate it with
ideology (though at some level
nationalism can be an ideology). It
is more useful, he suggests, to
compare nationalism to religion
because, like many of the world’s
most powerful religions, it mobi-
Vol XXXII, No 4 JAN/FEB 1999 7ESSAY / BORDER WARS
Ecuadorians celebrate the signing of the October 1997 peace treaty with Peru at a public mass in downtown Quito.
lizes commitments and passions
people are willing to die for.
This helps explain the fact that
national wars are to our time what
the religious wars were to theirs.
They are charged with the same
intensity of commitment, altruism,
passionate and unreflective adher-
ence. Both are, moreover, based on
the demonization of the “other.” In
religious wars, the “other” is the
heretic, the infidel, the apostate, the enemy of the true god. In the
nationalist wars, it is the foreigner,
the enemy just across the border
who is waiting for us to drop our
guard, who is always desiring what
is ours, and conspiring to take it
away from us. Like the images in
the mirror, the face of the “other”
reveals to us our own inverted
image, since the defects of the
other are symmetrically inverse
replicas of our highest virtues. The
“other” is a liar, while we are sin-
cere; he is devious and traitorous,
while we are correct and loyal; he
is a coward, while we are valiant;
petty and covetous, while we are
generous and disinterested. This
demonization ignores the fact that
virtues and defects are distributed
more or less equally in all human
societies. In all societies there are
people who are sincere, frank,
open, loyal, trustworthy, as well as
those who are cynical, malicious,
dishonest, traitorous and corrupt.
The foreigner is the “other” par
excellence. For Peruvians, all
Ecuadorians are the same, while in
the eyes of the Ecuadorian patriots,
all Peruvians are exactly the same.
It does not matter that the reactions
to the recent peace treaty have
been complex and contradictory. In
contrast to the reaction in Loreto,
in the Peruvian departments of
Tumbes and Piura, where there is a
long tradition of good border rela-
tions with the neighboring
provinces of Ecuador, the peace
treaty was widely celebrated. In
Ecuador, many people were happy
that the dispute was finally over,
while others flew the Ecuadorian
flag at half staff and wore black
bands as a sign of mourning.
General Paco Moncayo, Ecuador’s
most honored military leader of the
1995 conflict, described the deci-
sion of the guarantors as “shame-
ful” and said that the square kilo-
meter that Peru is required by the
treaty to give to Ecuador in the
border area known as “Tiwinza” to
commemorate their dead is little
more than a token. The president
of the Commission of International
Affairs of the Ecuadorian Con-
gress, Heinz Moeller, went so far
as to propose that the piece of land
not be accepted to preserve nation-
al dignity. Some Peruvians will
surely construe these reactions as
evidence that the Ecuadorians
are never satisfied with any-
thing unless they get everything.
Apparently the ultimate proof of
Peruvian nationalism is not to cede
an inch of territory to the enemy.
NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS
C
0
0
8ESSAY / BORDER WARS
In such a view, the only acceptable
terms of negotiation are those
which impose each and every one
of our conditions.
wo centuries ago, the heroes
of independence dreamed of
a united Latin America. This
was the dream of Bolivar and San
Martin, but the contradictions
fueled during the long period of
colonial domination kept this from
becoming reality. The result was a
rosary of republics whose first con-
cern was to define their national
borders. By establishing them on
the basis of the old colonial admin-
istrative divisions, the result was
that the borders of the majority of
the incipient nations, as they were
imagined by their inhabitants, had
been extended over territory that
their neighbors believed to be
theirs. This was perhaps
inevitable, given the rela-
tive absense of population
in these distant frontier
regions.
When the Republic of
Peru was founded, for
example, its population
was estimated at 1,250,000
inhabitants, a small num-
ber given the size of its ter-
ritory. Its far-away fron-
tiers, especially those in
the inaccessible jungle
regions, were mere ab-
stractions on a map. This
made it almost inevitable
that marking the definitive
borders would have to
involve either negotiations
or war. Peru has had wars
with all of its neighbors
except Brazil, probably
because the two countries The line are separated by the vast been tI Amazon rainforest. As a lower b consequence, the majority was reo
of our neighbors feel, like
we do, that they lost territory once
the borders were fixed. Negotiating
always supposes mutual conces-
sions; when both parties refuse to
he
or
cede then the only recourse is that was that in the most recent
of taking up arms. Those who in instance, they had enough time to
Peru protest because not all of our more securely install their posi-
national objectives were met in the tions, thanks to the fact that Peru’s
treaty with Ecuador apparently military posts had been aban-
ignore the fact that the only way to doned-for reasons that no
obtain these goals, in the current Peruvian authority has explained.
conditions, is to launch another The Ecuadorian authorities estab-
wat. lished an impregnable position,
It is true that the Rio Protocol defended with land mines and
supports Peru’s claims to maintain- sophisticated military technology.
ing the border exactly the way it is, In Peru, two people must be held
but for Ecuadorian nationalists that constitutionally responsible for
treaty was a betrayal of its oli- these events: the President of the
garchy, which fed the resolve of Republic, as commander in chief
one Ecuadorian government after of the armed forces, and the then-
another to ignore it. Proclaiming head of the Joint Command of the
that they had been stripped of Armed Forces, the “victorious”
80,000 square miles of territory, general, NicolAs de Bari Hermoza.
Ecuadorians engaged in a series of It is now obvious that “Tiwinza”
military infiltrations over the past was never recovered during the
two decades along the undefined February 1995 armed conflict, as
border in an attempt to force a Fujimori and Hermoza claimed,
the heroism of Peruvian
soldiers notwithstanding.
But time was running
short. The presidential
elections were to be held
in April, and Fujimori’s
chance of reelection was
at stake. He decided to
trick the entire country,
announcing the recovery
of “Tiwinza” and declar-
ing a unilateral cease-fire.
This is the context in
which the recent negotia-
tions took place.
“Tiwinza” is an excel-
lent example of how
nationalist myths are con-
structed. Based on a
review of available histor-
ical records, the real
Tiwinza is located some-
where within Ecuadorian
territory. After infiltrating drawn in 1942 by the Protocol of Rio de Janeiro has territory. After infiltrating de facto border between Ecuador and Peru. The Peruvian territory along
order, running along the Amazon and Marahion Rivers, the undefined border area, gnized by Ecuador until last year’s agreement, the Ecuadorian armed
forces gave this name to renegotiation. They did this in the position where they built their 1983 in Falso Paquisha and they fortresses. What had been an
tried it again in 1995 in the place unnamed piece of land has become
called “Tiwinza.” The difference the center of the confrontation
Vol XXXII, No 4 JAN/FEB 1999 9ESSAY / BORDER WARS
between two national
imaginations. Some Peru-
vians believe that we must
reclaim this invented place
by sending our children to Ct
war. The only other option
is that we accept the strate-
gic priority of finishing,
once and for all, the
demarcation process,
which will help prevent
armed confrontations in
the future. This will not
of course guarantee the
absence of war-Peru did not even
share a border with Chile when the
terrible armed conflict of 1879
exploded. But tying up the loose
ends is important because putting
them off transforms military infil-
tration into an act of conquest-an
irony if one considers that the
Ecuadorian high command has for
decades tried to present itself as the
good David, constantly harassed by
the arrogant and powerful Peruvian
Goliath. The big losers of the treaty
signed last October are the mili-
tarist hawks in both countries, who
have justified their privileges over
the last several decades as the pro-
tectors of the fatherland in the face
of the threat of the enemy just
across the border.
ome Peruvians have argued
that since the Rio Protocol
supported our claims, we
have made too many concessions.
After all, Peru ceded one square
kilometer now known as
“Tiwinza” to Ecuador, as well as
an additional 10 square miles along
the unmapped border, two pieces
of land of 370 acres apiece along
the Amazon riverbanks to build
port facilities, and a road to access
its navigation facilities. Mean-
while, they argue, Ecuador has
conceded nothing.
Such arguments ignore the fact
that since the birth of Ecuador as a
republic, its citizens have been
taught that its territory extended
far into Peruvian territory [See
The big losers are the
military hawks in both
countries who have justifie
heir privileges by claiming
to protect the fatherland
from the enemy just
across the border.
map, p. 9]. In the maps used in
Ecuadorian schools, the border
with Peru was located south of the
Marafi6n and Amazon Rivers, and
the 80,000 square miles to the
north of this line, including
Tumbes, part of Piura, and most
of Loreto, was considered Ecua-
dorian territory. For more than half
a century, Ecuadorians were
taught by school teachers and pop-
ulist caudillos alike that Peru had
taken these territories from their
weaker neighbor by force, and
demanding their return had
become a national crusade. In fact,
the protests of some Peruvians
aside, the border fixed in 1942 has
not changed. It is crucial to reflect
on the tremendous psychological
adjustment that the 1997 treaty
demands of Ecuadorian citizens.
The maps used until late last year
in Ecuador’s schools must be
redrawn, and Ecuadorians must
come to terms with the fact that
the land they were taught to
believe was rightfully theirs
belongs to Peru. Is it possible to
affirm, then, that Ecuador has
made no concessions?
I would like to conclude with a
brief reference to the militant
opposition to the October treaty
adopted by several leftist leaders.
Some have argued that things
should have been left the way they
were–an unviable scenario which
would have only postponed any
final resolution to the conflict.
Others, their faith in the nationalist
cause unshaken, argue that
no solution is acceptable
except one which meets all
of Peru’s conditions. Still
d others, seeking to link dis-
content over the treaty with
the growing wave of
protest against the current
regime, have argued that
the Fujimori government
should not be permitted to
resolve this long-standing
conflict. I believe that this
is mistaken, because it
equates a tactical question-the
struggle against the efforts of
Fujimori to perpetuate his power–
with strategic questions involving
Peru’s existence as a nation. We
refuse to accept the demarcation
process at our own peril. Consider
the Falklands/Malvinas war of the
early 1980s. When the genocidal
military regime in Argentina need-
ed to clean up its image, the gener-
als sought to do so by manipulating
a strategic issue: Argentina’s claim
to national sovereignty over the
islands. Fortunately, the Argentine
people knew how to defend their
historic claim without blindly fol-
lowing the military butchers. This
experience can teach us a valuable
lesson. While tactical victories are
tempting because they yield excel-
lent benefits in the short term, a
coherent political project can only
be possible if we know how to put
the strategic interests of the nation
above short-term tactical interests,
even if this means renouncing easy
immediate victories.
The peoples of Latin America
existed long before the birth of any
of the region’s nation-states, and
they will continue to exist, even if
those nations expire. It is painful to
see old friends on the left waving
the nationalist banner, preaching
the discourse of the offended
nation and the humiliated father-
land, and agitating passions that
are antithetical to our historical
dreams of a Latin American com-
munity of peoples.
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