Soon the hearings will begin regarding the dispute over maritime borders between Chile and Peru that is taking place before the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Many of us would have preferred that this discrepancy be resolved through bilateral negotiations, with the discretion of chanceries, but since no agreement was possible, litigation is where reason and common sense indicate it should be: before an international legal body that both countries recognize and whose verdict the Peruvian and Chilean governments have committed to accepting.
With this motive, on July 25 of this year, in Lima, Santiago, and Madrid simultaneously, we made public “A Call for Harmony,” signed by fifteen Chileans and fifteen Peruvians, of different professions, vocations, and political positions, but all of us firmly committed to democratic culture. This is the initiative of two writers, Jorge Edwards and myself, who, thirty-three years ago, in June 1979, upon the occasion of the centennial of the War of the Pacific, also led a declaration of ten Chileans and ten Peruvians, proclaiming our will to work for our two countries to live “always in peace and friendship.” We recall on this occasion that the main enemy of Peru and Chile was not our group of neighbors, but rather underdevelopment, and that the battle against hunger, ignorance, unemployment, the lack of democracy and freedom, “can only be won together, fighting in solidarity against those who seek to make us enemies and obstruct our progress.”
When that first manifesto appeared, Chile and Peru were suffering under military dictatorships (presided over by General Pinochet and by General Morales Bermúdez, respectively) that censored the press, persecuted dissidents, and committed barbarous violations against human rights. Today, fortunately, both countries enjoy freedom and legality, have governments born out of free elections that respect the right to criticize, practice market policies, and encourage investment such that they have given great momentum to their economic policies. Although, of course, there is still much to do and the inequalities in income and opportunities are still very large, the lessening of poverty, the growth of the middle class, the influx of foreign investment, the control of inflation and public spending, and the strengthening of institutions in both societies are notable, the fastest on record in their history.
Within this framework of sustained progress, the economic exchange between Chile and Peru also denotes an unprecedented dynamism. Chilean businesses operate all over Peru and have created many thousands of job positions, and, for a few years now, several Peruvian companies have also started to invest in and work in Chile. The number of Peruvians who, since the Chilean economy began to take off, have emigrated to their neighboring country and put down roots there is in the tens of thousands.
All of this is good and beneficial to both countries and should be encouraged because, besides contributing to the material progress of Chile and Peru, it will increasingly cause the disappearance of the susceptibilities, resistances, animosity, and prejudices that nationalist sectors (as exalted as they are irresponsible) are determined to maintain and are inciting on the basis of the border dispute that is being settled in The Hague. These manifestations of cheap patriotism with which certain press bodies and extremist political groups try to sow discord between both countries are not disinterested. Their secret intention is to justify the buildup of weapons, in other words, the dizzying investments signified by the purchase in our day of those lethal toys with which armies play, taking resources that would be better invested in areas of health, education, and infrastructure, indispensable for economic development not to remain confined to the level of high and medium income and to reach where it is most needed, the disadvantaged and marginal sectors. Although it is true that in recent years these sectors have shrunk, they continue to be intolerably extensive today. And there is no development worthy of that name if a democracy is not capable of creating, in the economic realm, equal opportunities for all of its citizens.
This is the raison d’être of our “Call for Harmony.” Whatever the verdict of the International Court may be, it should serve to definitively fix those borders and annihilate forever that focus of periodic discord between both countries. And at the same time show the rest of Latin America the civilized and peaceful way in which it should settle border conflicts. It is necessary to remember, in this context, that the dispute of limits has been, for two centuries, one of the most fecund sources of Latin American underdevelopment. It has caused senseless wars in which the majority of corpses are always provided by the poor and that have served as a pretext for a buildup of weapons that, without a single exception, allowed corrupt big shots and politicians to fill their pockets with illegal commissions. Another consequence has been the elephantine growth of the military forces and their role in political life, one of the reasons for which democratic culture has been, until quite recently, an exotic plant that acclimated with such difficulty in the majority of Latin American countries.
But, without a doubt, the most disastrous legacy of these quarrels, artificially provoked in many cases, has been the planting of nationalism, an obtuse ideology that separates and makes countries enemies of each other. This explains why, although they speak the same language and share a tradition, history, and social issues, Latin American countries have not been capable of uniting, as, for example, Europe has done, in a great political confederation, and cannot even make the regional free-trade treaties that they sign from time to time work efficiently, and so, sooner or later, these end up stuck or annulled by the spirit of pettiness with which they are carried out in practice. Many of these conflicts are only put off and are still lurking, like sinister threats that can come to pass under any pretext, unleashing wars or coups d’état that would ruin in days the economic achievements made over many years.
It is true that Latin America, with the exceptions of the Cuban dictatorship of the Castro brothers—the longest in its history—and the semidictatorship of Commander Chávez (which, if there are free elections, could end this October), has started to leave behind this terrible period of military dictatorships, opting for democracy. Today the immense majority of the continent’s countries have civilian governments, elections, and a more or less free press, and institutions are beginning to work, despite the high indices of criminality, generally associated with narco-trafficking and the gigantic differences in income between the ruling class and its base. But even taking into account these negative factors, there is unequivocal progress, especially in the economic realm, thanks to some pragmatic policies and an opening that has been replacing the catastrophic policies of yesteryear, when economic nationalism advocated for closing borders, nationalizing “strategic industries,” and practicing inward development. Only a small handful of countries, such as Bolivia and Ecuador, still cling to those anachronisms, and so it goes for them. But the rest are growing, and some countries, among them Chile and Peru, at a very good pace. Inarguable proof is how little Latin America has suffered during the financial crisis shaking Europe and the United States. It still has not affected too much a region that, until very recently, would get pneumonia when the United States and the rest of the West had a mere cold.
So that this progress can be perfected and accelerated, the old quarrels over borders that have kept Latin American countries distanced from one another or as enemies must vanish and follow the fine example of Europe, growing closer and closer to one another so that their borders, thanks to the exchanges of all kinds that foster cooperation and friendship, start disappearing and allow for a lasting union under the sign of freedom.
Madrid, July 2012