PERU SUBMITS CHILE BORDER DISPUTE ARGUMENTS TO THE

C O N F I D E N T I A L LIMA 000394

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/21/2018
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR PE
SUBJECT: PERU SUBMITS CHILE BORDER DISPUTE ARGUMENTS TO THE
HAGUE

REF: A. LIMA 072

B. LIMA 0360

Classified By: Amb. P Michael McKinley for reasons 1.4b and d.


1. (U) Introduction and Summary: The GOP on March 19
submitted to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the
Hague its legal brief arguing for defining (and redrawing)
Peru's maritime border with Chile. Peru's submission is the
second step in a judicial process that the GOP initiated in

2008. The Government of Chile will have until March 2010 to
submit its counter-argument, which will be followed by the
oral argument phase. Observers expect the process to last
another three to five years.


2. (C) The Peru-Chile boundary dispute dates to the 19th
Century War of the Pacific when the victorious Chile seized a
substantial chunk of southern Peru. In 1929, most of the
land border was successfully delineated, but debate over the
maritime boundary continues to animate Peruvian nationalists,
eager politicians and others. While Chile's position is that
there is no dispute, Peru believes that a formal agreement is
needed to settle the maritime boundary matter definitively.
Foreign Ministry officials stress the broadly positive
relationship with Chile and hope the Hague process will
resolve a thorny issue that has prevented further
integration. Peruvian officials also believe they will win
concessions at the Hague, and the appointment last year of
former Defense and Foreign Minister Alan Wagner to oversee
the GOP's case at the Hague underscores the seriousness of
Peru's intentions. Some officials justify their optimism by
citing the October 2007 ICJ decision to resolve a similar
Nicaragua-Honduras maritime dispute by splitting the two
countries' claims down the middle (Ref A). End Introduction
and Summary.

Roots of the Maritime Dispute
--------------

3. (U) Peru has disputed its border with Chile periodically
since the War of the Pacific (1879-1884),when Chile seized a
large piece of what was until then Peruvian territory. The
two parties demarcated their shared land border in a 1929
treaty, starting from "a point on the coast denominated
'Concordancia', located 10 kilometers north of the Lluta
River bridge, continuing eastward parallel to and ten
kilometers north of the Chilean section of the Arica-La Paz
railroad". In accordance with the treaty, a bilateral
commission established a series of boundary markers called
"hitos" to delineate the border. Hito 1 is located several
hundred meters inland, within sight of the Concordancia (on
the shoreline where the land meets the sea); subsequent
'hitos' extend northeastward through the desert into the
interior. These 'hitos' and the terrestrial borderline they
describe are undisputed.


3. (U) The 1929 treaty, however, did not explicitly discuss
the maritime border. Peru and Chile eventually addressed
this issue implicitly in two fishing agreements in 1952 and

1954. In the first accord, the parties agreed to respect
their neighbors' sovereign rights over a zone of 200 nautical
miles extending from each country's shore. In the second,
they agreed to establish a band on either side of a "maritime
border" where boats could move freely in order to protect
innocent fishermen that accidentally crossed into the
neighboring country's sovereign waters. The 1954 agreement
established this band along the "parallel that constitutes
the maritime limit between the two countries." That is, for
the purposes of fishing vessels from either country that
strayed into the territorial waters of the other, the
agreement tacitly recognized Peru and Chile's maritime border
as a line projecting westward into the ocean along a
geographical lateral (latitide parallel). In joint protocols
in 1968 and 1969, Peru and Chile confirmed this
interpretation and explicitly established "Hito 1" as the
point of departure for the maritime border.


4. (SBU) In the absence of a formal treaty describing the
maritime boundary between Chile and Peru, Chile observes the
boundary implicitly described in the 1954 fishing agreement
and elaborated in 1968-1967 protocols. For this reason, it
has become and remains Chile's contention that there is no

maritime boundary dispute with Peru. By contrast, Peru
contends that the 1952 and 1954 fishing agreements were never
intended to establish the formal maritime boundary between
the two countries, and do not do so now. Peru believes that
a formal agreement explicitly describing this maritime
boundary is needed to settle the matter once and for all. In
that sense, the core disagreement is whether a dispute exists
at all, with Peru claiming there is one and Chile saying
there is not.


5. (SBU) Many Peruvians further argue that the informal
maritime boundary established in the 1954 fishing agreement
unfairly favors Chile because Peru's landmass north of the
parallel juts westward into the Pacific; as a result, Chile
holds sovereignty over a larger maritime zone, including
coastal waters "in front of" Peru's land mass. (One Peruvian
living near the border told Poloff the parallel runs so close
to land that in some areas one steps off Peruvian soil into
Chilean waters.) Peru argues that the maritime border should
begin at the point of Concordancia -- rather than Hito 1 --
and travel southwest along a line equidistant between Chilean
and Peruvian land (rather than along the geographical
lateral). Peru says this is the solution prescribed by
international law and the implicit intention of the 1929
treaty, which cannot be overridden by a separate agreement on
fishing rights. In arguing for an equidistant line, Peru
claims an additional 37,900 square kilometers of maritime
sovereignty. In arguing that the line should depart from the
point of Concordancia rather than the Hito 1 -- located
slightly north and inland from the Concordancia -- Peru also
claims a small triangle of 37,000 square meters of barren
coastal land.

Comment: To Remove a Thorn
--------------

6. (C) When the Garcia government submitted the maritime
dispute to the Hague in January 2008, it sought mainly to
take the debate off the streets and out of the headlines in
order to resolve a longstanding bilateral irritant in an
"apolitical" manner. It also hoped to wall off the issue
from Peru's broader, commercially vibrant relationship with
Chile. Peruvian officials have reiterated this diplomatic
objective -- alongside the more obvious goal of righting a
historical wrong and recuperating lost territory -- in public
statements marking the submission of Peru's brief in the
Hague. While nationalist opposition leader Ollanta Humala
has come out publicly in support of the GOP's approach, the
periodic deadlines within the Hague process for submitting
arguments and rebuttals are likely to continue providing
pretexts for renewed agitation by nationalistic POLITICAL
actors. (Ref B).
MCKINLEY