Is Bolivia the new enemy of Peru?

In television statements, congressman Alejandro Cavero stated the following: “Obviously, there is an attempt by a sector of the Bolivian government that leads Evo Moraleswho is basically the shadow president of boliviana geopolitical intention of […] annex a part of southern Peru. That has always been the Bolivian aspiration because Bolivians, having no sea, their aspiration is not only lithium from Puno, but also access to the sea, gas from Cusco”.

I do not question that Morales be an authoritarian leader with a vocation to interfere in our internal affairs. I would say, however, that nothing of what Cavero said is recorded in official or unofficial Bolivian documents, and that his allegations are not supported by the facts.

Let’s start with the Bolivian Mediterranean. Bolivia has always made it explicit that its claim is to obtain a sovereign outlet to the sea through the territory of the country that deprived it of that outlet, that is, Chile. Since the middle of the last century, bolivian The US and Chile have held negotiations to that end: thus, in 1950, under the presidency of Gabriel Gonzales Videla, Chile contemplated the possibility of ceding a strip of territory to the north of Arica contiguous to its border with Peru. In 1975, presidents Augusto Pinochet and Hugo Banzer held the so-called “Charaña negotiation”, with exactly the same purpose (which is why Chile consulted Peru about the possibility of offering Bolivia access to the sea for territory that was Peruvian until the War of the Pacific, as established in the 1929 treaty). During the first government of Michelle Bachelet there was a new bilateral negotiation on the same issue. It is precisely based on those Chilean offers that, in its claim against Chile before the International Court of Justice, bolivian He maintained that that country had the obligation to negotiate in his favor a sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean.

As for lithium, Bolivia has the world’s largest reserves of this mineral and does not exploit them. For example, according to “The Economist”, the pilot plant that that country installed in 2013 produced 600 tons of lithium carbonate in 2021, while Chile produced 134,000 tons. It is not clear why bolivian it would risk a war with Peru to appropriate a mineral that it has in abundance and that it practically does not exploit.

Aerial view of the new state-owned lithium extraction complex, in the southern zone of the Uyuni Salt Flat, Bolivia, on July 10, 2019. – Bolivia is getting ready to produce lithium, key for China’s electromotive industry. (Photo by Pablo COZZAGLIO / AFP)

About the gas of Cusco, bolivian It has gas reserves in Tarija that are much larger than those of Camisea. The paradox is that the person our right has historically accused of trying to appropriate both the Camisea gas and the water from Lake Titicaca went to Chile. For example, in a 2005 article in the newspaper “Correo” titled “Why is Chile buying arms?”, Juan Carlos Valdivia argued that, considering “the problems of energy and water supply for its mining complexes […], for some time there has been talk that Chile would have set its sights on the gas from Camisea and Tarija, and the water from springs in Bolivia and from Lake Titicaca in our country”. Something similar was argued by Juan Carlos Tafur in an article of the same year entitled “Preparing for war?”. Even if it were not true, at least the alleged aggressor was a country with a clear military superiority over Peru.

On the influence of Morales, in a recent article in the magazine “Nueva Sociedad”, Fernando Molina maintains the following regarding the arrest of opposition leader Luis Fernando Camacho: “It is assumed that if Arce decided to act now it was to gain positions in the war cold that develops between him and the leader of his party, former president Evo Morales. He had criticized him for not being tough enough with ‘the coup right wing’ led by Camacho”. Morales is not president of Bolivia neither in the sun nor in the shade.

Source: Elcomercio