TRANSPORT-PERU: Internal Disputes over Road Links with Brazil

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Abraham Lama

LIMA, Sep 5 2001 (IPS) - The Peruvian government’s decision to keep an old promise to build a highway giving Brazil a route to the Pacific coast has triggered a conflict between four of the Andean nation’s provinces.

The administration of President Alejandro Toledo, who took office July 28, must decide between a highway route that passes through the southern departments of Cuzco and Arequipa, and the original plan, which put the route through Puno and Moquegua departments, further south.

The population of Puno, the departmental seat located near Peru’s border with Bolivia, joined in the fray Monday. Residents began what was considered a successful 48-hour strike, which included setting up roadblocks on highways in the area, to demand that the inter-ocean route pass through their department – and bring much-needed economic benefits with it.

Puno’s parliamentary representatives and municipal authorities added their voices to the popular protest and now say they will lead a march to Lima, taking their demands directly to the Toledo administration.

While the strike was underway in Puno, government representatives from Brazil and Peru and experts from the United Nations met in the capital to study the potential courses of the binational highway.

According to the project drafted by the government of Valentín Paniagua, the interim president who preceded Toledo, the road would begin in the Peruvian port of Matarani, passing through Arequipa and Cuzco, then the Amazon city of Puerto Maldonado, to continue into the Brazilian state of Acre.

The energetic response of the residents and authorities in Puno, evident in the 48-hour protest this week, stands in contrast to the indifference, or low-key opposition of previous Peruvian governments to finalising a road link with Brazil.

Since the international commitment was first made in 1952, the successive governments here had ignored the plan to establish a land route connecting a Peruvian port with the Brazilian port of Santos, located 72 km from Sao Paulo on the Atlantic coast.

The intention of this long-ignored project is to facilitate transport of merchandise and people between the two countries, which today occurs by air, by sea – via the inter-ocean routes of the Panama Canal or around Cape Horn – or by the rivers of the Amazon.

The commitment to build the highway had been shelved because Peru feared that Brazil’s commercial and social expansion westward would cause territorial disputes between the two countries, says retired Gen. Edgardo Mercado Jarrín, a noted Peruvian military and geopolitical analyst.

So a long series of governments opted against allowing Brazilian access to Peru, seeking to reinforce development in the border areas first.

“That wariness was a mistake, a dead-end, because without highways Peru could not engage in social or economic development in its Amazon jungle areas along the border, so the towns continued to lag behind and are therefore vulnerable,” explained Mercado Jarrín.

But under the government of the Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), who was removed from office last year due to a wave of scandals, Peru overcame its cautious approach and decided to take up the issue of physical integration with Brazil. The plan was for a highway between the Brazilian border and the southern Peruvian port of Ilo, with the intention of competing with Chile’s port of Arica.

The provisional government of president Paniagua, the senator from Cuzco who replaced Fujimori, modified the project so that it no longer passed through Puno en route to Ilo, but through Cuzco instead. President Toledo apparently plans to uphold Paniagua’s project, though reportedly has some reservations.

At the summit of South American leaders in September 2000, Peru reaffirmed its commitment to complete, as soon as possible, work on its portion of one of the region’s most important roadway projects.

With the land route connecting the two coasts, Peru offers Brazil an export route to the countries of the Pacific Basin, a cheaper option than having to sail from the Atlantic coast around the South American continent.

Peru also hopes to sell Brazil agro-industrial products, transported on the future highway, and to open a tourism route to Cuzco and Arequipa for visitors from Brazil, particularly the wealthy ranchers and soy farmers from the Brazilian state of Acre.

In Brazil, the projected endpoint of the route would be Santos, but the Peruvian government has to decide whether the Pacific end will be Ilo or Matarani.

The people of Puno are demanding that the Toledo administration implement the route approved eight years ago, which connects Ilo, in Moquegua department, with Puno, extending to the border town of Iñapari, in the department of Madre de Dios, then on into Brazil.

They point out that the route passing through their department would be 1,200 km on the Peruvian side, while the path through Cuzco and Arequipa to the Brazilian border would be 1,600 km.

“The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and therefore the cheapest option for building a highway and for the costs of future transport. We want the government to follow the original plan,” said Julián Salas, mayor of the city of Puno.

Salas announced this week that he would lead a march from Puno to Lima to press the Toledo government to choose the route passing through his department so that Puno and Moquegua might become an axis for regional development.

For his part, Carlos Valencia, mayor of Cuzco, condemned the people of Puno for having taken “the nonsensical approach of blocking highways in demanding that a new and more important highway pass through their territory.”

“We believe that simple geometrical concepts, like the shortest distance, are not the only thing to be taken into account, but that social, economic and commercial concepts must be considered as well,” said Valencia.

“We demand that the government convene an evaluation of the highway projects that takes into account all of these factors, and we will calmly await the results,” said the Cuzco mayor.