Monday, Jan. 10, 1977

Girding for a Bloody Anniversary

Add another entry to the list of potential trouble spots around the world: the barren but mineral-rich Atacama Desert at the narrow border between Chile and Peru.

On one side of the frontier (see map), the Peruvians have been moving troops, Soviet-built T-55 tanks and American-made armored personnel carriers into burgeoning military bases in the southern border provinces. On the other side, the Chileans, bracing for a possible invasion, are mining the desert, implanting tank traps and building fortifications. While tensions across this sere, sparsely populated frontier have smoldering for nearly a century, the situation lately has become especially volatile as Peru and Chile frantically arm.

In recent months, for example, the Peruvians have bought 36 modern Soviet Su-22 assault jets, at a cost of $250 million, and are thought to be negotiating for more. Peru has a present stock of Soviet-made weaponry, which includes some 250 T-55 tanks (200 more are on order) and scores of SA-2 and SA3 antiaircraft missiles. All this comes on top of a sizable arsenal acquired since the late 1960s--including French Mirage jets, British patrol boats and U.S. transport planes--that has made Peru the leading military power on South America's west coast.

The Russian role in Peru continues to worry Washington, even though Lima has taken a definite turn to the right in the past year. Peru is still $500 million in hock to Moscow, and Peruvian pilots have been receiving flight training in Cuba from Soviet advisers.

Chile, with 79,600 men under arms (v. 63,000 for the Peruvians), would be the underdog in any set-to with its northern neighbor, partly because it has found modern weapons almost impossible to buy. Reason: the U.S. and Britain have imposed tight embargoes on sales of arms to General Augusto Pinochet's regime because of its callous record on human rights. Although Chile has begun receiving about 50 American F-5E and A-37 warplanes, ordered before the embargo, they may not be a match for Peru's Russian-made Su-22s, especially if Soviet training improves the quality of Peruvian pilots.

American-made F-4 Phantoms, which can easily handle the Su-22s and are eagerly sought by Chile's air force, are barred by the embargo. Chilean commanders also feel that they desperately need better tanks and more antitank and antiaircraft missiles. While Santiago has been able to make some purchases from private arms traders, the weapons acquired have been relatively unsophisticated and expensive. Moans a senior military analyst in Santiago: "Chile gets less for more."

Rich Deposits. The issue inflaming the Chilean and Peruvian nationalism, which is pulling the two countries to the brink of war, is possession of the Atacama Desert's rich deposits of copper, silver and nitrates. Peru lost the land to Chile during the War of the Pacific (1879-1883). Since then, Peruvian leaders occasionally have talked about regaining the lost territory, hinting that this would be accomplished by the war's centenary--now only two years away.

Some of the recent increase in bellicosity on both sides may reflect calculated attempts by both Chile's Pinochet and Peruvian President Francisco Morales Bermudez to take their countrymen's minds off the soaring inflation and unemployment that plague both nations. Yet the Peruvians' century-old bitter hatred toward their southern neighbors is real and runs deep. To this day, for example, misbehaving Peruvian children are disciplined with the threat: "You'll be given to the Chileans." The anti-Chilean mood has intensified with the approach of the centenary.

A further recent irritation in Peruvian-Chilean relations has been the two countries' inability to agree on a formula for giving the Bolivians the access to the sea they lost when, as an ally of Peru, they were also defeated in the War of the Pacific. Chile recently offered to cede a strip along its border with Peru to Bolivia as a corridor to the sea. But Peru objected and invoked its right, obtained under a 1929 treaty, to veto any further change in status of territory that had once belonged to it. One reason for its objection is that Peru opposes the creation of a buffer between it and Chile.

Armed Conflict. If war broke out, Peru's armor and modern planes would probably blitz about 35 miles into the Atacama. But the Chileans, regarded by some military men as the better fighters and tacticians, might be able to regroup and eventually push back the Peruvians. An armed conflict, if it did occur, would not only take a bloody toll of the participants but could also tempt other countries on the continent into similar action. Potentially volatile territorial disputes, for example, simmer between Venezuela and both Guyana and Colombia, and also between Peru and Ecuador.

To head off any Peruvian-Chilean clash, Latin American bishops and U.S. diplomats, among others, have been trying to defuse the situation. However, both countries have already suffered a defeat--wasting valuable resources on arms at a time when the money could have been spent on advancing their underdeveloped economies.

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