Chile: the balanced view : a recopilation of articles about the Allende years and after

maíntaín a close relation to Chile's international interests, The Foreign Minister of Brazil, Gibson Barbosa, visited all of the countries which signed the Andean Pact, except ours, Later, 8razi I once again declared its right lo explore the Antarctic region, RELATIONS WITH PERU Relations with the Populíst military government of Peru -were carried out on a very cordial leve!. However, it is evidenl thal thal governmenl knew how to recognize the negative experience that Chile underwent in the construction of Socialism, First of all, the government of Peru has made it clear that although it does not share a capjtalist criterion, neither does it share a Marxist one; thus the argument often jnvoked by the Popular Unity that there existed an ideological affinity between the two countries is false, The Peruvian government has intelligently not sought a ruplure with the United States, which has even been demonstrated by Ihe facl that the confl ict arisen from the expropriation of the IPC have been solved through effective and discrete negotiatio~s; for the same reason, the problem of Cuba was first taken to the heart of the OAS before proceeding to take unilateral measures, In second place, Peru benefited directly from Chile's economic chaos, The crisis from the produclion of Chilean copper, at Ihe same time as the difficulties arisen in ils commer– cialization as a consequence 01 the embargos in Europe, created a vacuum Ihal Peruvian copper was preparing to fiil, among other ways through the attraction of foreign capital., By the same token, the competilive capacity of Peru in the Andean group was rapidly growing as a consequence of Chilean inefficiency, as was also observed in Ecuador, For al! of these reasons, Peru was not interested in showinJ any hostility towards Chile, However, jt is a well-known fact in international polilic that the economic weakness of a country is not the best guarantee tor its security, something which certainly would not go unnoticed by a military elite which unfortunately has never been ,known for ils sympalhy towards Chile, regard less of the .ídeology of eilher of the two countries, Al so, the abandonment of the North of Chile, as of the South, seriously affected national security, this being the reason why exceptional measures were taken during previous administrations,(2) RELATIONS WITH BOLIVIA The existing political climate between Chile and Bolivia could nol have been worse, The Bol ivian government has been the one lhat perceived more clearly in Chile's economic weakness an almost unique opportunitv to reinforce her sea claims to the extent that on March 23, 1973 her Presidenl indicated that by 1979, a century afterthe Pacific War, Bolivia would have a shore on the Pacific ocean, In Chile the Bolivian claims have always been looked on with scorn, an attitude which comes from the economic and military superiority of Chile in the past. However, it should nol be overlooked that before the Portalian era, when Chile was politically divided and swept by bandits, the situation was the reverse, to such an extent thal Qur country asked for credits from Bolivia on various occasions, There were two aspectsofthe Popular Unity policy which helped stimulate the Bolivian pretensions, apart from the internal economic chaos which has already been mentioned, The first, which stemmed trom ideological fanaticism, was the incredible clumsiness shown by the government in supporting almost histerically the Panamanian position of revising the Treaty wilh the Uniled Stales with regards to the Panama Canal, which held a much too evident contradiction with respect to the argument that Chile had always advoca– ted with success in favor of the impossiblity of revising international treaties, This is not the same that in this case Chile had to support the position of the United States, but only that jt (2)"Weakness In the Extremes: The Northem and Sourthern Zones" ("Debilidad en los Extremos: La Zona Norte y la Zona Sur"). a repor! in El Mercurio 01 Santiago. July 29. 1973, illustrated this sad phenomenon, 80