Colombia's President Petro accuses Peru of annexing disputed Amazon island
In a social media post on Tuesday, Petro said that Peru had acted to 'unilaterally' assert control over the small island of Santa Rosa in a recent congressional vote.
'The Peruvian government has just appropriated it by law,' Petro wrote on the social media platform X.
He added that Peru's actions could block the Colombian city of Leticia from accessing the Amazon River. 'Our government will resort to diplomacy to defend our national sovereignty.'
Petro's comments appeared to be a response to a vote in June, whereby Peru's Congress designated the island of Santa Rosa a district in its Loreto province.
Who controls the island has been a subject of debate between Peru and Colombia for nearly a century.
Peru has claimed ownership based on treaties from 1922 and 1929, and it has administered Santa Rosa for decades.
But Colombia maintains that the island of Santa Rosa had not emerged from the Amazon River at the time of the treaties and therefore is not subject to them.
It has also argued that the treaties set the boundary between the two countries at the deepest point of the Amazon River, and that islands like Santa Rosa have emerged on the Colombian side of that dividing line.
'Islands have appeared north of the current deepest line, and the Peruvian government has just appropriated them by law and placed the capital of a municipality on land that, by treaty, should belong to Colombia,' Petro wrote.
He warned that Peru's claims to Santa Rosa could inhibit travel and trade to nearby Leticia, which boasts a population of nearly 60,000.
'This unilateral action', Petro wrote on Tuesday, 'could make Leticia disappear as an Amazonian port, taking away its commercial life'.
Petro said he would hold celebrations commemorating Colombian independence from Spain in Leticia on Thursday, framing the island's status as a symbol of national sovereignty.
The Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also said in a social media post that it would push for further diplomacy in determining the nationality of newly emerged islands.
'For years, Colombia has maintained the need to carry out bilateral work for the allocation of islands,' the ministry wrote. Colombia, it added, 'has reiterated the position that 'Santa Rosa Island' has not been allocated to Peru'.
The Amazon River is one of the longest waterways in the world, with the most water discharged of any river.
But those powerful currents deposit and rearrange sediment throughout the river basin, forming – and sometimes erasing – islands.
Santa Rosa is one of those newer islands. The land now contains forest and farmland, as well as the village of Santa Rosa de Yavari.
That town is home to a population of fewer than 1,000 people, according to Peru's latest census, and is largely reliant on tourism, based on its proximity to the Amazon.
The Peruvian government has argued that making Santa Rosa a district was necessary to ensure it received federal funds and could collect taxes.
'Peru is complying firmly with its obligations under international law and with valid bilateral treaties,' the Peruvian government said in a statement.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Jazeera
5 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Did Trump's tariff war force India and China to mend ties?
India and China have agreed to step up trade flows and resume direct flights in a major diplomatic breakthrough, as the two most populous nations try to rebuild ties damaged by a 2020 deadly border clash and amid US President Donald Trump's unpredictable foreign policy. The two rivals also agreed to advance talks on their disputed border during Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's two-day visit to India. The rebuilding of India-China ties coincides with friction between New Delhi and Washington, following the recent imposition of steep tariffs on India by the Trump administration. So why did India and China decide to mend their ties, and what steps were taken to address their border dispute? What specific points were agreed? Discussions covered a range of issues related to withdrawing tens of thousands of troops that both countries have amassed along their Himalayan border, boosting investment and trade flows, hosting more bilateral events, and enhancing travel access. The Asian neighbours agreed to reopen several trading routes – namely the Lipulekh Pass, Shipki La Pass and Nathu La Pass. An expert group will also be established to explore 'early harvest' steps (i.e. mini-agreements that can be implemented quickly before the conclusion of a more complex deal) to improve border management, a move India had previously opposed. In the past, India was keen to avoid a situation where China secured partial gains up front, but where its territorial integrity concerns remained unresolved. India's opposition has accused the government of ceding territory to China. Elsewhere, China has reportedly agreed to address India's concerns over its export curbs on fertilisers, rare earth minerals and tunnel-boring machines, according to Indian media reports. But Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning, when asked about Indian media reports on the lifting of export controls, said she was not familiar with the media reports. 'As a matter of principle, China is willing to strengthen dialogue and cooperation with relevant countries and regions to jointly maintain the stability of the global production and supply chain,' she said in a media briefing on Wednesday. New Delhi and Beijing also agreed to resume direct flights between the two countries, enhance river-sharing data and drop certain visa restrictions for tourists, businesses and journalists. Who said what? During his two-day trip, Wang Yi held meetings with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and India's National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, encounters that will pave the way for Modi's first visit to China in seven years at the end of August. 'Stable, predictable, constructive ties between India and China will contribute significantly to regional as well as global peace and prosperity,' Modi posted on X after his meeting with Wang. Meanwhile, Doval said that China and India had achieved a 'new environment' of 'peace and tranquillity'. He added that 'the setbacks that we faced in the last few years were not in our interest', and 'delimitation and boundary affairs' had been discussed. A readout from China's Foreign Ministry said Wang told Doval that 'the stable and healthy development of China-India relations is in the fundamental interests of the two countries' people'. The two sides 'should enhance mutual trust through dialogues and expand cooperation', Wang said, and should aim for consensus in areas such as border control and demarcation negotiations. Looking ahead, Modi is scheduled to travel to China at the end of this month to take part in the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation – his first visit to the country since June 2018. Why did relations sour in the first place? Relations between the two countries plummeted in 2020 after security forces clashed along their Himalayan border. Four Chinese soldiers and 20 Indian soldiers were killed in the worst violence in decades, freezing high-level diplomatic relations. The chill in relations after the deadly Ladakh clash – the first fatal confrontation between India and China since 1975 – also affected trade and air travel, as both sides deployed tens of thousands of security forces in border areas. Following the border tensions, India imposed curbs on Chinese investments in the country. Months later, New Delhi banned dozens of Chinese apps, including TikTok, owned by China's ByteDance, citing security concerns. But despite the soaring tensions, the bilateral trade between the two countries did not see a drastic drop, and in fact, New Delhi's imports from Beijing have grown to more than $100bn from $65nb in the financial year 2020-2021 as the country's electronics and pharma industries heavily rely on raw materials from China. On Monday, Wang said, 'The setbacks we experienced in the past few years were not in the interest of the people of our two countries. We are heartened to see the stability that is now restored on the borders.' For his part, Modi emphasised the importance of maintaining peace and tranquillity on the border and reiterated India's commitment to a 'fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable resolution of the boundary question', his office said in a statement on Tuesday. Why did the two sides decide to mend ties? The geopolitical disruption caused by Donald Trump's trade wars has helped create an opening for Asia's leading and third-largest economies to try to mend their diplomatic and economic relations. Indeed, the improvement in ties has accelerated since Trump increased tariffs on both countries earlier this year – particularly India, which had been pursuing a closer relationship with the United States in a joint front against China. Moreover, India and the US have been haggling over free trade agreements for months, with Trump accusing India of denying access to American goods due to higher tariffs. China has also been locked in months-long trade negotiations with the US. China and India increased official visits and discussed relaxing some trade restrictions and easing the movement of citizens since Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kazan, Russia last October. In June, Beijing even allowed pilgrims from India to visit holy sites in Tibet while India issued tourist visas to Chinese nationals in a sign of improving ties. But Trump's decision to declare a 25 percent 'reciprocal' tariff on India in June over the country's imports of Russian oil – and his move a week later to raise it again to 50 percent – have hastened dramatic diplomatic realignment. Even the US's close allies – South Korea and Japan – have not been spared by Trump's tariffs. Top Trump officials have accused India of funding Russia's war in Ukraine, with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday accusing India of 'profiteering'. But China's imports of Russian oil are even larger than India's. And on August 12, the US extended a tariff truce on Beijing for another 90 days – staving off triple-digit tariffs. In turn, New Delhi has accused Washington of double standards over its tariff policy. Suhasini Haidar, an Indian journalist writing in the newspaper The Hindu, said that the rationale behind the US sanctions on India is 'dubious'. 'The US has itself increased its trade with Russia since Trump came to power,' she wrote. US Treasury Secretary Bessent, however, has defended Washington's decision not to impose secondary sanctions against China, saying Beijing 'has a diversified input of their oil'. Beijing's import of Russian oil, he said, went from 13 percent to 16 percent while India's went from less than one percent to over 40 percent. Trump's claim that he secured a ceasefire between India and Pakistan has further caused anger in India, which has refused to give credit to the US president for the May 10 ceasefire that stopped the five-day war between the nuclear-armed neighbours. Trump's hosting of the Pakistan Army's General Asim Munir has not helped the cause, either. US-India relations have frayed despite Modi cultivating personal ties with Trump, particularly during his first term. The Indian prime minister was Trump's first guest in his second term in February, when he coined the slogan 'Make India Great Again' (MIGA), borrowing from Trump's 'Make America Great Again' (MAGA) base. 'MAGA plus MIGA becomes a mega partnership for prosperity,' Modi said. But Trump's repeated attacks on India have poured cold water on 'the partnership', with Indian foreign policy experts fearing the ties are headed towards uncharted territory. 'At risk is three decades of India's economic ascent, and its careful positioning as an emerging power, shaped in the shadow of US strategic backing,' wrote Sushant Singh, a lecturer in South Asian studies at Yale University, in the Financial Times. 'Trump has shredded India's road map; it could be replaced by strategic drift, realignment or eventual rapprochement.' The turbulence in India-US ties has forced New Delhi to repair ties with its adversary China, which supplies military equipment to Pakistan and took the side of Islamabad during the recent war. Amid Trump's trade war, New Delhi and Beijing have joined forces to improve trade and people-to-people contact. The new developments may also boost relations between members of the BRICS bloc – with India and China being the group's founding members, along with Brazil, Russia and South Africa. India and China will host the 2026 and 2027 BRICS summits, respectively. Trump has also railed against BRICS nations, warning the member nations against challenging the US dollar.
Al Jazeera
a day ago
- Al Jazeera
Peru's Constitutional Court pauses probes into President Dina Boluarte
The Constitutional Court of Peru has paused investigations into Dina Boluarte until her term ends in 2026, citing her position as the country's sitting president. On Tuesday, the court suspended probes led by the public prosecutor's office that looked into alleged misconduct under Boluarte. 'The suspended investigations will continue after the end of the presidential term,' the ruling explained. One of the most significant probes had to do with Boluarte's response to the protests that erupted in Peru in December 2022, after the embattled president at the time, Pedro Castillo, attempted to dissolve Congress. Instead, Castillo was impeached, removed from office and imprisoned, with critics calling his actions an attempted coup d'etat. His removal, in turn, prompted months of intense public backlash: Thousands of protesters blocked roads and led marches in support of the left-wing leader. Boluarte, who took over the presidency, declared a state of emergency in response, and the subsequent clashes between the police and protesters killed more than 60 people and left hundreds injured. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights found that, in certain parts of the country, 'the disproportionate, indiscriminate, and lethal use of force was a major element of the State response to the protests'. It noted that 'a significant number of victims were not even involved in the protests'. In January 2023, Attorney General Patricia Benavides launched a probe into the actions of Boluarte and her ministers. By November of that year, Benavides had filed a constitutional complaint, accusing Boluarte of causing death and injury to protesters. The public prosecutor's office later set aside part of the investigation, which delved into whether Boluarte's actions amounted to 'genocide'. Boluarte has denied any wrongdoing and instead called the protest probe a distraction from the attorney general's own public scandals. But Boluarte has continued to face probes into other aspects of her presidency. Police in 2024 raided her home and the presidential palace as part of the 'Rolex case', an investigation prompted by media reports that Boluarte owned multiple luxury watches and high-end jewellery that were beyond her means to purchase. Critics have accused her of seeking illicit enrichment. Boluarte, however, said her hands were 'clean', and Congress denied motions to impeach her over the 'Rolex case'. Another investigation looked into her absence from office in 2023, when Boluarte said she had to undergo a 'necessary and essential' medical procedure on her nose — though critics have said it was a cosmetic procedure. Her absence, they argue, was therefore a dereliction of duty, done without notifying Congress. In that case, too, Boluarte has denied the charges. Peru has weathered much instability in its government: Boluarte is the sixth president in seven years, and virtually all of Peru's presidents have faced criminal investigations, if not convictions, in the last quarter century. Boluarte, however, had petitioned the Constitutional Court to stop the investigations until her term is over. She is set to exit her office on July 28, 2026, after calling for a new general election in March. She has faced public pressure to resign since taking over for Castillo in December 2022.
Al Jazeera
a day ago
- Al Jazeera
Why does Russia want Ukraine's Donbas region?
As leaders of Russia, Ukraine, the United States and Europe met to discuss a possible Russia-Ukraine war endgame, one part of Ukraine drew increasing attention: The Donbas, an industrial region in the eastern part of the country that has been a primary battlefield in the current war. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, it has come to control a majority – but not all of – the Donbas. After its invasion, Russia held elections that election specialists criticised as illegitimate in four Ukrainian territories. Russia then annexed the four territories. Two of the four annexed territories were Donetsk and Luhansk, which collectively form the Donbas. Russia currently controls all of Luhansk and a portion of Donetsk; Ukraine maintains control in the portions of Donetsk around the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. (The other territories Russia annexed were Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, of which Russia controls about 75 percent.) Russian President Vladimir Putin wants any settlement to end the war to include giving Russia full control of the Donbas. To Ukrainians, this would be a bitter pill to swallow, effectively rewarding Russia for launching a war of conquest. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters in mid-August, 'We will not leave the Donbas. We cannot do that.' Why does Russia want the Donbas? One factor driving Russia is that the region, despite some decline, possesses economic assets. 'The Donbas was highly industrialised in the mid-20th century, though it became something of a Rust Belt after the Cold War,' said Mark F Cancian, a senior adviser with the defence and security department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Donbas also has mineral resources, and its farmland 'is some of the best in the world', Cancian said. A second factor is the region's strategic value. Its port of Mariupol provides Black Sea access, and as 'the longest-lasting battlefield in the war', it's one that both sides would be loath to give up, said Erik Herron, a West Virginia University political scientist. Putin could see control of Donbas as a way to 'goad the West and create havoc', said Richard Arnold, a Muskingum University political scientist. Perhaps the biggest factor for Russia, though, is that the region is home to many Russian speakers, many of whom migrated there during the Soviet era. 'The Donbas played an important role in Soviet socialist mythology' as home of the archetypal 'Soviet man', said Alexander Motyl, a political scientist at Rutgers University-Newark. 'Russia has made many unsubstantiated claims about the treatment of Russian speakers there by the Ukrainian government,' Herron said. As a result, 'Donbas is symbolically central to Russia's story about why the war is happening.' The Donbas' value to Russia may be more symbolic than tangible, experts said. 'Donbas is critical to fulfilling the vision of the 'Russkiy Mir' – the 'Russian world' – that Putin is trying to create,' said Matthew Schmidt, a University of New Haven political scientist. Does Russia have a legitimate claim on the Donbas? Experts say Russian claims on the Donbas region are dubious. Russia argues that Ukraine was part of 'greater Russia' for 500 years. However, this period ended in 1994 when Russia, Ukraine, the US and the United Kingdom signed the Budapest Memorandum. 'Ukraine lived up to its part of the agreement, but Russia violated it in 2014' when it seized Crimea, Herron said. 'Just because something was one way once does not make it legitimate now,' Arnold said. Russia also argues that the region's Russian speakers want to be part of Russia. But two decades ago, Herron coauthored a study that found that the majority of Russian speakers living in Ukraine saw Ukraine as their homeland and did not look to Russia as a defender of their interests. 'Just because someone may use Russian as their primary language of communication does not mean that they have social and political preferences that align with Moscow,' Herron said. He said subsequent research has supported this view. As an analogy, experts noted that English-speaking Canadians don't consider themselves American, while Spanish-speaking Americans often do. 'Lots of Ukrainians in eastern Ukraine, including ethnic Ukrainians, speak or spoke Russian as their first language,' said Steven Pifer, a former US ambassador to Ukraine who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. 'One of them is Volodymyr Zelenskyy.' Would Ukraine be willing to give up the Donbas? The Ukrainian government's firm position has been to maintain its claim on Donbas, and it's one widely shared by the Ukrainian public. 'Any land deal is not just about the land, but also about the people who live on that land,' Herron said. 'Ukrainians have observed how their friends and relatives have been treated in occupied territories and are not supportive of subjecting more Ukrainians to Russian rule.' But the possibility of Ukraine acknowledging the military facts on the ground provides some room to manoeuvre. Zelenskyy's call for a ceasefire would mean continued Russian control of the areas in Donbas that Russia currently holds, even if Ukraine does not give up its formal, long-term claim. 'The Ukrainians might accept an arrangement whereby they don't cede sovereignty but accept the situation on the ground,' Cancian said. 'Getting some security guarantees from NATO will be critical for any deal.'
