Colombian president stirs up border tension over Santa Rosa Island: ‘The treaty has not been complied with, Peru violated it’

Tensions are escalating. Colombian President Gustavo Petro doubled down on Thursday on his territorial claim to an island in the Amazon River that has emerged as a source of conflict in a border dispute with Peru. “Colombia does not recognize Peru’s sovereignty over the so-called Santa Rosa Island and does not recognize the de facto authorities” in that enclave, he proclaimed before a small crowd of supporters, officials, and pro-government congressmembers.

The president had moved the commemorations of the Battle of Boyacá from the site of the battle where Simón Bolívar sealed Colombia’s independence in 1819 to the border port of Leticia, about 1,000 kilometers south. From this Amazonian border city, which is hosting the Colombian national holiday for the first time, the president emphasized that he was reading a diplomatic declaration as head of state on the date that also marks the third of his four years in power.

In response, Peruvian Prime Minister Eduardo Arana announced a visit to the disputed island that same day. The two events, separated by just a few hours and a couple of kilometers, underscore the importance awarded by both governments in recent days to a dispute that had been dormant for years.

The Colombian president, who has adopted a campaign-style tone for the final stretch of his four-year term, gave his speech a nationalist twist by resurfacing a long-standing dispute that arose around 1970, decades after the boundary treaties signed a century ago. “Islands have emerged north of the current deepest line [of the Amazon River], and the Peruvian government has simply appropriated them by law and placed the capital of a municipality on land that, by treaty, should belong to Colombia,” Petro tweeted on Tuesday, announcing the unprecedented transfer of the independence celebrations to Leticia, in the far south of the country and on the triple border with Peru and Brazil.

“Of course rivers change, because they are alive, because the planet is in flux,” Petro reaffirmed this Thursday. “The river has changed, and the treaty foresaw it,” he asserted. “The treaty has not been complied with, Peru violated it.”

Santa Rosa, with some 3,000 inhabitants who consider themselves to be Peruvian, is getting physically closer to the Colombian coast. The Colombian Foreign Ministry maintains that the island was never formally awarded to Peru, and that the territories established on the river since the treaties of 1922 and 1929 must undergo “a mutually agreed-upon allocation process.” At stake is Leticia’s direct access to the Amazon, at risk due to changes in the course of the world’s largest river. “The Peruvian government has seized territory that belongs to Colombia,” Petro insisted.

The crisis has taken Dina Boluarte’s administration by surprise. Peru has expressed its “strong protest” over the remarks of a leader who often conducts diplomacy through the social platform X, his preferred communication channel. For the Peruvian Foreign Ministry, there is no debate: Santa Rosa was born from another island, Chinería, which the treaties awarded to Peru. Therefore, the ministry asserts, Peru has every right to create a new municipality or district there. “This territorial constituency is under the sovereignty and jurisdiction of our country,” said the ministry in a press release.

The town of Santa Rosa has always functioned as part of Peru. With around 3,000 inhabitants, it is home to public institutions such as the police, the National Bank, and customs, as well as a school and a hospital. The main branch of the river once flowed between it and Leticia, a substantially larger town with a population of around 55,000. However, in recent years, changes in the tributary have caused the waterflow there to decrease, to the point that various authorities and experts fear the port will cease to function and Colombia will lose its connection to the Amazon.

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Santa Rosa Island is not the only new formation in the river since Colombia and Peru defined their boundaries. After a war between 1930 and 1932 over demarcation, the countries agreed that a binational commission would resolve any future differences. This has not happened, despite changes in the two rivers that serve as their border (the Putumayo, further west). Last year, tensions escalated during the Amazonian Confraternity Festival in Leticia. In front of Peruvian authorities, the director of Territorial Sovereignty of the Colombian Foreign Ministry spoke of an “occupation” of the island, Lima sent a note of protest, and Bogotá apologized.

Peru then took a step toward strengthening its sovereignty by enacting a law creating Santa Rosa as a district of the Loreto region. For Óscar Vidarte, an internationalist and professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, this was a reaction to last year’s crisis. “The creation of the district seeks to give greater legitimacy to the claim and strengthen the island against any Colombian claim,” he notes.

Relations between the two countries have been tense since December 2022, to the point that Petro has deemed President Boluarte illegitimate. He argues that his predecessor, Pedro Castillo, improperly left office—removed after an episode widely considered by other countries to be a self-coup. Petro considered the decision “a coup d’état” and recalled his ambassador; Boluarte, who relied on right-wing sectors, denounced “interference” and took the same measure. Since then, diplomatic delegations have been led by chargés d’affaires. Last May, Boluarte left Petro holding his hand at Daniel Noboa’s inauguration ceremony as Ecuador’s president.

For this latest chapter in the deterioration of relations, Petro was flanked by several ministers from a cabinet undergoing constant reshuffle. They included Interior Minister Armando Benedetti, who has been a spokesperson for the unexpected crisis with Peru; acting Foreign Minister Rosa Villavicencio; and Defense Minister, retired General Pedro Sánchez. He was also accompanied by Vice President Francia Márquez, despite their public estrangement. Differences that can be put aside when national sovereignty is on the table.