Andean Wars

The Andean Wars were a series of continuous wars fought in the Andean region, mostly involving Peru and Charcas, and with appearances of Cundina, Ecuador, Chile, the former North Peruvian Republic, Argentina, Brazil, the United States, the Soviet Union, among many others. These would start in 1937 and finish in 1991.

= War of 37' (1937-1942) =







The United Republic of Peru-Charcas (commonly known as the Andean Union) was a unitary republic formed in 1912. This republic saw a somewhat prosperous beginning, although unrest would rapidly increase.

When the Viceroyalty of New Granada was created in 1717, it was clarified the areas above the Marañón and Amazon River were part of this Viceroyalty. Yet in a Spanish royal decree in 1802, the whole "Comandancia General de Maynas" was given to the Viceroyalty of Peru. After the decisive Peruvian victory in its war of independence, it was left clear the Peruvians were not an easy rival, and so Maynas given de facto authority to Peru, with exception of a few settlements beyond Ecuador's Andes mountain range. The reason for this was mostly due to uninterest by the Spanish in the region and for avoiding another war. Nevertheless Spain would still claim the area, stating that the royal decree actually never came to be effective and that it was still part of the Viceroyalty of New Granada.

Thus, throughout the following decades, Peruvian settlements in the zone started to be peacefully built without arising any tensions with the Spanish.

This unique situation changed when Ecuador and Cundina became independent in 1910. These two countries just became independent a few decades ago and had fierce territorial ambitions. "Maynas" provided access to the Amazon river, this made Cundina and Ecuador interested in the region and demanded a division of the land on multiple occasions. The Andean Union was conformed with the Status Quo of De Facto authority over the area and thus ignored the demands. This would result in the building of Cundinan and Ecuadorian settlements over the region to impose their influence and to arise tension with the Andeans. The most provocative action made was the construction of the Leticia settlement in 1931, a town bordering the Amazon river and the Andean Union's de jure territory. While this significantly arose tensions and the Andeans rapidly built a fortification close to the village, the Andeans did not oppose and admitted the construction of this town.

In 1934 Cundina and Ecuador made a secret treaty dividing the areas uniquely for themselves, a year later this treaty would come to light, and the three nations quickly started to mobilize troops over the area. The war seemed inevitable, and in 1936 the Cundinans would blast down an Andean merchant ship passing near the city of Leticia and the Ecuadorians would take an Andean fortress, marking the beginning of the war. The fortress was easily seized back by the Andeans a month later, and in November 1937, the Cundinans would take the Andean city of El Encanto, to which the Andeans would respond with the taking of the city of Leticia.

Originally the Cundinan and Ecuadorian administrations thought a victory against the Andean union would be easy since this was an unstable and declining nation. While the Andeans did face serious socio-economic difficulties, they did not know its military still stood as one of the most prominent of the regions. In addition, an internal conflict would arise in Ecuador the same year of the war, this would lead to the Andeans quickly taking the province of El Oro, the revolting city of Guayaquil, and subsequently all the southern part of Ecuador. One Andean key victory was carried out by Jose Quiñones, a pilot of the Air Force who impacted and blown his aeroplane with him inside into an Ecuadorian counter-air defence, subsequently dying; Quiñones would be remembered as a Peruvian national hero. In just a year, the Andeans would occupy Ecuador and focus all its troops on Cundina. After long years of battle, Peru-Charcas would occupy the city of Cali and start having quick and decisive victories inside of the Cundinan territory. The Cundinans, alarmed by the Andeans and in fear of a further advance into their territory, would sign a peace treaty in 1942 in which Peru would take the whole "Comandancia General de Maynas" for themselves, and receive payment from Cundina and Ecuador for war reparations.

= Andean Civil War (1945-1948) =





The Andean Union was a an agrarian country with a low standard of living. The devastating war of 34' terribly worsened the socio-economic landscape, leading to starvation, unrest and instability all across the Andean Union. In spite of the Charcan participation in the war, they ended up not gaining any territories, all being given to the Peruvian part, and they were underrepresented in a union where Peru was clearly the dominant. This led to a spark of Charcan nationalism. The Charcan Liberation party, largely supported by the Charcan population, would begin arming themselves and holding parallel control of towns and cities across Charcas, claiming for independence. The Andean goverment would immediately try to opress these revolts. Thus, beginning the start of a conflict between the "Unionist" Peruvians and Andean government against the Charcan "Separatists" as they were known. Taking advantage of the fragile situation, the widely supported socialist movement lead by José Carlos Mariátegui, would start rebelling and holding control of various settlements. This resulted in a multi-sided civil war in 1944 between the government, socialists, and Charcan separatists. The government would remain prominent in the coastal areas of Peru, Separatists would take most of the Charcan territory, and the "United Socialist Movement of the Andes" would expand between Western Charcas and inland Peru. The overly expansion of the socialist across the country was a surprise for the rest of the belligerents, since it was not considered a major rival at first. In addition, other small factions like anarchists and indigenous independence movements would rebel in a smaller scale.

Mariátegui was a unionist who advocated for a revolution that should evolve organically based on local conditions and practices. Mariartegui was the president of the "United Socialist Movement for the Andes", which advocated for a united socialist Andean Union, where indigenous traditions would grow peacefully alongside the European values that were inevitably increasing by globalization. The ideology, ideas and revisions to Marx made by Mariartegui who was affectionately known by his Quechua name, "Amauta" resulted in a new variety of Marxism known as Amautaism. This ideology held positive view of a nation's cultures, where tradition, especially indigenous, were considered as one of the few values that society had not lost to capitalism. This differences and contrasts the classic Marxist beliefs of culture and superstructure where it is viewed as a mean for the dominant class to maintain its hegemony over society.

After three years of internal war, no side appeared to be moving significantly further and the war started to appear as if it would not have a near conclusion. This concerned the United States and the USSR who feared the Andean Union would eventually turn to either a completely communist or capitalist state.

This ultimately resulted in the Rio de Janeiro Conference of 1947, intended to settle the Andean conflict. It involved several nations including diplomats from the United States, the Soviet Union, the Netherlands, Argentina, Chile, the Andean Union, the United Socialist Movement for the Andes, and the Republic of Charcas. The conference ultimately agreed the Andean union would split into three countries, The Northern portion of Peru would become an American backed nation named the "Republic of North Peru", the Southern turning into a multi-party socialist constitutional monarchy named "South Peruvian People's State", restoring the title of Inca and giving it to the throne's successor.

= Peru War (1953-1955)=

The new Republic of North Peru had the difficulty of their deficient borders hastily drawn by the World powers. A lot of socialist groups remained inside North Peru and they immediately began to rise up. The Americans intervened in the North Peruvian elections leading to the rise of pro-American, Manuel Odria as the president of North Peru. His government was remarkably corrupt and authoritarian for the purpose of eradicating the socialist insurgency, although this ended in a mass discontent with the new government. A significant issue was that as a difference to socialism, there was not huge support of capitalism inside Peru, with the population being apolitical or indifferent about it. Thus more and more citizens started to protest and align with leftist ideas imported from their socialist neighbours. The Eastern Bloc and South Peruvian support of the guerrilla groups, added to the massive protests in the cities made the situation extremely difficult to handle.

In South Peru, the widely supported Mariártegui had been elected as the new president. He organized a 5 years plan that rapidly improved the economy and quality of life in the country. This helped to modernize and grow the national army and fund the North Peruvian guerrillas, while still not joining the war. The foundation of the Perucom, a pro-amautaist revolutionary guerrilla organization in North Peru, unified the different Amautaist belligerent movements into one single armed force with the purpose of coordinating, strengthening and solidifying the insurgency.

After three years of internal war in North Peru, guerrillas power and support grew significantly, and Western support was the main reason for the North Peruvians to keep upholding. Yet in 1951 a surprise attack was launched against North Peru in which a rapid, overwhelming force concentration of South Peruvian, Soviet and other socialist forces. This would become the first proxy war in South America, Latin America and the Americas for the Cold War conflict. Despite the fierce North Peruvian resistance, in less than 4 months South Peru had occupied the entirety of its neighbour. This quick and humiliating defeat made clear to the Americans that they needed to make stronger efforts against communism if it was needed to stop.

1 month before the war ended with North Peru, Chile joined the war with the intention of stopping the South Peruvian advance by making it a two-front war. Nevertheless, North Peru capitulated before predicted and socialist Peru was ready to mobilize its entire forces towards Chile earlier than expected. The war with chile would last one year, initially with the Chilean army victoriously pushing towards Peruvian territory, occupying important cities like Moquega, Ilo and Arequipa. The situation would turn with the increasing mobilization of Peruvian experienced troops that came from the North Peruvian front. Peru would retake their occupied land by Chile and after the Battle of "Noches Rojas", push into Chilean territory taking important cities like Tacna, Iquique and Calama. Chile would surrender after the occupation of Antofagasta by Peruvian forces in 1952.

The aftermath of this war saw the complete annexation of North Peru to South Peru through the treaty of Piura, thus merging to form the "Socialist State of Peru" and reunifying the Peruvian nation. The treaty of Antofagasta forced Chile to recognize the restoration of the Tarapacá province to Peru by rescinding the treaty of Ancón. With these two treaties South Peru saw overexpansion of their territory by 140%.

While no massive massacres were committed towards North Peruvian civilians, Odria and his associates were executed, and other anti-communist followers were deported. American reaction to the aftermath was hostile since it came to fear that Communist insurgencies would spread through the nations of Latin America. Meanwhile, Amauta's government resented the Americans for providing aid to the North Peruvians, and the government nationalized all U.S. property in North Peru.

= Chilean Civil War and the Socialist Republic of Chile (1955-1958)=

Since the end of World War One, Chile had been going through instability mostly caused by the increasing power of numerous leftist organizations and the loss of influence that the liberals underwent. When the Peruvians entered Chilean territory, many socialist forces funded by the Peruvians rose against the government. So after the war, while Peruvian troops were forced to legally leave the territory, several remaining pieces of equipment was handed to the communist guerrillas, and many South Peruvians joined Chilean guerilla militias to fight against the government. Therefore when the Peruvians left most of their previously occupied territory was handed to the socialist forces.

The Chilean Communist Armed Forces captured Santiago and placed Luis Corvalán as the new president of Chile. This was a threat to Argentina's security which at the time was ruled by anti-communist John Peron. He along with the American government were significantly concerned about the spread of communism in the Americas and that it might eventually take over their countries. Hence when the news came that Chile declared itself a socialist republic, Argentine-American and other NATO forces conjointly invaded Chile in 1958,

Puerto Montt was the first occupied city by the Argentines, then the Americans navally invaded Viña del Mar, and subsequently, the joint Argentine-American forces took Santiago, deposing Corvalán from power. The war was over in less than 6 weeks and peace was restored in Chile.

At first, western forces demanded Peru that unless they returned Tarapacá to Chile, they would subsequently invade Peru with their deployed troops. But at that point the war was getting extremely bloody and expensive. Thus, it was concluded the treaties of Antofagasta and Piura would be recognized with the warning that if another communist uprising led by Peru was to be done in Chile, then it would mean war directly with Peru.

= Bolivian Civil War =

The inequality and lack of representation that the aborigines and mestizos suffered from the Bolivian white minority was alarming. The white minority owned the largest and most important lands and companies. They had historically been in charge of power thanks to the support that NATO offered them in exchange for their loyalty, economic dependency, militarism, among others; and the situation did not seem to improve unless there is a profound change.

This is how at the beginning of 1977, a series of peaceful protests arose demanding better living conditions for the workers and a better representation of the indigenous groups of the country. However, these were repressed in what would be called the "flower massacre" in which a group of 60 protesters were brutally murdered by the local armed forces.

From that moment on, the hostility that the opposition would take would not stop rising, and by 1978 several armed groups of socialist alignment began to gain more and more relevance and support throughout the country.

A group in particular, called the "Indigenous Socialist Liberation Front" (FSLA) began to arm itself and successfully fight the armed forces, and by the end of 1981, thanks to the support that the Peruvian Socialist State had offered, it would take control of the city of Potosí also expanding towards the neighboring towns and cities, thus starting one of the bloodiest civil wars not only on the continent, but of the entire period of the cold war.

Although the FSLA has been the group that had the greatest relevance during the conflict, several other guerrilla groups such as uprisings of indigenous Quechua and Aymara tribes would also be part of this conflict. By 1982, La Paz was taken by the FSLA who were preparing for an offensive against the second capital of the country, Sucre.

Countries like Brazil, the United States and Chile, noticing the rapid advance that the revolutionary forces were taking, decide to take matters into their own hands and send their own militias to Bolivian soil in order to help the Bolivian armed forces, although it is worth mentioning that the last country mentioned was also dealing with his own internal revolts and that prevented him from taking. While on the other hand, the FSLA and the various left-aligned groups were already beginning to receive weapons and troops from countries such as Peru, Cuba and the colossal Soviet Union.

The war would continue for several more years, time in which cities like La Paz would be in constant capture between the belligerent groups and would even be divided on more than one occasion. The de facto capital of the Republic of Bolivia would become "Santa Cruz de las Sierra" since it was much further away from the conflict zones.