por Isaac Bigio
Ollanta Humala
Before officially taking office, Peru’s elected president was in La Paz, where he claimed that he would like to revive the Peru-Bolivian Confederation of 1836-39.
This statement, just as others related to foreign policy, was absent in the debate during the presidential campaign. Nevertheless, if it is successful in going beyond being just a wish and starts to seek implementation, it will entail the emergence of a unionist tendency, opposed to that of the current world.
To date, the dynamics of Hispanic-America have not been related to the reunification of diverse republics, but towards an increasing fragmentation. Since the 1821 post-colonial Mexico, the Central-American federation broke away, and afterwards it was divided into 5 new republics. Later, Texas demanded its independence, in order to be annexed to the US, and so was later the north of Mexico. In 1830 the Great Colombia was divided into Venezuela, Ecuador and Colombia (from this latter Panama split in 1903).
The attempts of keeping integrated the old Vice-royalty of la Plata have failed, just as any possibility to unify the old Spanish colonies of the Caribbean. The Spanish island is currently divided between the Dominican and Haitian republics. The Spanish Antilles were captured by the US in the 1898 war, allowing Cuba to obtain independence, although one of its zones (Guantanamo) and Puerto Rico remain under Washington’s administration.
The tendency towards division has been enhanced in the rest of the Antilles. The Federation of the Western Indies of 1958-62 gave rise to 14 countries (most of them under the rule of Elizabeth II, although only 4 were semi-autonomous dependencies). The Dutch West Indies have advanced towards fragmentation as most of the 6 islands that comprise them have voted for its separation.
At an international level there is, on one hand, a tendency to form regional blocs, but on the other hand, there is a tendency towards the fragmentation of the states. Until half a century ago, most of the 54 countries of Africa were united under the administration of France or Great Britain.
I n w e s t A s i a , a t least 8 new countries emerged from decolonization. The old British India is today divided into 5 republics and the French Indochina, into 3. Since 2 decades ago, the 3 “socialist” federations from Eastern Europe have split, giving rise to 23 new members of the United Nations, while others are also demanding to become members.
Countries that could claim a national common past (such as Austria and Germany or several in Arabia) are still separated. Libya’s, Egypt’s or Syria’s attempts of integrating among them or with other neighbors have failed. Countries such as Gambia, Swaziland, Monaco, San Marino or the Vatican, despite being entrenched within a bigger nation, have insisted in maintaining their independence.
Three exceptions to that rule are the reunifications of Vietnam, Germany and Yemen, even though these 3 cases include historical nations that were temporarily divided due to the fact that parts of their territories chose different socio-economic models during the Cold War.
