RUMBLE IN THE JUNGLE

By Barbara Rudolph

In an era of rising continental integration and falling trade barriers, the armed clash between two democracies deep in the Andean jungle was more than a little bizarre. To the governments--and soldiers--of Ecuador and Peru, however, the situation was deadly serious. For much of last week, military units were mobilizing and troops were trading fire over a sparsely populated 78 km of undemarcated territory that has been claimed by both countries for the past 53 years. Some 60 soldiers on both sides were killed or wounded before the countries agreed to a tentative cease-fire.

What was all the fighting about? No one was exactly sure. The remote no-man's-land that is claimed by both Peru and Ecuador has long been said to contain gold and uranium. ``The amount of gold there is incredible,'' former Peruvian Foreign Minister Jose de la Puente Rabdill told reporters last week. But no geological studies of the site have been done. Instead, the skirmishing may have had more to do with domestic politics, as both Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori and Ecuadorian President Sixto Duran Ballen used the long-standing border quarrel to bolster their own popularity.

Fujimori is up for re-election in April. The man who took power in a 1992 self-coup had won broad support for his suppression of Maoist guerrillas and his efforts to jump-start the economy, but lately his approval rating has fallen from 90% to under 70%, largely due to the country's continuing widespread poverty. Fujimori has also suffered some personal embarrassments: his estranged wife Susana Higuchi embarked on a brief hunger strike last January, protesting her disqualification as a congressional candidate. Fujimori's Vice Minister of the Interior was rumored to have connections to drug traffickers after the minister's name turned up in an address book seized during a cocaine raid. ``Fujimori is a politician in the middle of a campaign,'' says Carol Graham, a visiting fellow at the World Bank. ``Nationalism is a nerve that politicians in need of some kind of boost can touch.'' Says former diplomat Manuel Vacula: ``Who does this benefit? Fujimori and the narco-army. Who can say now that the military is a major drug trafficker? It would be treason.''

Ecuador's Duran Ballen is also beleaguered. His free-market economic reforms have provoked protests, especially after the privatization of the national telephone company and a series of utility price hikes. Critics speculate that the President may be encouraging the border fighting in an effort to appease an army disgruntled by last year's 35% cut in the military budget. Defense Ministry spokesman Colonel Alberto Molina denies that soldiers are resentful: ``We've been cutting back for decades, and the armed forces would not provoke a confrontation just to be humiliated. We all know that Peru could blast us out of the water if it wanted to.''

But the possible political motives do not fully explain why the dispute has boiled up now. The answer to the timing probably lies in history. On Jan. 29, 1942, after a war between the two countries ended in a decisive victory for Peru, a treaty guaranteed by the U.S. and three Latin American countries defined disputed boundaries between the two nations. Almost half of Ecuador's previous territory was ceded to Peru, but the treaty left the 78-km tract in the jungle undemarcated when the document was ratified in 1948. Ecuadorians never fully accepted their defeat, and by 1960 the Quito government had repudiated the agreement. Minor border skirmishes have occurred ever since, usually around the treaty's Jan. 29 anniversary. In 1981 the potshots turned into a serious five-day battle; in 1991 no shots were fired, but diplomatic relations were sorely tested after Peru built a military base in the disputed area.

The most recent violence began on Jan. 9, when an Ecuadorian military patrol captured four Peruvian soldiers along the border, in territory that is claimed by Ecuador. Two days later, Ecuadorian soldiers discovered a contingent of a dozen or so Peruvians in the same area. ``As soon as we ordered them to identify themselves, they opened fire. Since that day Peruvians have attacked nine Ecuadorian towns in the area,'' says Duran Ballen. Ecuador responded by mobilizing some 60,000 troops and accusing the Peruvians of attacking with helicopters that the U.S. had donated for drug-suppression programs.

The U.S., Brazil, Chile and Argentina, all guarantors of the 1942 treaty, have pressed both sides to avoid further bloodshed. No one doubts that a full- blown war between Peru and Ecuador would be a lopsided contest. Peru's armed forces (115,000 soldiers) and population (22 million) are twice the size of its rival's. ``Conflicts like this start as skirmishes, but they always hold within them the potential to escalate,'' says a senior Administration official. ``It's important to nip them in the bud.'' And in this case, to try to settle the border dispute once and for all.

--Reported by Tom Quinn/Quito and Douglass Stinson/Lima

With reporting by TOM QUINN/QUITO AND DOUGLASS STINSON/LIMA