Ecuador As Victim: the Development of the Discourse on the Territorial Dispute with Peru, 1860-1981
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University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Graduate Studies The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2018-08-29 Ecuador as Victim: The Development of the Discourse on the Territorial Dispute with Peru, 1860-1981 Lalama Vargas, Andres Leonardo Lalama Vargas, A. L. (2018). Ecuador as Victim: The Development of the Discourse on the Territorial Dispute with Peru, 1860-1981 (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Calgary. Calgary, AB doi:10.11575/PRISM/32893 http://hdl.handle.net/1880/107717 master thesis University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY Ecuador as Victim: The Development of the Discourse on the Territorial Dispute with Peru, 1860-1981 by Andres Leonardo Lalama Vargas A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS GRADUATE PROGRAM IN HISTORY CALGARY, ALBERTA AUGUST, 2018 © Andres Leonardo Lalama Vargas 2018 Abstract This thesis investigates the historical trajectory of the dominant Ecuadorian narrative of its territorial conflict with Peru. Through qualitative discourse analysis of monographs, pamphlets, and textbooks dedicated to the long conflict, it shows the development of a discussion with its own consistency and internal logic, a discourse in the Foucauldian sense. Above all, this discourse possessed a nation-building logic in which Peru was depicted as its main existential threat and nemesis. Thanks to this discourse, the long and complex territorial dispute became a means to achieve and strengthen national cohesion, and to strengthen the idea of Ecuadorian nation. Given that the political, cultural, and economic rapprochement that Ecuador and Peru experienced after the final peace settlement of 1998 contributed to a decades-long radical reformulation of the idea of Ecuadorian national community, this thesis aims to contribute to the understanding of Ecuadorian nationalism by analyzing one of its key aspects in relation to the country’s territory and an external other. ii Preface This thesis began with a personal interest in finding out more about the Ecuador-Peru conflict. One day in the summer of 2016, before the start of the Graduate Program in History at the University of Calgary, I came across the Wikipedia article about the Paquisha War of 1981, one of the several border clashes between Ecuador and Peru in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The narrative contradicted the idea of Ecuadorian territorial victimization in the hands of Peru that I had learned in school regarding this and all the other episodes of the century-old conflict between the Andean neighbours. Feeling somewhat outraged but not surprised that I had learned a version of history that completely favoured one side of the story, I decided to investigate more about the matter, not from the point of view of military history, but to find out how of the narrative of the conflict that I learned in my childhood had become the sole version taught in schools. The results of this investigation are presented in the following pages. The archival research for this thesis was conducted mostly in Quito, at the library of the Ministerio de Cultura y Patrimonio, the Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Movilidad Humana’s Alfredo Pareja Diezcanseco and Archivo del Departamento de Soberanía Nacional, and at the Archivo Nacional del Ecuador. It also includes sources available online from the Biblioteca Nacional Eugenio Espejo, Hathi Trust, HeinOnline, Spain’s Biblioteca Nacional de España and Biblioteca Virtual del Patrimonio Bibliográfico, and the Cervantes Virtual online library. The videos discussed in the introduction and chapter 3 are available on YouTube, and the interviews to the veterans in the conclusion are available in The Diario La Prensa (Riobamba) Facebook page. iii Acknowledgments Above all, I thank God for the gift of life. I would also like to thank the people whose love, care, sacrifices, and help made it possible to pursue my dreams in Canada, and to make me the person I am today. I want to thank my parents for bringing me to Canada, and especially because they taught me to love learning. Mamá Tere for her undying love. My dear friend Adriana Rincón for giving me support and strength during the months of research and writing, and that happiness that comes from true friendship. Thanks to my supervisor, Amelia Kiddle, for her constant guidance through my journey as a graduate student and apprentice historian. The members of my committee, Hendrik Kraay and Elizabeth Montes, for their time and interest in this investigation. Monique Greenwood, Pablo Policzer, Rogelio Vélez Mendoza, David Barrios, and the fellows at the Latin American Research Centre, where I found a warm and welcoming place of debate, discussion, and friendship. I am grateful to my professors, especially Carolee Pollock, my classmates, and all the people at the Departments of History at Grant MacEwan University and the University of Calgary, for encouraging me to become the best scholar I could be. In Ecuador, I would like to thank the librarians and archivists at Quito’s Ministerio de Cultura y Patrimonio, the Foreign Ministry’s Archivo Histórico Alfredo Pareja Diezcanseco and Archivo del Departamento de Soberanía Nacional, and the Archivo Nacional del Ecuador, who kindly and patiently helped find the primary sources for this investigation. I am also grateful to Lucy Freire, my uncles, and my cousins in Riobamba, for helping me realize that history lives not only in the archives but in the memory of the people. Thanks to all my friends in Edmonton, Red Deer, Calgary, and anywhere else I might forget, for making graduate school life easier and happier. Finally, thanks to Daniela Villamar for believing in me before anyone else did. iv A la memoria de mi tía Rosita v Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... ii Preface ......................................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................................ iv Dedication ..................................................................................................................................................... v Table of Contents ......................................................................................................................................... vi List of Figures ............................................................................................................................................ viii Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 1 A Brief History of the Ecuador-Peru Territorial Dispute .......................................................................... 4 Sources on Ecuadorian Nationalism and the Ecuador – Peru Conflict ................................................... 11 Historiography of the Ecuador-Peru Conflict ......................................................................................... 13 Theoretical Framework ........................................................................................................................... 22 Structure of this Thesis ........................................................................................................................... 24 1. Published Sources on the Ecuador-Peru Conflict Before 1941............................................................... 26 Nineteenth-Century Discourses on the Ecuador-Peru Conflict .............................................................. 29 The Early Twentieth Century: Honorato Vázquez, Enrique Vacas Galindo, and other works on the Ecuador-Peru Dispute ............................................................................................................................. 37 Other Works before 1941: The Oriente and the Ecuador-Peru Dispute ................................................. 44 The Pedemonte-Mosquera Protocol and the End of the Spanish Arbitration ......................................... 50 Published Sources on the Ecuador-Peru Conflict in the 1920s and 1930s .............................................. 54 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 60 2. The Discourse on the Ecuador-Peru Conflict from the War of 1941 to the Nullity Thesis .................... 62 Propagandistic Literature on the Ecuador-Peru Conflict ........................................................................ 65 Explaining the War and the Rio Protocol: Monographs and Essays on the Territorial Conflict ............ 81 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 98 3. The Consolidation