A Dumber-Than-Average War

Jamil Mahuad, Ecuador’s new president, hardly had time to celebrate his inauguration Monday before plunging into a decades-old border dispute with neighboring Peru. For Ecuadorean presidents, this little hot-and-cold war comes with the job.

Hostilities between the two countries have flared intermittently since 1941, twice taking the lives of 200 soldiers on each side. They are at it again, troops just 100 yards apart on the jungled border.

Officials of the United States, Brazil, Chile and Argentina have tried, unsuccessfully, to broker a permanent solution to the conflict since the end of 1995’s so-called “little war.” The guns remain loaded even though Ecuadorean and Peruvian leaders appear unable to explain what the conflict is about.

Certainly Ecuador has more pressing issues. It must solve the political crisis created when Abdala Bucaram, the president his countrymen knew as El Loco, was booted out, leaving a weak interim government in office for 18 months.

“I’ve been elected to prevent this country from sinking,” Mahuad said at his inauguration ceremony. He promised to fix the fiscal deficit and deal with the falling price of oil, Ecuador’s No. 1 source of revenue. In his spare time he’ll take on infrastructural damage caused by El Nino.

Mahuad was a good mayor in Quito, the capital, and did a competent job as labor minister in an earlier government. But he needs foreign investment to help the working poor, whose pay averages just $20 a month.

For these and other reasons, Mahuad has to wonder why his country and Peru continue their endless war. But when did war ever make sense?