Another territorial flap between Peru and Chile

Chilean helicopter today was intercepted by Peruvian combat planes and ordered to land at airport at Arequipa (southern Peru).

Helicopter carried two pilots and belongs to Chilean civilian air transport company FASA.

Pilots said they had permission to fly to the city of Nazca, Peru, but strayed off course and neared Arequipa. Peru has an Air Force base there with modern French warplanes. Nazca is about 250 miles north of Arequipa.

Investigation ongoing about where the helicopter was going and why.

(Another one of the flaps that flare up periodically between Chile/Peru and Chile/Bolivia. There will be some noise in the Peruvian press, but doubt anything will come of this.)



The question among Peruvian commenting on the story is how in the hell was the helicopter NOT detected by air defense radar until it neared Arequipa, which is pretty deep into southern Peru.

He couldn't even wait til after his inauguration to cancel Michele Bathelet's agreement with Bolivia (giving Bolivia access to the sea, at long last)! He was right there with pen in hand writing "XXX" over that peaceful policy before he even took office. What a jerk he turned out to be! Now he's doing this crap to Peru--which I don't for a minute think was an "accident." He's doing it because Peru elected a Leftist government. He's following a corporate agenda here (which I'm seeing in the early 2008 US embassy cables on Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil) of exploiting any weak points within or between countries, in order to destroy the cooperative spirit that the Leftist leaders have created. It's a "divide and conquer" tactic that the U.S. and multinational corporations share with the rightwing. One of its tenets is to make trouble for trouble's sake. And it is a very visible, crude Bushwhack tactic, which could be seen clearly in the instigated social chaos and terror in Iraq after the invasion, and we see also in the social chaos and murders in Colombia, Honduras and on the Mexican border. Trouble, violence and terror = opportunity. I'm afraid that Pinera is looking more like a Bushwhack every day.

without harming anyone.

Makes you wonder, by all means, what an adherant of Pinochet's really capable of, and how empowered he feels to do it.

First the rumors:

Some Chileans saying it could have been an incident to divert attention from yesterday's massive nationwide strike against the Pinera administration.

In Lima, Peruvians are pissed that the helicopter was not detected sooner after overflying deep into southern Peru. Peruvian air force under criticism.

The helicopter, which was flying from Concepcion (southern Chile) to Lima apparently was under contract to a Madrid, Spain company named CoyotAir, which does mining exploration in Peru. If that is true, the Spaniards will probably smooth things over.

As of now it appears the helicopter's pilots strayed too far into Arequipa air space, although that has been questioned because the head pilot is a retired Chilean Air Force major. The pilots originally told Peruvian investigators that they had been given the wrong flying coordinates by mistake.

Don't think anything further will come of this.