LETICIA, Colombia — The jungle town of Leticia provides Colombia's only access to the Amazon River. But as the river changes course the town could soon be left high and dry and that's fueling a border dispute with neighboring Peru.
Drought, sedimentation and meandering by the world's second largest river are gradually pushing the waterway farther south into Peru and away from Colombia. A Colombian Navy study predicts that within five years, Letica could be landlocked.
Alarmed residents point out that, although Leticia has an airport, there are no highways connecting this town of 55,000 people at the southern-most tip of Colombia to any other region of the country. Most food and other supplies arrive here via Amazon River boats from Peru and Brazil.
"We depend on daily trade between the three countries to survive," says Santiago Duque, a biology professor at the Leticia branch of Colombia's National University. "The river is essential."
The area around Leticia is known as the "triple frontier" because the river forms the border with Peru while the Brazilian town of Tabatinga lies next door. Tourists, boat pilots, and shoppers from all three countries, speaking English, Spanish and Portuguese, come and go as they please.
A local adage holds that people here breakfast in Colombia, lunch in Peru and have dinner in Brazil.
But the good-neighbor vibe is starting to sour as Colombia frets about river access. As the water recedes, Leticia's cargo wharf has been extended several times to reach the river. But during dry season it sits on dry land, rendering forklifts and other machinery useless.
On a recent morning, sweaty workers unloaded cargo boats by hand, carrying crates of beer, sacks of rice, and bags of flour on their shoulders 100 yards up the muddy riverbank to trucks waiting on the wharf. All this slows trade and drives up costs.
"It's like going back to the 18th century," says Sigifredo Beltrán, a Leticia businessman and hotel owner.
For decades, Colombian officials ignored the problem. But that changed in July amid a dispute with Peru over a tiny island called Santa Rosa that lies in the Amazon River a few hundred yards across the water from Leticia.
The Peru-Colombia border was fixed under a 1922 treaty. But Santa Rosa formed in 1974 and has never been formally allocated to either country. About 3,000 Peruvians live there yet Colombia also claims the island.
When Peru's congress suddenly upgraded Santa Rosa's status from village to town, giving it a larger government presence, Colombia President Gustavo Petro flew to Leticia to protest. In a speech, Petro insisted: "Colombia does not recognize Peruvian sovereignty over Santa Rosa."
Then, in a bizarre stunt, Daniel Quintero, a Colombian presidential candidate, posted a video of himself sneaking onto Santa Rosa and raising a yellow-blue-and-red Colombian flag, and declaring: "This is Colombian territory." With 15 minutes, Peruvian authorities took it down.
Whipping up nationalist sentiment is a common practice for politicians who know that territorial disputes remain a sore spot for Colombians. The most infamous case was Panama, which used to be a Colombian province. Then, in 1903. the U.S. government fomented a revolution so it could build the Panama Canal.
Colombia and Peru have often wrangled over their frontier. In fact, Leticia was established by the Peruvian military in the 1800s and takes its name from the girlfriend of one of its founding fathers. The town then switched hands to give Colombia access to the Amazon River, but Peruvians protested and in 1932 the two sides fought a brief border war.
As for Santa Rosa, experts say that both nations have legitimate claims to the island.
The 1922 border treaty states that the deepest channel of the Amazon River is the frontier, with Colombia to the north and Peru to the south. When Santa Rosa formed, the deepest channel ran north of the island making it Peruvian.
But the river has shifted and divided and now a smaller branch of the Amazon flows past Leticia. Its deepest channel runs south of Santa Rosa, which would back up Colombia's claim to the island, says Walter Arévalo, an international law professor at Rosario University in Bogotá.
He says disputes over riverine borders are common. For example, Belgium and the Netherlands hold talks every few years about newly formed islands and changes in course the Meuse River that forms part of their border. He said Colombia and Peru should follow their example.
"The ideal situation would be for both countries to take full advantage of the river," Arévalo said.
In the 1980s, Colombia and Peru formed a bilateral border commission. It had been dormant but amid the current dispute, the commission has scheduled meetings for Lima, the Peruvian capital, on Sept. 11 and 12.
Colombia could have avoided the specter of a landlocked Leticia had dredged the smaller branch of the Amazon River that now flows past the town. But dredging is expensive and Duque, the university professor, says Colombian politicians pay little attention to this region because of its sparse populated.
In Santa Rosa, where a huge red-and-white Peruvian flag greets visitors, residents are proudly Peruvian. But they're not spoiling for a fight. Hotel manager Iván Yovera says islanders often shop, send their kids to school and get medical care in the much larger Leticia.
"We've never had problems" with Colombia," adds fisherwoman Flor Gómez, as she leans over the wooden balcony of her house. "We are like brothers.
Max Ortiz, the acting mayor of Santa Rosa, predicts border disputes will keep cropping up due to the ever-changing flow of the Amazon River. He quips: "That's Mother Nature."
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