The papal mediation in the Beagle conflict followed the failure of negotiations between Chile and Argentina, when, on 22 December 1978, the Argentinian Junta started Operation Soberanía, to invade Cape Horn and islands awarded to Chile by the Beagle Channel Arbitration. Soon after the event, Pope John Paul II offered to mediate and sent his personal envoy, Cardinal Antonio Samoré, to Buenos Aires. Argentina, in acceptance of the authority of the Pope over the overwhelmingly Catholic Argentine population, called off the military operation and accepted the mediation. On 9 January 1979, Chile and Argentina signed the Act of Montevideo formally requesting mediation by the Vatican and renouncing the use of force.
Interests of the parties
The mediator acted to defuse the situation by negotiating an agreement that stopped the immediate military crisis. Then the Vatican crafted a six-year process that allowed the parties to grapple with increasingly difficult issues, including navigation rights, sovereignty over other islands in the Fuegian Archipelago, delimitation of the Straits of Magellan, and maritime boundaries south to Cape Horn and beyond. Chile considered the Arbitral Award of 1977 "…fully operative and obligatory in law…" as expressed by the Court of Arbitration after the Argentine Refusal.See "Der Schiedsspruch in der Beagle-Kanal-Streitigkeit", Karin Oellers-Frahm, Page 353 Argentina repudiated the International Arbitral Award that the government of Alejandro Lanusse had solicited in 1971. Argentina extended its claim to all territories southward of Tierra del Fuego and eastward of the Cape Horn-meridian. That is, Argentina claimed the islands Horn, Wollastone, Deceit, Barnevelt, Evouts, Herschell, etc.
The 1978 military mobilization revealed other latent international relations issues between the two countries that had been previously overlooked or ignored.
Mediator By the beginning of November 1978, Chile and Argentina no longer had any mechanism for working toward a peaceful settlement and the situation began to destabilize rapidly. It was at this point, with direct talks dead and a judicial settlement refused by Argentina, that Chile suggested mediation. Argentina accepted the proposal and the two foreign ministers agreed to meet in Buenos Aires on 12 December for the purpose of selecting a mediator and the terms of mediation. Possible candidates wereSee Alejandro Luis Corbacho: Predicting the Probability of War During Brinkmanship Crises: The Beagle and the Malvinas Conflicts, Universidad del CEMA, Argentina, Documento de Trabajo No. 244, September 2003, page 8 Jimmy Carter, President of the United States of America, the Organization of American States, Juan Carlos I of Spain, King of Spain, a European president, Pope John Paul II. The ministers concurred on the issue that the Pope should mediate the dispute, but their agreement proved ephemeral. In the evening, as the Chilean delegation was studying the documents for signature, the Argentine minister called the Chilean minister Cubillos to tell him that President Videla, who had approved their choice of mediator, had been stripped of his authority by the junta.
On 22 December 1978, Argentina launched Operation Soberania to occupy the islands militarily. On the morning of 22 December, Pope John Paul II, on his own initiative, contacted both governments directly to communicate that he was sending a personal envoy to Buenos Aires and Santiago.
The Act of Montevideo In Montevideo, Uruguay, on 8 January 1979, both countries signed the Act of Montevideo. In this treaty the parties agreed to: no restrictions whatsoever over the mediation (textual: "…they will raise no objection to the expression by the Holy See, during these proceedings, of such ideas as its thorough studies on a disputed aspects of the problem of the southern zone may suggest to it, with a view to contributing to a peaceful settlement acceptable to both Parties…") "…Antonio Cardinal Samoré … asks that that request [of mediation] should be accompanied by an undertaking that the two States will not resort to the use of force in their mutual relations, will bring about a gradual return to the military situation existing at the beginning of 1977 and will refrain from adopting measures that might impair harmony in any sector.…".
The treaty gave the mediator a broad framework in which to negotiate without any geographical data or temporal restrictions.
List of members of the Chilean Delegation in Rome: Enrique BernsteinSee article of Pedro Daza Valenzuela in Francisco OrregoSee "Pasion de Servicio: Julio Philippi Izquierdo" in of René Millar Carvacho Julio Philippi Ernesto Videla Santiago Benadava Helmut Brunner Patricio PrietoSee book by Enrique Bernstein Carabantes "Recuerdos de un diplomático", Vol. 4, pág. 65 Osvaldo Muñoz Fernando Pérez EgertVer "Chile-argentina, más allá de sus fronteras: Crónicas de un diplomático" de Eduardo Rodríguez Guarachi, RIL Editores, 2004 , 978-956-284-389-8,233 páginas, en página 102 Maximiliano Jarpa
List of members of the Argentine Delegation in Rome: General (R) Ricardo Echeverry Boneo Marcelo Depech Guillermo Moncayo Carlos Ortiz de Rozas Guillermo Moncayo Hugo Gobbi Susana Ruiz
Cardinal Antonio Samorè's principal assistant was the Spanish priest Monsignor Faustino Sainz Muñoz.
The four phases of the mediation Mark LaudyMark Laudy, "The Vatican Mediation of the Beagle Channel Dispute: Crisis Intervention and Forum Building" sees four phases during the mediation: The first phase was the shortest and most critical period of the entire mediation and began with Samorè's arrival in Buenos Aires on 25 December 1978. This was purely a crisis intervention to prevent a war and secure an agreement to submit the matter to mediation. In a shuttle diplomacy, Samorè flew between Santiago de Chile and Buenos Aires until the objectives were achieved with the signing of the Act of Montevideo on 8 January 1979. The second period ran from May 1979, when the Chilean and Argentine delegations arrived in Rome, through December 1980, when the Pope presented the parties with his proposal for settling the dispute. This first proposal was rejected by Argentina. The third and longest phase, running from the beginning of 1981 until December 1983, after Argentina's return to democracy, was characterized by long periods of stalled negotiations. The most significant developments during this period were the Argentine repudiation of the 1972 General Treaty; the subsequent effort to fill the juridical vacuum resulting from that repudiation; and the Falklands War, which set the stage for the return to democracy in Argentina. The final phase began when Raúl Alfonsín assumed the presidency in Buenos Aires at the end of 1983 and ended with the signing of the 1984 Treaty of Peace and Friendship.
The papal proposal of 1980
On 12 December 1980, the Pope received both delegations and communicated to them his proposal for resolving the controversy, the terms of which had been developed entirely in secret and should be kept secret in order to avoid debilitating public debate that might diminish confidence in the proceedings and limit the freedom of action of both governments. But on 22 August 1981 the Argentine newspaper La Nación published the terms of the proposal. Chile would retain all of the islands and Argentina would be entitled to maintain certain limited facilities (common radar and weather stations) on some islands and would receive important navigation rights. Most important, however, was the creation of an ocean area known as the Sea of Peace. In this area, extending to the east and southeast from the disputed chain of islands, Chilean territorial waters would be limited to a narrow territorial sea, in which it would be obliged to share with Argentina equal participation in resource exploitation, scientific investigation, and environmental management. Beyond the Chilean territorial waters would be a much broader band of ocean subject to Argentine jurisdiction, but also subject to the same sharing provisions that applied in Chilean waters.
Chile accepted the papal proposal, despite some reservations. Argentina never formally replied to the proposal. However, on 17 March 1981, Argentina delivered a note to the Vatican expressing grave misgivings about the proposal, both because it failed to award any islands to Argentina and because it allowed Chile to maintain a presence so far into the Atlantic.
Argentina renounced a 1972 Arbitration treaty On 21 January 1982, Argentina announced the withdrawal from the 1972 bilateral treaty providing for recourse to the International Court of Justice in case of disputes. In Argentina, the judicial process had become an anathema, particularly in view of the adverse 1977 arbitration award.See Michael Morris, "The Strait of Magellan", Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1989, page 85 Chile reserved the right to go to the ICJ unilaterally before the treaty ended on 27 December 1982.See article Argentina denuncia el tratado con Chile sobre el Beagle in Spanish newspaper El País on 23 January 1982 (in Spanish).
To the Falklands War After the papal proposal, negotiations remained stalled and meanwhile, a sequence of incidents in Chile and Argentina strained relations between the two countries.
On 28 April 1981, General Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri (then Argentine army chief; later, during the Falklands War, President of Argentina) closed the border to Chile without any consultation with his own president.See article Historia de la santa mediación in Argentine newspaper Clarín, Buenos Aires, on 20 December 1998: «Me calenté, se justificó Galtieri ante el fastidiado comandante de la Marina, almirante Lambruschini, quien le preguntó: Pero se da usted cuenta que el país se encuentra así envuelto en una peligrosa escalada?» (Translation; I lost my cool, justify himself Galtieri, as the annoyed Chief of the Argentine Navy, Admiral Lambruschini, asked him: Don't you notice that it bring the country in a dangerous escalation?)
In March 1982, five weeks before the beginning of the Falklands War, a ship of the Argentine navy, ARA Francisco de Gurruchaga, anchored at the Deceit island, de facto under Chilean sovereignty since 1881, and refused to abandon the bay, despite Chilean demands.See article Pinochet ordena el acuartelamiento de las tropas chilenas por el conflicto con Argentina sobre el canal de Beagle in Spanish newspaper El País on 6 March 1982 (in Spanish).William Ben Hunt, Getting to war: predicting international conflict with mass media indicators, page 22
On 2 April 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. The Argentine plan included indeed the military occupation of the disputed islands at the Beagle channel after the invasion of the Falklands, as stated by Brigadier Basilio Lami Dozo, chief of the Argentine Air Force during the Falklands War, in an interview with the Argentine magazine Perfil: L.F. Galtieri: "[Chile] have to know that what we are doing now, because they will be the next in turn."Argentine magazine Perfil on 22 November 2009: Para colmo, Galtieri dijo en un discurso: "Que saquen el ejemplo de lo que estamos haciendo ahora porque después les toca a ellos". Óscar Camilión, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Argentina from 29 March 1981 to 11 December 1981, in his "Memorias Políticas", confirms the plan of the Argentine military: "The military planning was, with the Falklands in Argentine hands, to invade the disputed islands in the Beagle Channel. That was the determination of the [Argentine] navy…".Editorial Planeta, Buenos Aires, 1999, page 281«Los planes militares eran, en la hipótesis de resolver el caso Malvinas, invadir las islas en disputa en el Beagle. Esa era la decisión de la Armada…»