LATIN AMERICA REVIEW

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0005505101
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: June 24, 2015
• Document Release Date: April 18, 2011
• Case Number: F-2009-01666
• Publication Date: December 14, 1978

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Latin America
Review
14 Ilecembcr 1978
APPROVED FOR
RELEASEL DATE:
04-Apr-2011
RP LAX 78-015
14 December 1978
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 Argentina-Chile: Latest Beagle Channel Talks Fail
Chilean Foreign Minister Cubillos and Argentine
Foreign Minister Pastor apparently made no progress this
week in their talks intended to avert a military action
in the Beagle Channel dispute. No joint communique was
issued the press that the talks failed. Cubillos report-
edly came to Buenos Aires with proposals that were un-
acceptable to Argentine President Videla and military
leaders.
Both sides have continued to make final military
preparations. Argentina has moved combat units from all
four military corps to the Chilean border and has sent
its major naval ships to sea. Chile has placed its Army
and police units on full alert, has closed some border
crossings, and has ordered its combat ships to move south-
ward from the main port of Valparaiso, probably to the
Beagle Channel area.
A leading Argentine newspaper has stated that the
United States has asked the Organization of American
States to intervene in the dispute. The Argentine Gov-
ernment repeatedly has expressed its receptivity to di-
rect US involvement or mediation, but could easily in-
terpret an appeal to the OAS at this time as a legalistic
move that will benefit the Chileans, who have the jurid-
ical advantage in the dispute.
There is still a possibility that a military move
can be averted, but the fundamental dispute appears in-
tractable and not easily susceptible to outside mediation
since there is a basic clash of national interests. Chile
shows no willingness to renegotiate its maritime bound-
ary claims, which have the weight of international law
behind them. Argentina, on the other hand, believes that
factors affecting its national security and potential for
economic growth are at stake and wants the issue handled
in a political, nonlegal, context.
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14 December 1978
 ARGENTINA-CHILE: Background on Beagle Channel Dispute
The dispute between Argentina and Chile over the
Beagle Channel and related territorial claims is typical
of many South American boundary problems that stem from
early, ambiguously worded agreements, and treaties for-
mulated before accurate maps were available. Recent
efforts at negotiation and arbitration have failed,
largely because neither side is prepared to accept any
compromise on the major issues.
The Beagle Channel serves as an alternate route to
the Strait of Magellan and to the course around Cape
Horn for travel between the Atlantic and the Pacific
Oceans. A treaty negotiated in 1881 stipulated that the
boundary between Argentina and Chile should run north-
south through Tierra del Fuego, dividing Isla Grande into
two parts, with Argentina getting the eastern part and
Chile the western part. All islands along the Atlantic
coast 4:ere to belong to Argentina; those south of the
Beagle Channel as far as Cape Horn and all along the
Pacific coast were to belong to Chile.
The Chileans soon claimed that the north-south line
dividing Isla Grande was to stop at the northern shore
of the Beagle Channel, so that the channel itself as well
as all territory to the south belonged to Chile. The
Argentines countered that the north-south line reaches
midchannel and that a portion of the channel belongs to
them. The Chileans also held that the channel extends
eastward as far as Cabo San Pio, making the small islands
of Picton, Lennox, and Nueva theirs; the Argentines
claimed that the channel turns southward to the west of
Picton and Lennox, and the islands are, therefore, Argen-
tine.
Picton, Lennox, and Nueva have no more than a dozen
or so Chilean residents and no Argentines, with the pos-
sible exception of some nitrate deposits, they contain
 no known mineral or other resources of significance. In
recent years, however, the importance of Tierra del Fuego
has grown. Oilfields and enormous sheep ranches occupy
the northern part of the region. In the south, Ushuaia,
Argentina, has grown to a town of 6,000 inhabitants,
with an airfield, a naval base, a hydroelectric plant,
and a road that allows access to the northern part of
the island. Chile maintains a small naval base at Puerto
Williams, south of the Beagle Channel on Isla Navarino.
The town has an airstrip, a radio station, a hotel, and
a civilian population of about 700.
A series of incidents, including one in 1967 in
which a Chilean PT boat was fired on by an Argentine
patrol ship, led Chile to seek British arbitration of the
lingering channel dispute. Argentina rejected the idea
but signed a treaty in 1972 submitting the claim to the
International Court of Justice. The Court's verdict
would go to the British for approval or disapproval.
In May 1977, the Court decided that the Beagle Chan-
nel should be divided between the two countries and the
disputed islands awarded to Chile. Implementation of
the decision, which was accepted by the British, was set
for February 1978. In December 1977, however, Argentina--
which had already indicated it would not accept the
Court's ruling--began a press campaign and a number of
economic and military moves to prompt concessions from
Chile.
Presidents Videla and Pinochet met in Mendoza, Argen-
tina, in January 1978 and in Puerto Montt, Chile, in Feb-
ruary and signed agreements creating a joint commission
and outlining a phased negotiating process. The first
phase ended in April without any significant progress.
in the second phase of negotiations, attention
shifted away from the islands in the mouth of the Beagle
Channel to a number of smaller islands to the south, in-
cluding Evout, Barnevelt, and Hornos. Argentina wants a
boundary line that would run through these islands before
the line turns south along the Cape Horn meridian or,
better yet, a boundary that would place one or more of
the islands entirely in Argentine territory. Intrusion
of the Chileans into the Atlantic is resented by the
 Argentines, who feel that it breaks a gentlemen's agree-
ment between the two countries that Argentina should be
an Atlantic power and Chile exclusively a Pacific power.
Argentina is particularly concerned about the effect
the court's awards to Chile might have or. control of
ocean resources; both countries claim sovereignty over
resources within 200 miles of the coast. Continental
shelf petroleum and coastal fisheries are the resources
of greatest interest, but their value and extent in the
area are unknown. An additional Argentine concern is
that the Court ruling will adversely affect Argentina's
Antarctic claim, which overlaps that of Chile. Argentina
presumably fears that any extension of C.dlean territory
eastward into the Atlantic will lend weight to Chilean
claims to territory directly to the south on the Antarctic
Peninsula.