International relations between the Republic of Chile and the Argentine Republic have existed for decades. The border between the two countries is the world's third-longest international border, which is 5,300 km (3,300 mi) long and runs from north to south along the Andes mountains. Although both countries gained their independence during the South American wars of liberation, during much of the 19th and the 20th century, relations between the countries were tense as a result of disputes over the border in Patagonia. Despite this, Chile and Argentina have never been engaged in a war with each other. In recent years, relations have improved. Argentina and Chile have followed quite different economic policies. Chile has signed free trade agreements with countries such as China, the United States, Canada, South Korea, as well as European Union, and it's a member of the APEC. Argentina belongs to the Mercosur regional free trade area. In April 2018, both countries suspended their membership from the UNASUR.
The relationship between the two countries can be traced back to an alliance during Spanish colonial times. Both colonies were offshoots of the Viceroyalty of Peru, with the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata (which Argentina was a part of) being broken off in 1776, and Chile not being broken off until independence. Argentina and Chile were colonized by different processes. Chile was conquered as a southward extension of the original conquest of Peru, while Argentina was colonized from Peru, Chile and from the Atlantic.
Argentina and Chile were close allies during the wars of independence from the Spanish Empire. Chile, like most of the revolting colonies, was defeated at a point by Spanish armies, while Argentina remained independent throughout its war of independence. After the Chilean defeat in the Disaster of Rancagua, the remnants of the Chilean Army led by Bernardo O'Higgins took refuge in Mendoza. Argentine General José de San Martín, by that time governor of the region, included the Chilean exiles in the Army of the Andes, and in 1817 led the crossing of the Andes, defeated the Spaniards, and confirmed the Chilean Independence. While he was in Santiago, Chile a cabildo abierto (open town hall meeting) offered San Martín the governorship of Chile, which he declined, in order to continue the liberating campaign in Peru.
In 1817 Chile began the buildup of its Navy in order to carry the war to the Viceroyalty of Perú. Chile and Argentina signed a treaty in order to finance the enterprise.[1] But Argentina, fallen in a civil war, was unable to contribute. The naval fleet, after being built, launched a sea campaign to fight the Spanish fleet in the Pacific to liberate Peru. After a successful land and sea campaign, San Martín proclaimed the Independence of Peru in 1821.
From 1836 to 1839, Chile and Argentina united in a war against the confederation of Peru and Bolivia. The underlying cause was the apprehension of Chile and Argentina against the potential power of the Peru-Bolivia bloc. This resulted from concern over the large territory of Peru-Bolivia as well as the perceived threat that such a rich state would represent to their southern neighbors. Chile declared the war on 11 November 1836 and Argentina on 19 May 1837.[2]: 263ff
In 1837 Felipe Braun, one of Santa Cruz's most capable generals and highly decorated veteran of the war of independence, defeated an Argentine army sent to topple Santa Cruz. On 12 November 1838 Argentine representatives signed an agreement with the Bolivian troops.[2]: 271 However, on 20 January 1839 the Chilean force obtained a decisive victory against Peru-Bolivia at the Battle of Yungay and the short-lived Peru-Bolivian Confederation came to an end.
A series of coastal and high-seas naval battles between Spain and its former colonies of Peru and Chile occurred between 1864 and 1866. These actions began with Spain's seizure of the guano-rich Chincha Islands, part of a strategy by Isabel II of Spain to reassert her country's lost influence in Spain's former South American empire. These actions prompted an alliance between Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru and Chile against Spain. As a result, all Pacific coast ports of South America situated south of Colombia were closed to the Spanish fleet. Argentina, however, refused to join the alliance and maintained amicable relations with Spain[3] and delivered coal to the Spanish fleet.
On 6 February 1873, Peru and Bolivia signed a secret treaty of alliance against Chile.[4] On 24 September, Argentine president Domingo Faustino Sarmiento asked the Argentine Chamber of Deputies to join Argentina with the alliance. The Argentine chamber assented by a vote of 48–18. The treaty made available a credit of six million pesos for military expenditures. However, in 1874, after the delivery of the Chilean ironclad Almirante Cochrane and the ironclad Blanco Encalada, the Argentine Senate postponed the matter until late 1874, and Sarmiento was prevented signing the treaty.[5] Consequently, Argentina remained neutral during the war; and the Argentines signed a Border Treaty with Chile in 1881.
Border disputes continued between Chile and Argentina, as Patagonia was then a largely unexplored area. The Border Treaty of 1881 established the line of highest mountains dividing the Atlantic and Pacific watersheds as the border between Argentina and Chile. This principle was easily applied in northern Andean border region; but in Patagonia drainage basins crossed the Andes. This led to further disputes over whether the Andean peaks would constitute the frontier (favoring Argentina) or the drainage basins (favoring Chile). Argentina argued that previous documents referring to the boundary always mentioned the Snowy Cordillera as the frontier and not the continental divide. The Argentine explorer Francisco Perito Moreno suggested that many Patagonian lakes draining to the Pacific were in fact part of the Atlantic basin but had been moraine-dammed during the quaternary glaciations changing their outlets to the west. In 1902, war was again avoided when British King Edward VII agreed to mediate between the two nations. He cleverly established the current Argentina-Chile border in Patagonia by dividing many disputed lakes into two equal parts. Several of these lakes still have different names on each side of the frontier, such as the lake known in Chile as Lago O'Higgins and in Argentina as Lago San Martín. A dispute that arose in the northern Puna de Atacama was resolved with the Puna de Atacama Lawsuit of 1899.
At the start of the 1900s a naval arms race began amongst the most powerful and wealthy countries in South America: Argentina, Brazil and Chile. It began when the Brazilian government ordered three formidable battleships whose capabilities far outstripped older vessels after the Brazilian Navy found itself well behind the Argentine and Chilean navies in quality and total tonnage.
During the Baltimore Crisis which brought Chile and the United States to the brink of war in 1891 (at the end of the 1891 Chilean Civil War), the Argentine foreign minister Estanislao Zeballos offered the US-minister in Buenos Aires the Argentine province of Salta as base of operations from which to attack Chile overland.[7]: 65 In return, Argentina asked the U.S. for the cession of southern Chile to Argentina.[8] Later, Chile and the United States averted the war.
The Pactos de Mayo are four protocols signed in Santiago de Chile by Chile and Argentina on 28 May 1902 in order to extend their relations and resolve its territorial disputes. The disputes had led both countries to increase their military budgets and run an arms race in the 1890s. More significantly the two countries divided their influence in South America into two spheres: Argentina would not threaten Chile's Pacific Coast hegemony, and Santiago promised not to intrude east of the Andes.[7]: page 71
In 1958 the Argentine Navy shelled a Chilean lighthouse and disembarked infantry in the uninhabitable islet Snipe, at the east entrance of the Beagle Channel.
The Laguna del Desierto incident, in Argentina called also Battle of Laguna del Desierto occurred between four members of Carabineros de Chile and 90 members of the Argentine Gendarmerie and took place in zone south of O'Higgins/San Martín Lake on 6 November 1965, resulting in Lieutenant Hernán Merino Correa killed and Sergeant Miguel Manríquez injured, both members of Carabineros, creating a tense atmosphere between Chile and Argentina.
Trouble once again began to brew in the 1960s, when Argentina began to claim that the Picton, Lennox and Nueva islands in the Beagle Channel were rightfully theirs, although this was in direct contradiction of the 1881 treaty, as the Beagle Channel Arbitration, and the initial Beagle Channel cartography since 1881 stated.
Both countries submitted the controversy to binding arbitration by the international tribunal. The decision (see Beagle Channel Arbitration between the Republic of Argentina and the Republic of Chile, Report and Decision of the Court of Arbitration) recognized all the islands to be Chilean territory. Argentina unilaterally repudiated the decision of the tribunal and planned a war of aggression against Chile.[9]
Direct negotiations between Chile and Argentina in 1977-78 failed and relations became extremely tense. Argentina sent troops to the border in Patagonia and in Chile large areas were mined. On 22 December, Argentina started Operation Soberanía in order to invade the islands and continental Chile, but after a few hours stopped the operation when Pope John Paul II sent a personal message to both presidents urging a peaceful solution. Both countries agreed that the Pope would mediate the dispute through the offices of Cardinal Antonio Samoré his special envoy (See Papal mediation in the Beagle conflict).
On 9 January 1979 the Act of Montevideo was signed in Uruguay pledging both sides to a peaceful solution and a return to the military situation of early 1977. The conflict was still latent during the Falklands War and was resolved only after the fall of the Argentine military junta.
A number of prominent public officials in Chile still point to past Argentine treaty repudiations when referring to relations between the two neighbors.[10][11][12][13][14][15]
During the Falklands War in 1982, with the Beagle conflict still pending, Chile and Colombia were the only South American countries to abstain from voting in the TIAR.
The Argentine government planned to seize the disputed Beagle Channel islands after the occupation of the Falkland Islands. Basilio Lami Dozo the then Chief of the Argentine Air Force, disclosed that Leopoldo Galtieri told him that:
Óscar Camilión, the last Argentine Foreign Minister before the war (29 March 1981 to 11 December 1981) has stated that:
These preparations were public. On 2 June 1982 the newspaper La Prensa published an article by Manfred Schönfeld explaining what would follow Argentina's expected victory in the Falkland Islands:
Argentine General Osiris Villegas demanded (in April 1982) after the successful Argentine landing in the Falklands that his government stop negotiations with Chile and seize the islands south of the Beagle. In his book La propuesta pontificia y el espacio nacional comprometido, (p. 2), he asked:
This intention was probably known to the Chilean government,[20] as the Chileans provided the United Kingdom with 'limited, but significant information' during the conflict. The Chilean Connection is described in detail by Sir Lawrence Freedman in his book The Official History of the Falklands Campaign.
Post-Pinochet democratic governments in Chile have given greater support to the Argentine claim on the Falkland Islands.[21][22][23][24]
In June 2010 (as in 2009[25] and years before[26][27][28][22]) Chile has supported the Argentine position at the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization calling for direct negotiations between Argentina and the United Kingdom concerning the Falkland Islands dispute.[29]
This important treaty (Spanish: Tratado de Paz y Amistad de 1984 entre Chile y Argentina) was an agreement signed in 1984 between Argentina and Chile establishing friendly relations between the two countries. Particularly, the treaty defines the border delineation and freedom of navigation in the Strait of Magellan and gives possession of the Picton, Lennox and Nueva islands and sea located south of Tierra del Fuego to Chile, but the most part of the Exclusive Economic Zone eastwards of the Cape Horn-Meridian to Argentina. After that, other border disputes were resolved by peaceful means.
The 1984 treaty was succeeded by the Maipu Treaty of Integration and Cooperation (Tratado de Maipú de Integración y Cooperación) signed on 30 October 2009[30]
Despite the Pactos de Mayo agreement, in 2004 Argentina proposed to establish a "corridor" through Chilean territory under partial Argentine administration as a Bolivian outlet to sea. After talks with Chilean ambassador to Argentina, the Kirchner government pulled out of the proposal and declared the issue as "concerning Chile and Bolivia" only.[31][32]
In 1898 the border in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field was defined and wasn't objected during the 1902 Arbitral award of the Andes which defined most of the border on the current Province territory. Both experts, Francisco Pascasio Moreno from Argentina and Diego Barros Arana from Chile agreed on the border between Mount Fitz Roy and Cerro Daudet.[33] However the border started being questioned by Argentina later on which started the dispute between both countries.
In the 1990s, relations improved dramatically. The dictator and last president of the Argentine Military Junta, General Reynaldo Bignone, called for democratic elections in 1983, and Augusto Pinochet of Chile did the same in 1989. As a consequence, militaristic tendencies faded in Argentina. The Argentine presidents Carlos Menem and Fernando de la Rúa had particularly good relations with Chile. In a bilateral manner, both countries settled all the remaining disputes except Laguna del Desierto, which was decided by International Arbitration in 1994. That decision favoured Argentine claims.[34][35][36][37][38]
According to a 1998 negotiation held in Buenos Aires, a 50 km (31 mi) a border redraw is agreed, being pending to this day the part between Mount Fitz Roy and Cerro Murallón,[39] however a new border was drawn between Cerro Murallón and Cerro Daudet.
In 2006, president Néstor Kirchner invited Chile to define the border in the pending area, but Michelle Bachelet's government left the invitation unanswered.[40] The same year, the Chilean government sent a note to Argentina complaining that Argentine tourism maps showed the boundary claimed by Argentina in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field prior to the 1998 agreement, placing most of the area in Argentina.
In the maps published in Argentina, until today, the region continues to be shown without the white rectangle, as can be seen in a map of Santa Cruz on a website of an official Argentine agency.[41]