SAINT JOHN PAUL II PREVENTED A WAR BETWEEN CHILE AND ARGENTINA IN 1978
JOHN PAUL II PREVENTED A WAR BETWEEN CHILE AND ARGENTINA IN 1978
Argentina and Chile share more than 5,000 kilometers of common border. After almost a century of conflict over the sovereignty of the Picton, Lennox and Nueva islands, in the Beagle Channel area, these two countries came very close to starting a war in December 1978.
At that time, Augusto Pinochet ruled in Chile, and Jorge Rafael Videla in Argentina. Under these rulers, the frozen southern border, usually calm and deserted, soon became the scene of battle. Drills, sending troops, closing borders, etc. Everything suggested that the time of peace had ended. The crisis had escalated shortly before when an international court established the limits between both countries. While Chile accepted the award, Argentina declared it null and void and threatened to go to war. It was there that the mediation of the Holy See arose. The presidents could not refuse and received the offices of Cardinal Antonio Samor, envoy of Pope John Paul II.
The cardinal’s proposal was accepted by Chile but not by Argentina. We had to wait until 1984 when, already in democracy, the initiative was endorsed in a referendum held by Ral Alfonsn, by more than 80% of Argentines, eager for peace after the failure in the war against the United Kingdom for the Malvinas.
The two countries signed the Peace and Friendship Treaty in 1984, which granted all the islands to the south of the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego to Chile and those on the north side of the canal to Argentina, which renounced its aspirations in the Strait of Magellan. Cardinal Samor did not get to see him, having died a year earlier. But his name was used to rename a beautiful pass in the Andes, which connects both passes. Cardinal Samor also has a statue in southern Chile.
Thirty years later, the President of Argentina, Cristina Fernández, and her Chilean counterpart, Michelle Bachelet, recorded their gratitude to the Vatican administration by laying the first stone of a monument to John Paul II in Punta Arenas.
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