The Alto Palena-Encuentro River border dispute was a territorial dispute between the Argentine Republic and the Republic of Chile over the demarcation of the boundary between landmarks XVI and XVII of their common border in the valleys located north of General Vintter/Palena Lake (formerly General Paz Lake), and was resolved on November 24, 1966, by the arbitral ruling of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.
The ruling divided the disputed territory between the two countries, distributing it between the Palena commune in the Palena Province, Los Lagos Region in Chile (Regions created afterwards), and the Languiñeo Department in the Chubut Province of Argentina.
Background
From the beginning of their independent lives, the two countries sought to define their borders according to the principle of uti possidetis from 1810. Thus, Article 39 of the Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation that came into force in April 1856 stipulated:
In compliance with Article 39 of the 1856 Treaty, the two countries signed the Treaty of Limits of 1881. Article 1 of this treaty states:
It was agreed that in the mountainous valleys where the divisory line of waters was unclear, the differences would be resolved amicably by two experts, one appointed by each side, and if they could not reach an agreement, a third expert would be appointed by both governments.
On August 20, 1888, an agreement was signed to demarcate the boundaries in accordance with the 1881 treaty, with experts Diego Barros Arana from Chile and Octavio Pico Burgess from Argentina being appointed. In 1892, Barros Arana presented his thesis, arguing that the 1881 Treaty had set the boundary along the continental divortium aquarum, which was rejected by the Argentine expert.
Due to differences in several points of the boundary where the experts could not agree, the demarcation was suspended until the Protocol of Limits of 1893 was signed, which in Article 1 states:
On January 4, 1887, the town of Palena was founded by Chilean settlers. In 1889, Carlos María Moyano and Pedro Ezcurra explored the Palena Valley on behalf of the Argentine government. That same year, the Argentine government subdivided and sold lands in Alto Palena to English settlers in London, lands that Chile considered part of its national territory. In early 1894, Hans Steffen, commissioned by the Chilean government, explored the Palena, Carrenleufú and Corcovado (Argentina) rivers, naming the Encuentro River.
In January 1894, the Chilean expert declared that he understood the main chain of the Andes to be the continuous line of peaks dividing the waters that form the separation of the Atlantic and Pacific watersheds. The Argentine expert responded that they did not have the authority to define what "main chain of the Andes" meant since they were merely demarcators.
As the experts Barros Arana and Francisco Pascasio Moreno (Pico's replacement) could not agree, it was decided in 1898 to invoke Article VI, paragraph 2, of the 1881 Treaty and request an arbitral ruling from Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, who appointed three British judges.
The Argentine government argued that the boundary should essentially be an orographic boundary along the highest peaks of the Andes mountain range, while the Chilean government maintained that the boundary should follow the continental divide of waters. The tribunal considered that the language of the 1881 treaty and the 1893 protocol was ambiguous and susceptible to multiple interpretations, with the two positions being irreconcilable.
On May 20, 1902, King Edward VII issued the ruling that divided the disputed territories into four sections within the limits defined by the extreme claims on both sides and appointed a British official to demarcate each section in the summer of 1903. Regarding the Encuentro River area, the ruling stated: "From the fixed point in the Río Palena, the boundary will follow the Encuentro River, to the peak called Virgen, and from there to the line we have set in the General Paz Lake (...)."
The report of the Arbitral Tribunal dated November 19, 1902, details the delineation of the border in the sector:
In 1903, British demarcation officer Captain Bertram Dickson placed landmarks XVI and XVII at the confluence of the Palena and Encuentro rivers and on the shores of Lake General Paz, respectively, facing some difficulty locating the Encuentro River discovered in 1894 by Hans Steffen, due to the lack of knowledge of the area. Accessibility issues prevented him from placing a marker on Cerro de la Virgen mentioned in the award. Both countries maintained doubts about the location of the Encuentro River and which mountain was Cerro de la Virgen.
Beginning of the dispute
In the map drawn in 1901 by the Argentinian engineer Gunnar Lange during the 1902 arbitration award, he mistook the El Salto River for the Encuentro River (named in the 1902 award), placing the origin of the latter at the Cerro de la Virgen, which Lange had named in his map. However, this river actually originates from the Picacho de la Virgen, which was named after the homonymous hill at a later date, a key factor in the dispute. Gunner's work was used in the arbitration map. The Picacho de la Virgen (still unnamed at the time) was identified by the British demarcator Bertram Dickson as the source of the Encuentro River in 1903, describing it as located farther east than the boundary marker (hito) 17 placed during the demarcation.
As the intersection point of the border line with the Palena, the Arbitral Tribunal defined a place "in front of the confluence with the Río Encuentro", a southern tributary of the Palena that Hans Steffen had named so because at its confluence the meeting between two detachments of the Chilean expedition to the Palena occurred on February 6, 1894. According to the official account of Bertram Dickson, on March 2, 1903, they left the Steinkamp camp and descended to the supposed Río Encuentro, where they met with the Argentine engineer Eimar Soot. Initially, they identified a small stream as the Río Encuentro, and both Soot and the Chilean representative Barrios agreed to erect the border pyramid there, despite it not appearing on the available maps. A week later, upon receiving additional maps, Dickson discovered the error and returned on March 13 with the Argentine engineer Emil Frey, finding a larger river several miles to the west.
Barrios and Dickson agreed that this second river was the true Río Encuentro, but Frey disagreed, suggesting another river further east. After a failed exploration, Frey accepted the second site on March 15. Steffen criticizes that neither the arbitral commissioner, nor the heads of the Argentine and Chilean commissions knew the topography and nomenclature of the region, despite the maps presented to the tribunal and his own Memoria general on the Chilean expedition to the Palena providing sufficient data to identify the river correctly. The doubt about whether the final site chosen by Dickson corresponded to Steffen's original Río Encuentro persisted until the 1966 award. In 1941, the cartography that had served as the basis for demarcation by the Chilean-Argentine Boundary Commission was accused of suffering from serious errors, which led to tensions during the 1950s between both countries.
The valleys of California, Hondo, and Horquetas began to be populated by Chilean settlers in 1906.
In 1907, the Argentine government sent engineer Luis A. Álvarez to conduct a geographical survey of the Encuentro River, reporting that it should be another river located about 15 km to the west.
From 1911, Chilean settlers began establishing themselves in the disputed area.
On December 9, 1913, the Argentine government officially informed Chile that it considered landmark XVI to be incorrectly placed, as it was impossible for the border to reach Cerro de la Virgen from there following the instructions of the 1902 arbitral award. The Chilean government rejected the claims regarding landmark XVI in a note dated December 26 and, on June 17, 1914, closed the discussion on the matter, arguing that the 1902 ruling was immutable.
In November 1914, both governments signed a document with the coordinates of the border landmarks, maintaining those of landmark XVI.
On April 16, 1941, the Chilean-Argentine Mixed Boundary Commission was created to restore deteriorated landmarks and place new ones where necessary.
Between 1945 and 1947, the Chilean government granted property titles to settlers in the disputed area.
Landmark XVI had been lost, so when an attempt was made to locate it in 1948, the Chilean commissioner informed his government about the difficulties in geographically pinpointing it according to the 1902 arbitral award.
On July 26, 1952, a detachment of the Argentine National Gendarmerie, under the command of assistant officer Domingo Cianis del Río, occupied the disputed areas of Hondo Valley, Horquetas Valley, and Lagunas del Engaño, notifying settlers that they had one month to regularize their situation with the Argentine government. This prompted a diplomatic protest from Chile. On 4 August 1955, Argentine gendarmes returned to the area. Chilean senator Exequiel González Madariaga raised an interpellation on the matter on 13 September.
On 11 October 1952, the new Chilean commissioner, Lieutenant Colonel Eduardo Saavedra Rojas, presented his conviction that the Cerro de la Virgen mentioned in the 1902 award was, in his opinion, the mountain then known as Cerro Central in the Cordillera de las Vírgenes (referring to the Picacho de la Virgen, source of the Encuentro River). According to the local watershed divide toward Lake General Paz/Palena, this interpretation would grant Chile the disputed zone and reflected errors in the cartography of the area. The boundary line proposed by Saavedra left the Lagunas del Engaño in Argentine territory. However, in December 1955 the Chilean–Argentine Mixed Boundary Commission ratified that the Cerro de la Virgen was the one previously identified, noting that it was different from the Picacho. In October of the following year, due to popular pressure, Chile resumed its position regarding the mountain that forms the source of the river, and on 24 January 1957 the Argentine government demanded the legal validity of what had been expressed in 1955 by the Mixed Commission.
The Chilean members of the mixed commission, in addition to Saavedra, were Colonel Raúl Figueroa Martínez, Octavio Flores Castlli, and General Daniel Urra Fuentes. On the Argentine side were General Otto Helbling, president of the commission, and the delegates Samuel Dvoskin and Major Gonzalo Gómez.
Daniel Urra was criticized and called a "traitor to the fatherland" and "sold to Argentine gold" for having supported the Argentine thesis before Saavedra’s presentation.
On May 2, 1956, Chilean settlers in California Valley, Alto Palena, were notified by Argentine authorities in Esquel that they had to apply for Argentine property titles. The Carabineros de Chile instructed the settlers to disregard the order and notified the commander of the Gendarmerie in Esquel that Carabineros would prevent any actions violating the status quo agreed upon by the two countries.
On 3 November 1958, Argentine gendarmes again entered the disputed area, surrounding Hondo and Horquetas Valleys, blocking Chilean settlers from accessing the wintering grounds at the Engaño Lakes.
Attempts to resolve the dispute [ { "type": "ExternalData", "service": "page", "title": "Alto Palena–Encuentro River dispute.map" } ]