/ARTS WEEKLY/CHILE: Military Cooperates Closely in Film on Beagle Channel

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

María Cecilia Espinosa

SANTIAGO, Mar 21 2005 (IPS) - In an unprecedented show of cooperation with civil society, aimed at leaving behind the animosity fed by human rights abuses under the 1973-1990 dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean military offered its support for the filming of a new movie on the 1978 dispute with Argentina over control of the Beagle Channel.

Until now, the Chilean armed forces had maintained a shroud of secrecy over the Beagle Channel crisis, which came close to triggering a war with Argentina.

Their reluctance was eventually broken down by Chilean filmmaker Alex Bowen’s emphasis on reflecting the human stories behind the episode, and in the end, the army provided the logistical support crucial to the making of "Mi mejor enemigo" (My Best Enemy), scheduled to premiere in Chile on May 5.

Bowen, who made his directing debut in 2000 with "Campo minado" (Minefield), wanted to delve into the mystery still surrounding the Beagle Channel conflict.

Situated at the southernmost tip of South America, connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, the channel was "discovered" in 1830 by a British expedition led by William Parker King and Robert Fitz Roy.

In 1978, during the dictatorships in Chile and Argentina (1976-1983), the two countries reached the brink of war over control of three Beagle Channel islands, Picton, Lennox and Nueva.

"My Favourite Enemy" focuses on the human relationship that takes root between a Chilean military patrol and an Argentine adversary over the course of days fraught with high tension.

Punta Arenas, located 2,300 kilometres south of Santiago, was the Chilean city most deeply shaken by the tension. "There are still remains of the trenches, minefields, highways prepared to serve as runways and crosses painted on hospitals," Bowen told IPS.

The Pinochet regime maintained airtight silence over the 1978 crisis. The public was barely informed of the events by the press, and very few people outside of Punta Arenas realised that the country was just hours away from armed conflict at the southern tip of Patagonia.

Chile and Argentina share a borderline stretching over 5,000 kilometres along the length of the Andes mountains, which was established through a July 1881 treaty that also granted Chile sovereignty over the Strait of Magellan, the western portion of Tierra del Fuego and the islands south of the Beagle Channel.

After numerous territorial disputes over the channel, an international arbitration panel declared in May 1977 that the islands of Picton, Lennox and Nueva definitely belonged to Chile. But Argentina refused to recognise the ruling.

Crisis soon broke out. On Dec. 21-22, 1978, the Chilean and Argentine fleets planned to face off in the disputed waters, but unfavourable weather conditions prevented the positioning of warships, the take-off of helicopters and the landing of troops.

On Dec. 22, Pope John Paul II intervened as a mediator and named Cardinal Antonio Samoré as his representative. The resulting negotiations finally reached a successful end on Nov. 29, 1984, with the signing of a Peace and Friendship Treaty between the countries in the Vatican.

Chile maintained control of the three islands, while Argentina was granted sovereignty over the waters in the eastern portion of the channel.

Twenty-six years after conflict was narrowly averted, the Chilean army finally relented after repeated refusals and gave its approval to Bowen’s film project, agreeing to collaborate in terms of logistical support, wardrobe, infrastructure, vehicles, training and personnel.

"This is the first movie filmed under the guidance of the Chilean army," said Iván de la Fuente of the Military History Department, who served as an advisor for the movie project.

The Chilean Air Force provided fighter planes from the era and recreated a command post, while the Carabineros (militarised police) trained a dog that became one of the "stars" of the film.

This greater openness on the part of the military forms part of a modernisation process aimed at shedding an image of the army that its leadership believes to be outdated, adapting to the new times while striving to revive and preserve the historical heritage of the armed forces.

Bowen attributed the change in attitude to the fact that "it was in the best interests of both sides to work together, and that was what we did."

"We gave them every possible opportunity to be involved. We let them read the screenplay beforehand, listened to their comments, and discussed them openly, which helped build mutual trust," he said.

According to the director, the military officers who read the script were especially pleased with "its recounting of a profoundly human story, that speaks of friendship and reconciliation, of human beings trapped in horrific circumstances."

It took Bowen four years to pull the project together from the time he began his initial research, followed by interviews with participants in the events, and finally culminating in the writing of the script. After six weeks of shooting on location in Patagonia, the film spent a year in post-production.

Bowen stresses that the movie is based on true events, but that two or three fictional elements have been added to help develop the plot.

The Chilean-Argentine-Spanish co-production was made with financing from the Chilean Fund for the Development of the Arts and the Corporation for the Promotion of Film Production, along with support from the Spanish consortium Ibermedia and private investors.

"My Best Enemy" also took part in the recent film festival in the Argentine resort town of Mar del Plata and will be shown in the Buenos Aires film festival in April.

Cristián Parker, a PhD in sociology from the Advanced Studies Institute at the University of Santiago de Chile, told IPS that "there is an express will, on the part of the army and the armed forces in general, to build closer ties with civil society. The support provided for this movie, among other examples, is aimed in this direction."

This new attitude is "a sign of the incorporation of the armed forces into a redefinition of the tasks of defence and security, in which it is more clearly understood that security is linked to the issues of integration and development," he added.

In the last 15 years, Parker said, military-civilian relations have gradually improved with the consolidation of democracy and the modernisation and professionalisation of the armed forces. The progress made in criminal trials for human rights violations during the dictatorship has also been a significant factor, he noted.

If this trend continues, the rapprochement between the military and civil society will be further strengthened, paving the way for greater cooperation in the opposite direction, predicted Parker, who has had high-ranking army officers in his PhD classes at the university, and also teaches at the military academy, an experience that has created "a very interesting space for coexistence."

"There is greater openness on the part of civil society, even among those who are anti-military or were persecuted during the dictatorship, to the participation of the armed forces in efforts aimed at development, integration and peace," he said.