The conflict over the islet (and the zone) was postponed, but Argentina maintained that the zone was disputed, and without a satisfactory solution, there would be no advance or economic use of the zone. To confront the crisis, the Chilean government, in the last days of the second
Carlos Ibáñez del Campo administration, issued the
Ley Reservada del Cobre (Spanish for
Copper secret law) that provided yearly for part of state-owned
Codelco's copper sales, without parliamentary control, for the purchase of weapons. Twenty years later, in 1978, in order to avoid a repetition of the
fait accompli, Chile placed troops on Snipe and their other islands south of the Beagle Channel before Argentina had started a planned invasion,
Operation Soberanía. The dispute was eventually settled when Snipe islet became an internationally recognized territory of Chile under the
Treaty of Peace and Friendship of 1984 between Chile and Argentina, after which a lighthouse was built on the islet. == See also ==