UK says Argentina's position over Malvinas is 'unsustainable'

[naaman fletcher]

"The United Kingdom government's position will remain that there will not and cannot be any discussions on the sovereignty of the Falklands (Malvinas) Islands unless and until the islanders so wish," British amabassador to the United Nations Mark Lyall Grant said and warned that inhabitants’ views “are now unequivocally on the record and should be respected by all."

Buenos Aires has rejected the referendum held earlier in March when British citizens who live in the resource-rich archipelago ratified their decision to remain a British overseas territory. Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner publicly called the voting process a “consortium of squatters” as the South American government considers the Islands have been illegally occupied by the UK in 1833.

http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/127371/uk-says-argentinas-position-over-malvinas-is-unsustainable

I'd love to track down some indigenous Argentinians (there aren't many. The European Colonialists that founded Argentina murdered most of them). I'm sure they would call CFK and modern Argentina a "consortium of squatters" as well.

[msongs]

1. well there was a burst of immigration to argentina in 1945 or shortly thereafter lol nt

[naaman fletcher]

2. By invitation of the Peronists

Of course the current gov't calls themselves Peronists as well

[Catherina]

3. "consortium of squatters" is a good term for it lol n/t

[naaman fletcher]

4. perhaps

but what would you kill the europeans living in Argentina now who killed all of the indigenous?

[Catherina]

5. Kill them? No. But I would reclaim the territory and offer the residents

their choice of permanent visa or citizenship.

[naaman fletcher]

6. ok,

but you do know, don't you, that Britain claimed it before Argentina did, right?

[Catherina]

7. Those other thieves, the Spaniards returned it to Argentina when they left

The UK is basically claiming the same squatters rights that they don't recognize in their own country, the rights of squatters who forcefully evicted Argentinian authorities in 1833.

In the Nootka Sound treaty, signed by UK and Spain almost ten years before UK illegally occupied the islands, it stated that UK would respect Argentina's territories and independence and that none of the old colonial powers in the area (France, Spain, UK) would establish new settlements. Some British illegally did so and want to keep the purloined goods.

Kirchner's not cracked. Her case is solid from the Latin American point of view. Nootka was in full effect, when Argentina gained its independence in 1816.

Article VI of the Nootka treaty "It is further agreed with respect to the eastern and western coasts of South America and the islands adjacent, that the respective subjects shall not form in the future any establishment on the parts of the coast situated to the south of the parts of the same coast and of the islands adjacent already occupied by Spain; it being understood that the said respective subjects shall retain the liberty of landing on the coasts and islands so situated for objects connected with their fishery and of erecting thereon huts and other temporary structures serving only those objects."

As my indigenous friens would say: White men's treaties. White men's laws. White men's forked tongue.

[naaman fletcher]

9. I don't read the history of the treaty the same as you do

But I would add:

Who cares? Isn't there some sort of statute of limitation, or should we go back to every single land claim from the early 1800's and move borders all over? Should the Austro-Hungarian empire be re-instituted as well?

There ought to be a statute of limitations. In fact, there is. It is generally recognized that if you drop your claims for 50 years they are done. Argentina dropped their claims for more than 50 years.

s my indigenous friens would say: White men's treaties. White men's laws. White men's forked tongue.

Perhaps, but remember, both sides of this debate are white.

[Peace Patriot]

8. The thing that's "unsustainable" is a British military base 300 miles off Argentina's coast

with Argentina's oil reserves between the islands and the mainland, and with a tiny population of British colonials (600 families, less than 3,000 people) claiming some kind of colonial 'sovereignty' over nearly 5,000 miles of Argentine territory (the islands) on behalf of the British Crown.

The Falklanders are neither independent nor sovereign. British foreign policy and war policy are entirely out of their control. And we know (and South Americans know) what lengths England will go to, with its U.S. ally, to secure oil supplies--in fact, wholesale slaughter (not to mention British and American poor paying for it). So how can their vote to remain subjects of the Crown rob Argentina of all this land and its resources?

Take a look at a map. The Falklands (Malvinas) are part that curl of land at the southern tip of South America (the islands are the seaside curl of that formation), right off Argentina's coast, a very strategic location for control of shipping in the South Atlantic (thousands of miles from England) and for whatever purpose British and U.S. war profiteers decide upon.

Lula da Silva has pointed out the danger to South American oil supplies from the U.S. so-called "Southern Command" and its extensive system of U.S. military bases and "forward operating locations" in Latin America--expanding in Honduras, Colombia and other places--and the newly reconstituted U.S. 4th Fleet, in the Caribbean, which he called "a threat to Brazil's oil." (It is also a threat to Venezuela's.) This is a very serious matter to South Americans, who are well aware of the history of U.S. interference and aggression against their democracies, historically and recently, and of the horror that the U.S. and England inflicted on Iraq, and on other oil or oil-related (pipeline) countries in the Middle East, Near East and North Africa.

This is why Lula da Silva proposed a "common defense" for South America. The potential threat is the U.S. and its war ally the U.K.! And it is also why Latin America is overwhelmingly supportive of Argentina's claim. They know that they are all vulnerable--to meddling, aggression and theft of their resources, by these same domineering and aggressive countries that slaughtered a hundred thousand innocent people in Iraq, to steal their oil.

The British colonization of the Falklands has already caused hostilities. More recently, the British have been encroaching on Argentina's coastal oil reserves and on their fishing. The British have no claim on these islands. The British Navy kicked an Argentina colony off the islands just when Argentina had won its independence from Spain and was forming its first sovereign government. It was pure opportunism and imperialism. The 600 families recently voted to remain British subjects, so they have no claim to being a nation or to sovereignty. It is THE QUEEN'S alleged sovereignty that is at issue.

The rights and welfare of those descendants of the first British colonists are certainly an important issue--but they don't have the right to give all this land to the Queen by a plebiscite of this tiny population of colonials, in my opinion.

There were no Indigenous inhabitants of these islands (according to my research). So that is not an issue. And the fact that it was a British ship that first stumbled upon them during the British-Europen imperial era, and named them after a lord of the British Admiralty, no more establishes the Crown's "ownership" of the islands than Christopher Colombus' various claims for Spain. And the fact that it was by force that they were taken from Argentine colonials, and by force that they are kept--and the potential of this situation for further hostilities--is why this matter is in the United Nations. That is what the UN is for--to settle disputes like this. There are some unique aspects to this situation (for instance, that the island colonials speak English, are mostly British and want to remain subjects of the Crown) but there are de-colonization precedents. Hong Kong springs to mind. India. Multicultural Quebec. And others.

The main issue is location (so near Argentina, so not near England), and the serious security and resource issues that arise from location. Other issues are the tiny colonial population 'claiming' all this land for the British Crown (they only inhabit a very small area of this big group of islands), and the manner by which the Crown 'acquired' the islands and the manner by which they've kept them--military force. Situations like this too often are settled by military force, alas. But the goal should be a peaceful settlement and the removal of the British (and allied U.S.) military threat to Argentina and to South America.

Speaking of which: The U.S. so-called "Southern Command" ought to be dismantled and all U.S. military forces and bases removed from Latin America, including all operations of the corrupt, murderous, failed U.S. "war on drugs." Just sayin'. I don't want to pay for transglobal corporations' designs upon Latin American resources any more--do you?