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

[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?