The longstanding dispute over the
sovereignty of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic between Britain and
Argentina is once again in the news; this time as a result of an open letter to
David Cameron from Argentina's president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner,published
in the Guardian. In
her letter, the Argentinian president accuses Britain of having taken
possession of the islands - known in Argentina as Las Malvinas - in a
"blatant exercise of 19th century colonialism."
Any objective rendering of the history of the Falklands
reveals that she is right.
Located 300 miles from Argentina and over 8,000 miles
from Britain, the Falkland Islands have long been the subject of territorial
dispute. At the beginning of the 19th-century Spain held sovereignty over the
islands, occupying them for 40 years up until 1811, after which its former
colony of Argentina asserted sovereignty. The islands came under British
control in 1833, when seized by force, and have remained a British territory
ever since.
Britain's act of colonialism over its seizure of the
islands has been admitted to in private by various British officials over time.
For example, John Troutbeck, then head of the FCO's American department,
outlined the problem surrounding Britain's control of the Falklands in a memo
in 1936. He wrote that "our seizure of the Falkland Islands in 1833 was so
arbitrary a procedure as judged by the ideology of the present day. It is
therefore not easy to explain our possession without showing ourselves up as
international bandits."
In 1982 the war against the then Argentinian
government's attempt to seize back the islands by force cost the lives of 258
British and over 600 Argentinian servicemen. It proved a turning point in the
fortunes of the nascent and up to then deeply unpopular Tory government led by
Margaret Thatcher. Jingoism swept the country, allowing Thatcher to press ahead
with the structural adjustment of the UK economy, which in the process
devastated working class communities and delivered a resounding defeat to the
trade union movement over the course of a series of hard fought strikes and
industrial disputes throughout the early and mid 1980s.
Yet what we know now, thanks to recently
released government papers, is that Thatcher's
projection of steely determination when it came to asserting Britain's right to
the islands by force in truth belied a willingness to seek a diplomatic
solution with the Argentinians prior to their military assault.
The argument against British sovereignty of the
Falklands was harder to make in 1982. Back then Argentina was governed by a
brutal military junta which had ruthlessly suppressed any and all dissent to
its authority at home. Three decades on, however, the situation is markedly
different. Argentina is now a centre-left democracy, one of a series of
progressive governments that have swept the region over the past decade or so,
and is pursuing its claim via diplomatic means. Moreover, her claim is
supported by its neighbours and fellow members of Mercosur, the trading bloc of
South American states.
Regardless, the current British government refuses to
negotiate, citing the democratic rights of the 3,000 British citizens who
currently inhabit them. It should be noted here that according to a census
carried out on the Falkland Islands in 2006 only a third of its residents were
born there. It should also be noted that the same rights were not granted to
the inhabitants of another distant British colony, the islands of Diego Garcia
in the Indian Ocean. The islanders in question, Chagossians, were forcibly
repatriated to Mauritius, a thousand miles away from their home, to make way
for a US airbase in the mid 1960s. Subsequently, the islanders and their
dependants fought and won a historic High Court judgement in 2000, declaring
their expulsion illegal.
However, in response the then Blair government promptly
rejected any possibility of them being allowed to return to the island, citing
Britain's treaty with the US which had handed the islands over for use as a
military airbase. That the former inhabitants of Diego Garcia happen to have
dark skin while the 3,000 residents of the Falkland Islands are white, English
speaking colonists, is of course completely irrelevant.
The truth is that when it comes to the Falklands self
determination is being used as a smokescreen. The real issue is the sizeable
oil and gas deposits located in waters close to the islands, where drilling
began by British oil companies in 2011. In 1995 both countries signed a joint
declaration to cooperate on off shore oil explorations in the South Atlantic.
In 2007 Argentina voided the declaration because Britain refused to view it as
a step towards meaningful negotiations over sovereignty.
Any British government must be aware that it risks
precipitating a South American trade embargo if it continues with an obdurate
and intransigent stance of refusing to budge from the status quo. This is a
region which has emerged from centuries of European and North American
domination and is determined to assert its rights accordingly. Seen in this
light the ability of 3000 people living on a tiny group of islands in the South
Atlantic to dictate the foreign policy of a nation of 60 million over 8000
miles away, up to and including war, is surely absurd.
The Falkland Islands constitute one of the last remnants
of British colonialism, part of a history of economic piracy stained with the
blood of millions who suffered as a consequence. The sooner this history is
brought to a close the better.
Fonte: The Huffington Post, 04/01/2013
