ARGENTINA’S PRESIDENT, Cristina Kirchner has felt insulted by the prospect of Prince William’s departure to the Falkland’s on the 30th anniversary of our victory over President Galtieri, and our retaking of the islands.
If we were to look back to the weeks leading up to the start of the conflict on the 2nd of April 1982, we would quickly realize that this whole enterprise was undertaken for one reason only.
General Leopoldo Galtieri was an unpopular leader whose junta had failed miserably as mature politicians and who now sought a military conflict to assuage the unpopularity that his impoverished people felt toward him.
A war would rally the people. National pride would replace anger toward him as their dominant emotion. On top of which, through misunderstanding the British, it would be a war that would be winnable because the British would not want to engage in a military conflict, over a few remote islands in the south Atlantic, that few of the British people at the time had ever heard of.
Galtieri may have failed as a politician; but as general he could recoup some popularity, by defying the British. So he took control of the Falklands and his people duly obliged him with an outpouring of emotion in Buenos Aires.
It is important to realise that the taking of the Falklands by the Argentineans was never about any historical claim they may or may not have had. It was meant purely as piece of theatre orchestrated to restore Galtieri’ s political fortunes.
There was no noble purpose to this adventure, merely political opportunism. The trouble was he thought the last thing that would happen, did happen: and he would have been proven right however, if it had not been for Margaret Thatcher. For no other politician at the time, from whatever party, would have dared send the fleet thousands of miles south to recover such an insignificant piece of geography.
The ‘Malvinas’ was guaranteed to press all the right buttons with the Argentinean public; but what was not considered at the time was that their capture would press all the right buttons with the British prime minister, who was herself unpopular at the time.
SO, THIRTY YEARS have passed and Argentina has moved away from dictatorship and recovered democracy thanks, in small part, to what the British did to the Generalissimo in 1982. But rather than thank us, president Kirchner seeks to drag that unhappy episode in her country’s history once more into the limelight (there must be an election afoot).
Profitable deposits of oil have since been found in the South Atlantic, which the British are now about to exploit. An opportunity, one would have thought, for the president of Argentina to reach an accommodation with the British over a possible share in the find, without, of course any acknowledgement by Britain that the Argentineans have any kind of claim on the Falklands.
Instead Ms Kirchner has managed to persuade other South American countries to deny entry into their ports any ship flying a Falklands’ ensign. This coalition of ‘anti-British colonialism’ however soon seemed to waver when British ships flying the white ensign were allowed to dock, seemingly, at all ports of those countries Argentina had thought she had brought on side.
As one e-mail I recently read suggested. Argentina has missed the opportunity of having an Aberdeen on its soil bringing wealth and jobs to the country. Perhaps her neighbours are not so hog-tied to a principle that is wholly of Argentina’s concern; and will offer facilities to the UK when oil production is underway.
If the Falklands conflict had been built on principle instead of the survival of a dictator, then I would understand, if not accept, Ms Kirchner’s anger. But her behaviour does little to promote her people’s interests.
According to Annabelle Fuller writing in today’s Daily Mail, an American company with links to the Pentagon, as well as UK Rockhopper, have discovered fossil fuel reserves in the Exclusive Economic Zone surrounding the islands, and are close to an agreement on exploiting them.
THE HINT IS, that with an American partner in the exploration of resources in the south Atlantic; and with a direct channel to the Pentagon, no less; Argentina’s difficulties can only increase.
Come this April, Argentina will make all the appropriate noises on behalf of her people – especially after Prince William’s arrival on the islands.
We have 1,2oo army personal and four Typhoon aircraft protecting the Falklands. We are however short of naval power, because of cuts in the MoD’s budget. However, a couple of submarines patrolling the 200 mile radius of the islands should deter any foolishness on behalf of the Argentineans, with the memory of the Belgrano still no doubt fresh in their avenging minds.
The people of the Falklands should have the final say on who they chose to look after their interests. It is the people of these islands who should be placed above all other outside bodies, including the United Nations, when the future of the Falklands are discussed.
As long as the people of these islands seek to remain part of a British protectorate as British citizens, then their wishes must be protected.
If they chose to become citizens of Argentina, then there is very little morally, if not legally, the UK can do. If the citizens of the Falklands chose to become part of Argentina; then, while we will still have a legal right to the Falklands, would it be worth pursuing it if the people themselves turned their backs on us?
But this is unlikely to happen, and therefore this, as the only remaining outposts of British sovereignty ( of course not forgetting Gibraltar) must be defended; and if their comes a time when it is no longer possible to do so, then a once proud nation that had given the world a universal second language as well as a political, artistic and scientific heritage, will, like an ancient culture, depart this earth.
This cannot of course, and hopefully will not happen. But it depends upon what we as a nation are still prepared to do to keep our nation’s head above the waves. Argentina poses no threat to us today. But considering the way our nation is progressing, will we be in a position to keep Argentina at bay in another 30, or even 10 years?
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