Earlier this month, Argentine patrol vessels boarded and detained 12 Spanish fishing vessels off the Falklands as part of what Argentina
contends is a “legal” blockade of their islands (Las Malvinas, to the
Argentines), which are currently being illegally occupied by the British,
stating that the Falklands, along with the even more remote South Georgia and
South Sandwich Islands are a “integral part of Argentine territory.”. The Spanish replied by saying that they had
legally-issued fishing permits from the government of the Falklands and
contested the legality of Argentina's boarding.
Argentina's President Cristina Kirchner though is unbowed,
slamming the British for “occupying” Las Malvinas, and recently calling Great
Britain a “crude colonial power in decline.”
Her comments and the boarding of the Spanish vessels have brought a
stinging rebuke from British foreign policy analyst, and frequent American TV
pundit Nile Gardiner. Nile typically
provides a hawkish, right-wing point-of-view (no surprise since he is also the Director
of the Margaret Thatcher Center at the Heritage Foundation), so perhaps it’s no
surprise that his suggested reply to Pres. Kirchner is for Great Britain to go
in guns a-blazing. Gardiner says that
the boarding of the Spanish vessels, licensed by the government of the
Falklands to fish in their waters, should be regarded as “an act of war” and
that the British should dispatch an infantry brigade, Typhoon warplanes and an
attack submarine to the Falklands immediately, lest Argentina “strangle the
Islands economically.”
Argentina raises the issue of sovereignty over the
Falklands/Malvinas periodically; critics have charged that Pres. Kirchner uses
the nationalistic fervor over the Islands to drown out critics of her domestic
policies, particularly her economic ones.
Complicated the matter at the moment though is the fact that Prince
William is due to be stationed in the Falklands next year as part of his tour
of duty with the Royal Air Force – it is hard to imagine that the Brits would
want to send the likely savior of the royal family into harms way, of course not
sending him could send a message to Kirchner that maybe the British aren't all
that serious about the Falklands after all...
Still, it is hard to imagine that Kirchner would want to do anything to
put her country in a position of actually getting into another shooting war
with Great Britain, considering how badly Argentina lost the first one and that
the Argentine military really hasn't gotten much better since.
The whole sovereignty issue is a murky one since neither
Great Britain nor Argentina have a particularly strong claim to the
Falklands/Malvinas. Typically, the
preferred way a case like this would be solved is with a referendum among the
disputed territory's residents, allowing them the right of
self-determination. But Argentina has
steadfastly opposed this option since almost all of the Falklands 3,000
residents are of British ancestry and would surely vote for union with Queen
and country, thus losing the Falklands as a nationalistic talking point for
Argentine politicians for good.
2 comments:
It is true that CFK uses Malvinas for internal purposes but it should be noted that Cameron does the same and so had been from both sides politicians for decades. Falklands are 10K miles from UK and 200 miles from RA. Both distances are to large and in the shorter case people does not share the language of its neighbour. So self-determination has only two rational choices INDEPENDENCE or INTERNATIONALIZATION under UN control like all other unpopulated South Atlantic islands and the Poles. I think the first will be more fair for and interesting to the islanders.
Thanks Pablo. I too think a vote of the Falklanders would be the best way to settle the matter. But given the ethnic background for most, they are likely to vote to remain part of GB (which is why Argentina opposes the vote idea). Going for independence is unlikely, since there are so few Falklanders, the total pop. is around 4,000, I believe, and since recent attempts to prospect for oil in the waters around the islands have not had great results.
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