Friday, March 29

Argentina redoubled its claim to the Malvinas Islands 40 years after the conflict with Great Britain


  • The Government of President Alberto Fernández vindicated Argentine rights over the islands beyond the errors of the last dictatorship

  • Argentina claims a resolution of the UN Decolonization Committee, of 1965, which calls on the parties to seek a negotiated solution

Argentina claimed this Saturday the sovereignty over the Falkland Islandsheld by Great Britain, honored those who “fought tirelessly in the South Atlantic” despite the serious mistakes of the military dictatorship in the 1982 war, and also called on London to seek a “peaceful” resolution of a dispute that dates back to 1833. “Malvinas unites us, we will never give in our claims“, said President Alberto Fernández during the main act four decades after the failed attempt to recover the archipelago, and urged the United Kingdom to “comply with UN Resolution 2065, which since 1965 recommends that both parties sit down to negotiate the question”.

Accompanied by former presidents Evo Morales (Bolivia), Fernando Lugo (Paraguay) and José Mugica (Uruguay), Fernández connected that 74-day conflagration in the southern sea with the present. “40 years passed and the world is moved by the war in Europe“. The president assured that Malvinas is a national cause that exceeds the responsibilities of the dictatorship. “In those days the decision was made by a handful of crooks from which nothing good could be expected,” he said in relation to the attempted occupation, three days after the most important social protest against the military regime. According to Fernández, with the passing of days “the attempt to manipulate ” by the military. Despite this, “our soldiers, with few means but a lot of courage and the support of the people, defended a usurped land in an absolutely unequal war.” Throughout the confrontation, 650 Argentines died, almost double that of its British counterpart

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Fernández especially repudiated the de facto president, the former general Leopold Galtieri, and to the other members of the Military Junta, who make the decision to occupy the islands. The president referred in this sense to “the clumsiness of those who led the war“. Those soldiers “discredited the Armed Forces” and “are part of a past to which we do not want to return.” dimension of the human rights violations, with their toll of thousands of disappeared, “we also extend it to our heroes so that no government will ever fall silent again.” Beyond criticizing the leaders, Fernández vindicated to “the officers who fought with dignity in the Malvinas”, and he especially mentioned former General Martín Balza, who came to lead the Army ten years after the conflict.

The word of Cristina Kirchner

“The homeland is not a matter of ideology. The homeland defends itself from all sides, from the right to the left, from below, from the center,” said the vice president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, in another ceremony held at the Congress. She also connected the events in the Malvinas with the current crisis in Europe following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to Fernández de Kirchner, today “we see that international law is applied selectively, where the great powers in the Security Council (of the UN), with a permanent seat and the right to veto, apply the law if it suits them.” Argentina, he maintained, was a victim of that same logic in 1982 when it demanded, at the beginning of hostilities with Great Britain, that the Organization of American States (OAS) apply the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR), designed during the Cold War, “and which forced all the countries of the continent to come out in defense when we were attacked in our territory by a non-American power”. However, “none of that happened, because the world and geopolitics are not divided between the good guys and the bad guys. That’s for Netflix”.

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A third event took place in Ushuaia, the southernmost city in Argentina, in the province of Tierra del Fuego, where the Malvinas issue has special significance. The survivors of the sinking of General Belgrano arrived there after May 2. The British attack, outside the exclusion zone, caused 350 deaths.

Message to London

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For his part, the Foreign Minister, Santiago Cafiero, published a column in the English newspaper Guardian, to establish the position of the current Government. “Argentina is not a threat“, he pointed out. “The anniversary of the conflict in the South Atlantic calls us to pay tribute and honor the memory of fallen Argentine and British soldiers. Likewise, it should serve as an invitation to reflect on the reason why, 40 years after the cessation of hostilities, Argentina and the United Kingdom have not been able to resume the substantive dialogue.”

Argentina and Great Britain, “we constitute vigorous democracies, with important economies”. The South American country and the Crown collaborate “on fundamental issues on the international agenda, such as the pandemic and the protection of human rights and, above all, we share fundamental values ​​and the vision of a world order based on rules.” However, “in the South Atlantic agenda, we behave as if the conflict had happened yesterday.”


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