The Leader of Argentina, Ms De Kirchner, has attacked the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron for his dismissal of Argentinian requests to negotiate over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands. A brief check on the economic situation of Argentina shows that this was likely to happen this year, some 29 years after the UK defeated an Argentinian expedition to capture the islands.
Cameron took the only logical and consistent principled response to a query over the sovereignty of the islands this week when he said that while the people of the Falklands wished to remain British, they would – full stop.
Ms De Kirchner described the remarks of the Prime Minister as ‘an expression of mediocrity’ and roundly cursed the Prime Minister for ‘arrogance’ in failing to agree to negotiate with Argentina.
The United Nations position on the dismantlement of colonies, with what continues to be a State Department in the US hostile to the UK at every conceivable turn, seem to be gearing up, again, to support the Argentinians. How tedious.
The obvious contradictions of UN anti-colonial policy are quite fantastic. The idea that the UK should decolonize the islands in order to allow Argentina to recolonize it itself is wonderful comedy, and if that was the only stupid argument process in this saga, we’d all still get a good belly laugh out of it. But wait, there’s more.
Either the principle of national self-determination applies universally or it doesn’t apply at all. The right of the islanders to determine their status is not diminished by Argentina’s economic situation or the proximity of oil to the wind-blasted outcrops, nor is it diminished by the capability of Argentina to wage aggressive war against the UK.
If the people of the islands seek a referendum on their status, the UK should facilitate it. The UK government should and must not seek to negotiate terms with the people who sought to capture the territory and subjugate its people in 1982. If the people seek no such referendum, then Ms De Kirchner should rail instead against the free-willed and hardy people of those South Atlantic islands, and must accept those decisions.
