Falkland Islanders to hold referendum over sovereignty

[Jon Miller]

I would expect you to make a call?

JM

[Dr Strangelove]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...y-7973022.html

OoooooOOOoooohhhh, THAT will make those uppity Brits SORRY!

You don't understand. You know that guy in the Dos Equis beer commercials, the "World's Most Interesting Man"? That's the President of Argentina. Well, sorta. He's pretty darn interesting anyway.

[kentonio]

I thought the President of Argentina was a woman?

[The Mad Monk]

That's what makes it so interesting.

[Dr Strangelove]

That's what makes it so interesting.

http://youtu.be/SQyUKnCf0YY

[The Mad Monk]

Whatever credibility Argentina may have had in this, is now gone.

UK 'disappointed' as Argentina turns down talks over Falklands

Argentinian minister says he will not attend meeting at which representatives of Falkland Islands government are present

Julian Borger and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Friday 1 February 2013 08.05 EST

Hector Timerman
Argentina's foreign secretary, Hector Timerman, who asked for a one-to-one meeting with William Hague over the Falklands. Photograph: Adek Berry/AFP/Getty Images

The UK Foreign Office has said that it is "massively disappointed" with the decision of Argentina's foreign minister to turn down the offer of talks with William Hague over the future of the Falklands, after a row over whether the islanders should be present.

Argentina's foreign secretary, Hector Timerman, had objected to representatives of the Falkland Islands government being part of the talks, but a spokesperson for the UK Foreign Office has said it would be "unthinkable" not to include the islanders.

Representatives of the Port Stanley government were flying to London this weekend to tell Timerman that Buenos Aires should respect islanders' rights and leave them in peace.

But Timerman, who had initially asked for a one-to-one meeting with the foreign secretary, sent a letter overnight saying he would not accept the offer of a meeting involving the islands' government, which Argentina does not recognise as legitimate.

The UN regards the dispute over the islands, which Argentina knows as the Malvinas, as a bilateral issue between Buenos Aires and London, he said.

He said he was sorry Hague could not "meet without the supervision of the colonists from the Malvinas".

The Foreign Office said on Friday morning that the UK was not ready to compromise on the presence of Falkland Islands representatives.

"We are not prepared to have a meeting where the Falkland Islanders are not represented or where the Falkland Islands are not mentioned," a spokeswoman said. "We're massively disappointed by the Argentinian response."

Insisting on a Falkland Islands presence appears to be a new condition laid down by Britain for a ministerial meeting with Argentina. The Foreign Office spokeswoman said that because of the rising tension in recent months between the two countries over the islands "it would be unthinkable not to have the islands represented".

Timerman invited Hague to meet him in Buenos Aires, where he said "my fellow foreign ministers can freely meet with whomever they wish without being pressured or having their presence conditioned on meetings that they haven't asked for and don't interest them".

The Argentinian president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, has in recent years strongly asserted her country's demands for the Falklands to come under its sovereignty despite the opposition of the islanders.

Earlier this month, she had an advert published in British newspapers claiming Argentina had been stripped of the islands in "a blatant exercise of 19th-century colonialism".

The British prime minister, David Cameron, has repeatedly insisted the residents of the Falklands must decide their own future and a referendum on the islands' political status is to be held in March.

In a statement released before Timerman turned down the meeting, the legislative assembly of the Falkland Islands stressed that their representatives, Dick Sawle and Jan Cheek, would not be "negotiating any deal".

"Rather, we are anticipating a full and frank exchange of views," the assembly said. "Indeed we look forward to giving Mr Timerman some very direct messages on the unacceptability of Argentina's actions against the Falkland Islands in recent years.

"We demand that our rights be respected, and that we be left in peace to choose our own future and to develop our country for our children and generations to come. It is only right that he should hear this directly from us, as well as from Mr Hague."

In its statement, the Falklands assembly cited Britain's opposition to "any negotiations over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands unless and until the Falkland Islanders so wish".

"The Falkland Islands legislative assembly believes that the result of the forthcoming referendum will demonstrate definitively that we do not. Should the issue of sovereignty be raised at the meeting, it will not be discussed," it said.

"Members of the legislative assembly made it clear in their letter of 2012 to President Fernández de Kirchner … that the Falkland Islands government is willing to meet with the government of Argentina in order to make our views clear, and to discuss matters of mutual interest including fisheries and communication."

A spokesperson for the foreign office added: "We have always said that we are open to discuss a wide range of issues that affect our two countries, including our respective interests as members of the United Nations security council.

"However, it is clear from Mr Timerman's plans in the UK that the Falkland Islands are already on his agenda. We remain concerned about the Argentine government's behaviour towards the Falkland Islanders, so it is right and proper that they are involved in the part of the meeting that concerns the Islands. We have made that clear to the Argentine government in recent exchanges, and the foreign secretary's offer of a meeting on these terms still stands."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/feb/01/uk-disappointed-argentina-talks-falklands

[The Mad Monk]

Falklands will be under our control within 20 years, says Argentina

Argentinian foreign minister rules out military solution but says 'not one single country' supports UK right to govern islands

Patrick Wintour, political editor
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 5 February 2013 07.00 EST

Héctor Timerman, the Argentinian foreign minister, refused to meet the foreign secretary, William Hague, after the Foreign Office insisted representatives of the islands also attend. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian

The Falklands Islands will be under Argentinian control within 20 years, the South American country's foreign minister, Héctor Timerman, has said in an interview with the Guardian.

Visiting London for the first time, he ruled out a military solution to the 130-year-old sovereignty dispute but claimed the world increasingly recognised that the islands were a product of colonialism. He accused the British government of being motivated by a fanatical desire to hold on to the islands and claimed "the United Kingdom has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity to find a solution for the Malvinas".

"I don't think it will take another 20 years. I think that the world is going through a process of understanding more and more that this is a colonial issue, an issue of colonialism, and that the people living there were transferred to the islands."

He vowed that the interests of the existing islanders would be protected under Argentinian rule, including "their way of life, their language and right to remain British citizens". But he drew a distinction between the islanders' interests, which could be met, and their wishes, which could not.

Timerman is in London to argue the historical and legal case for Argentinian sovereignty over the islands. He has refused to meet the foreign secretary, William Hague, after the Foreign Office insisted representatives of the islands also attend. He said Hague's refusal to hold talks bewildered him since in the past the British had been quite willing to talk to a military junta that claimed 35,000 Argentinian lives.

In his interview, Timerman refused to discuss the possibility of joint sovereignty, saying he would not as a diplomat conduct negotiations through the Guardian and could only do so directly with Hague.

Explaining his refusal to meet the islanders, Timerman, speaking at the Argentinian embassy in Mayfair, said: "We have been trying to find a peaceful solution for 180 years. I think the fanatics are not in Buenos Aires [but] maybe in the United Kingdom because they are 14,000km away from the islands. And I think they are using the people living in the islands for political [reasons] and to have access to oil and natural resources which belong to the Argentine people. I think we are not fanatical at all.

"There is not one single country in the world which supports the right of the United Kingdom to govern over the Malvinas. Not one.

"According to the United Nations, there are only two parties to the conflict – the United Kingdom and the Republic of Argentina. It is an issue that has to be resolved by Argentina and the United Kingdom. By introducing a third party [the Falkland Islanders], the United Kingdom is changing more than 40 resolutions by the United Nations, which call the two countries to negotiate."

Asked if it would be better to develop a relationship with the islanders as a way of reaching a settlement, he said: "I don't have to persuade them. The United Nations says there is a conflict between the United Kingdom and Argentina. I don't have to persuade anybody. We have to apply international law and accept the resolutions, if not the UN becomes a body that is only useful when it backs the powerful."

He also dismissed the referendum that is being held by the British government on the islands in March, designed to underline that the islanders want to remain part of the British Overseas Territories. He said the referendum "is something that doesn't mean anything because if you ask the colonial people who came with a colonial power and replaced the people who were living in the islands, it is like asking the British citizens of the Malvinas Islands if they want to remain British".

He likened it to asking only new Jewish settlers in the Occupied Territories if they want to remain Israeli.

He pointed out that the number of islanders who have lived there for more than nine generations was tiny.

Expressing his country's deep sense of grievance, in the interview jointly conducted with the Independent, Timerman added: "It is strange to be accused of being fanatical when you see all your natural resources being taken away, part of your country under the administration of a foreign power and you try to sit down and have dialogue and you are refused."

A form of joint sovereignty has been repeatedly urged on both countries as the best solution to the conflict, and in the past before the invasion of the islands by the military dictatorship in 1983, British diplomats had discussed the proposals with their Argentinian counterparts.

Pressed on whether the Argentinians could propose such a solution, he said: "When we sit down we will discuss everything that has to be discussed, not before. You don't discuss through the media. You discuss face to face. That is why I ask for a meeting with William Hague and he refused. If I can sit down with him, he will know what we think, but he refuses to sit down with us."

An exile during the military junta that invaded the islands leading to a total of 907 deaths, he ruled out any Argentinian intention to settle the dispute through force. He said: "I am a victim of a dictatorship, please take me more seriously. Argentina is a country which has not been in a war under a democratic government for over 100 years." He pointed out Britain had invaded Argentina three times in the past.

He denied the Argentinians had been making life difficult for the Falklands Islanders, instead accusing the British government of taking unilateral decisions including giving fishing licences for 25 years instead of, as in the past, just two years. He also accused Britain of exploring for oil in a way that could cause a real ecological disaster.

He said drily: "Wherever there is a smell of oil, big powers start to look around and they find a reason to stay there. I think probably oil will complicate the peaceful solution that is asked for by the United Nations.

"I think in history that Britain has had a tendency to stay in places where there are natural resources belonging to other people."

He also denied that his government was seeking to distract from its economic problems by highlighting the conflict. Taking a swipe at the state of the British economy, he said: "I think it is the United Kingdom that is going through an economic crisis and is becoming isolationist more than Argentina. They want to get out of the European Union, there is a sense here [in Britain] that we want to stop the world and get out."

He also said that at least under the Labour government Gordon Brown had been willing to meet the Argentinians.

The foreign minister ended with a plea for Hague to meet him, saying he was willing to stay in London for extra days until the foreign secretary could find a slot in his diary.

He said: "I hope that one day soon we can start a dialogue and not be hostage to a group of people who are there because a colonial empire took them and sent them there to settle and to live. There are other issues we should be discussing and hope we can discuss them."

A spokesman for the Foreign Office reiterated the foreign secretary's refusal to meet Timerman without Falklands Islands representatives present.

"We are still very much open to a meeting with Mr Timerman and the original appointment is still in the foreign secretary's diary for tomorrow. We hope that he will accept this offer and that we can engage in a meaningful discussion on issues of mutual interest. Mr Timerman's own plans in the UK are clearly focused on the Falkland Islands issue and since we remain concerned about the Argentine government's recent behaviour towards the Falkland Islanders, it is right and proper that their political representatives are involved in the part of the meeting that concerns them. We continue to make that clear to the Argentine government in diplomatic exchanges and the foreign secretary's offer of a meeting on these terms still stands."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/feb/05/falklands-under-our-control-argentina

...

Are they trying to compete with North Korea in the propaganda department now?

[Krill]

Where is that flogging a dead horse smiley...

I'll wait to see what they do once oil drilling starts. Until then, whatever.

[MichaeltheGreat]

The cross itself is phallic.

There's probably a school of pseudo-Freudian or hyperfeminist thought that holds that anything which is not a perfect sphere is phallic.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Are they trying to compete with North Korea in the propaganda department now?

Maybe they should watch the old footage of the Royal Marine band playing "Don't cry for me, Argentina"

[regexcellent]

There's probably a school of pseudo-Freudian or hyperfeminist thought that holds that anything which is not a perfect sphere is phallic.

Perfect spheres symbolize testicles.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Or ovaries. They're equal opportunity shapes for absurd psychological projection.

[PLATO]

The real question is what will Argentina do if the Islanders want their own nation...not that anyone has brought that up.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

It's pretty unlikely that the Falklands would make a viable self-sustaining sovereign nation. None of the other British dependencies in the Atlantic (Ascension, St Helena, Tristan da Cunha) manage it.

[PLATO]

It's pretty unlikely that the Falklands would make a viable self-sustaining sovereign nation. None of the other British dependencies in the Atlantic (Ascension, St Helena, Tristan da Cunha) manage it.

Yes, but they may have Oil. Easily could be self sustaining if they have enough of it. Just think of the market for U.S. weapons it would make with a hostile Argentina just a few miles away...