Editor's Comment: The English, joined at the hip with the United States have been pushing the imperial agenda with their warships in Las Islas Malvinas just off the coast of Argentina – again – and they're drilling oil there. Argentine President Cristina Fernandez imposed controls on shipping in the waters around the islands, stating that any ship travelling to or from the islands must get prior permission from her country – a requirement Britain told captains to ignore. In his weekly program, Alo Presidente, Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela recently backed up the Argentine people when he told the Queen Elizabeth II that the days of empire are over:
"Look, England, how long are you going to be in Las Malvinas Queen of England, I'm talking to you… the time for empires are over, haven't you noticed? Return the Malvinas to the Argentine People."
He warned the British that should there be war, Argentina will not be left to fend for itself. In his message to the queen he stated, "The English are still threatening Argentina. Things have changed. We are no longer in 1982. If conflict breaks out, be sure Argentina will not be alone like it was back then."
Axis of Logic Columnist, T.J. Coles does an excellent job of explaining the history behind this imperial move against Argentina, their violations of international law, their motivation and the nature of their aggression.
– Les Blough, Editor
On the thirtieth anniversary of the Falklands War (1982), Britain has sent a nuclear-armed submarine to Malvinas in response to Argentine President Kirchner’s diplomatic efforts to realise key UN resolutions and peacefully reclaim territorial waters from European over-fishing and oil exploration.1Britain’s move should be considered a grave breach of the peace and the most grievous violation of Chapter1 Article 2(4) of the UN Charter which prohibits the threat of force.2
Sending a nuclear-armed vessel to Argentina’s waters in response to diplomacy obliterates the idea that the UK’s Continuous at Sea doctrine has anything to do with nuclear “deterrence,” as is claimed.3 Rather, it has everything to do with “wielding a big stick … [to] compel others to act in a desired manner,” as former Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Stanhope put it to Chatham House in 2009.4 The situation has once again illustrated that a world dominated by a psychopathic, power-mad, mostly male elite is a very dangerous and possibly terminal one.5
The BBC acknowledged that “The Latin America and the Caribbean region is designated a nuclear-free zone under a treaty signed in the 1960s,” which the UK has no trouble violating.6 Polls taken in 2008 indicate that most people want the entire world to be a nuclear-weapons-free-zone. “All countries with nuclear weapons would be required to eliminate them according to a timetable. All other countries would be required not to develop them”, a WorldPublicOpinion survey proposed:
“All countries … would be monitored to make sure they are following the agreement.” A global average of 76% favoured the proposals including their own state’s nuclear weapons, where relevant: 77% of Americans favoured this position; 87% French; 81% Britons; 69% Russians; 83% Chinese; 67% Israelis; 62% Indians; 46% Pakistanis (41% opposed).7
The fact that de-nuclearisation has not happened not only illustrates the contempt that governments have for their own publics, but also their contempt for international law. Because nuclear weapons murder indiscriminately, yet under the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD, yes MAD) which may serve legitimate self-defence, the World Court (ICJ) advised in 1996 that the only lawful way to resolve the issue is global disarmament.8 Britain has really demonstrated its contempt for the law with the Malvinas issue.
Malvinas: The Law
Argentina has sovereignty claims over Islas Malvinas, or “the Falkland Islands” as the British occupiers call them. However, as President Kirchner explained in December 2011, “Malvinas is not an Argentine cause, it’s a global cause because they [the British] are taking our fisheries and oil resources.”9 Argentina’s case for sovereignty is a strong one, but unlike the occupation of Palestine (for instance) the issue is yet to be settled by the International Court of Justice (as it should).10
That said, the issue of Argentina’s claim is completely separate from Britain’s sovereignty claim. Before Argentina’s claim can be settled, the region must first be decolonised because Britain has no legal right to Malvinas. But decolonisation cannot happen while Britain continues to occupy the islands.
Britain’s claim to sovereignty (and thus self-determination for the islanders) is an open-and-shut case: Britain has no legal entitlement to the islands or the territorial waters. Therefore, the islands must be demilitarised and peacefully decolonised. By implication of various UN resolutions (cited below), Argentina can claim sovereignty following decolonisation (uti possidetis). The issue of Britain’s false sovereignty claim (the one addressed in this article) is codified in several United Nations resolutions:
General Assembly Resolution 2065 (XX), adopted on 16 December 1965, “Consider[ed] … the cherished aim of bringing to an end everywhere colonialism in all its forms, one of which covers the Falkland Islands (Malvinas).” The Resolution left it to Argentina and Britain to negotiate the issue using bilateral diplomacy.11 Britain violated this aspect of the Resolution. As a result, in December 1973, General Assembly Resolution 3160 (XXVIII) “Express[ed] its gratitude for the continuous efforts made by the Government of Argentina … to facilitate the process of decolonization and to promote the well-being of the population of the island.” The Resolution also “Urge[d] the Governments of Argentina [and the UK] …to put an end to the colonial situation” (italics in original).12 Again, Britain refused to obey the law.
The reason for Malvinas’ classification as a colonial issue dates back to the acquisition of the islands by France. King’s College London specialist Christoph Bluth noted that “Since the islands were terra nullius before the French settled at Port Louis and claimed sovereignty over them, the British settlement [beginning 1765] must be considered to have been illegal.”13Malvinas was then sold to Spain, a fact which Britain recognised. Article VIII of the British-Spanish Treaty of Utrecht (1713) states that:
"…neither the Catholic King [Charles II] nor any of his heirs and successors whatsoever, shall sell, yield, pawn, transfer or by any means under any name alienate from them and the Crown of Spain to the French or to any nations whatever any lands dominions or territories or any part thereof belonging to Spain in America."14
In 1771, under the threat of war, Spain agreed to allow British colonisers to remain on the island, but also emphasised its sovereignty over Islas Malvinas. Bluth stated that “Argentina claims that it succeeded to Spanish rights according to the principle of uti possidetis. The principle means that Latin American states succeed to Spanish territorial boundaries after Spanish departure from their colonies.”15
Commenting in the Chatham House journal International Affairs, Peter Calvert noted that “By 1811 Spain had exercised all rights of sovereignty in the islands for thirty seven years, and by the Nootka Sound Convention of 1790 Britain had appeared to recognize this fact”, and subsequently withdrew “the entire settlement on East Falkland.”16 In 1810, Buenos Aires created its own government.
Argentina declared independence in 1816 and, four years later, the Heroina Colonel Daniel Jewitt landed on the islands on behalf of the United Provinces of Rio de la Plata, to which the Argentines chartered the French merchant Louis Vernet in order to settle the island, naming him governor in 1828, and successor to the Spanish. Writing in The Yale Law Journal, W. Michael Reisman affirmed that “Upon acquiring independence, a former colony [i.e. Argentina] ordinarily inherits all the territory of that colony. This principle, enshrined in Latin America and, a century later, in Africa, would certainly appear to apply to the Falklands [Malvinas].”17
In 1833, Britain expelled the inhabitants. Argentina’s Foreign Minister Don Manuel Moreno was told by Prime Minister Palmerston in response to questions of sovereignty, that “the Government of the United Provinces could not reasonably have anticipated that the British Government would permit any other state to exercise a right as derived from Spain which Great Britain had denied to Spain itself.”18 Writing in International Affairs, Peter Calvert noted that “The [British] Foreign Office has on a number of occasions since 1910 been the scene of doubts about the validity of Britain’s case in international law and in fact the grounds on which Britain has based its claim have been changed not once but twice during the period [1910-1982].”19
The latest position of the Foreign Office is that it is up to the islanders to decide whether to claim self-determination or to remain British citizens. “The fact that they are of British ‘kith and kin’ goes to show that they are not indigenous,” Christoph Bluth wrote, “that they were sent to the Falklands after the forceful removal of the previous inhabitants in order to colonize them for Britain, and that hence the principle of self-determination does not apply” because Britain has no legal right to the islands.20Alejandro Betts, for example, felt compelled to leave Malvinas in 1982 after the war, and, because of racist-nationalistic decrees preventing Argentines from even visiting the islands, he had to leave his family behind.21
In 1983, the British Parliament passed the British Nationality Act (Falkland Islands) recognising Malvinas’ population as British. In 2011, the UN General Assembly paraphrased Dick Swale, a member of the Falkland Islands Legislative Assembly, admitting that “the Argentine population had been expelled by the British in 1833,” noting that “the small civilian population present on the Islands had been encouraged to remain” by the government in Buenos Aires. Even though this was admitted, he was quoted directly as saying that “Sovereignty is not negotiable,” thereby confirming that the Falklanders are primarily interested in the issue of sovereignty, not self-determination.22
Imagine if the diplomatic and military powers of Britain and Argentina were reversed and the Argentines had colonised the Shetland Islands by expelling the population. Despite UN demands, the Argentines refuse to decolonise the territory, refuse to let Britons even visit, and in response Britain (under a military junta) occupies the islands without any bloodletting. Argentina then vetoes a UK-backed ceasefire draft resolution and expands the war by mining the island, sending a nuclear submarine, sinking retreating British warships, and, for the next thirty years, engages in oil exploration and over-fishing in British territorial waters, violating the twelve nautical mile limit set by the UN.23
Military Build-Ups
Much more serious than the Malvinas issue are Britain’s historic socioeconomic policies in Argentina and their contemporary reverberations. “British companies played a vital role in Argentina’s commercial development during the 19th century,” House of Commons Library analyst Vaughn Miller explained, omitting all reference to the poverty it caused. “The railways, food processing plant and many of the financial services were developed and managed by British firms.”24 The election of Peron in 1946 reversed “electorally fraudulent conservative rule in Argentina”, including “British control over public utilities” and “indebtedness,” Guillermo A. Makin wrote in the Chatham House publication International Affairs—Argentines having been forced to accept British “loans.”25
Less serious than the socioeconomic strangulation, but still important and provocative, are the UK’s acts of aggression against Argentina. “[T]he use of force has not been a permanent feature of the approach of the various very different Argentine political regimes to the [Malvinas] dispute,” Makin noted. Despite Argentina’s “willingness to comply with an agreement not to have an abnormal concentration of warships in the area”, Britain violated Argentina’s territorial waters in the 1950s with the John Biscoe, which brought materials for the construction of a UK military base.
The Argentine Army disbanded the operations but incurred the wrath of the UK military which burned down an Argentine base at Deception, and another two in the following years.26 Oil became the key issue in the mid-1970s when UNESCO sponsored a prospecting project. In 1975, the RSS Shackleton was fired upon when it violated Argentina’s territorial waters. House of Commons researchers Claire Taylor and Vaughn Miller pointed out that Britain’s resurgent interest had to do with economics:
In 1976 and 1982 Lord Shackleton produced two reports on the status of the Falkland Islands economy which subsequently became the blueprint for the econo
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