The British flag and a bird fly over the Malvinas (Photo: eddybox43)

This April marks the 29th anniversary of the Falklands War (known as the Malvinas War in Argentina), which claimed the lives of 650 Argentines and 258 British soldiers. But beyond the battle is a territorial dispute that has raged for 178 years and shows no sign of disappearing. With lucrative fishing licenses, oil prospects, Antarctic ambitions, and a military base with 2,500 troops said to be defending a population of the same size, is the UK actually afraid of Argentine aggression or is it afraid of compromising on such a strategic and valuable holding?

“Two bald men fighting over a comb,” said Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges of the war between the UK and Argentina over the Falklands Islands. It’s a metaphor that became branded to what many believe to have been a senseless war between two deeply unpopular governments, both looking to win points at home, over a cluster of islands in the remote South Atlantic. UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s popularity was plummeting thanks to a series of neoliberal domestic policies, and with 30,000 disappearances to its name the Argentine military junta and its iron-fisted rule was losing any legitimacy it once had.

War was the perfect way for both countries to ratchet up nationalism and divert attention from unrest at home. Argentina sent its out-matched army to invade the islands in April 1982 and retreated ten weeks later with a new appreciation for Her Majesty’s Armed Forces, one of the most equipped in the world. End of story.

Yet the pointlessness of the actual war overshadows the true conflict. Beyond nationalist pride, what is the real fuss over these frigid islands? Upon closer look at what control of the Falklands actually means for the British today – between the sale of fishing licenses, oil exploitation, increased militarization, and access to the Antarctic – it turns out that the measly comb so many have mocked is made out of solid gold.

History and International Law

The conflict over the Falklands stretches far beyond the war in 1982 and involves an endless list of UN resolutions (issued and ignored), sovereignty claims, bilateral talks and unilateral actions.

Britain successfully colonized the islands in 1833, 26 years after two unsuccessful attempts to capture Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires. At the time, a tiny gaucho population under the authority of Argentine colonel, Jose Maria Pinedo, inhabited the islands. The colonel was asked to remove the Argentine flag, replace it for a British one, and get lost. Without the numbers to mount any defense, he obeyed, and the islands have been under British control ever since.

Control of islands nearly 13,000km from the shores of the UK and 500km off the coast of Argentina didn’t rustle many international feathers until the 1950s and 60s, when decolonization movements around the world gave impetus to milestone UN resolutions like 1514 – passed in 1960 – that supported independence movements of colonized countries and peoples. The General Assembly then passed Resolution 2065 in 1965, which specifically acknowledged the conflict over the islands and called upon both sides to “proceed without delay” in negotiations and to refrain from taking unilateral decisions or actions. The resolution goes on to say that it “was prompted by the cherished aim of bringing an end everywhere to colonialism in all of its forms, one of which covers the case of the Falkland Islands.”

It was the first of 11 UN resolutions regarding the conflict, eight of them issued after the 1982 war and the most recent passed in 2010 by the UN Special Committee on Decolonization. Each one restates the previous, with the acknowledgement of a colonial situation and a request for a peaceful and negotiated settlement of the dispute. Yet despite Argentina’s continued pleas for international law to be respected, they have done little to change the present situation of the islands.

Status Quo: Profit and Expansion

Fishing Boats (Photo: Luciano Osorio)

By ignoring Argentina and the international community and evading serious negotiations, the UK has been able to sustain a position of occupation and unilateral action throughout the years. The status quo has been good to Britain. For example, it has enjoyed over three decades of exclusive rights to the sale of fishing licenses in perhaps the richest waters in the world, as reported by the Food and Agricultural Organisation. When it unilaterally established maritime jurisdiction over the 200 nautical miles surrounding the islands in 1986, and set up the Falklands Islands Fishing Ordinance, it began selling fishing licenses to countries like Poland, Japan, and South Korea. According to a 1997 report in the ‘Maritime Briefing’ on the Falklands, after the ordinance was established, “license fees subsequently brought in several million pounds per year,” with the harvest of squid alone yielding £20.6m  in 1992.

Mediated negotiations have historically been shut down due to Britain’s refusal to discuss the issue of “sovereignty”. In fact, the only moment the UK entertained bilateral negotiations was in the 1990s, when Argentina’s neoliberal economic policies lifted restrictions on British imports. The countries signed a Joint Declaration and agreed to “umbrella sovereignty”, whereby no action taken by either government would be interpreted as supporting or rejecting the other’s claim of sovereignty. It was a passive and confounded agreement mostly designed to ease Argentine concerns rather than those of the British.

The Argentine government’s willingness to go along with it was referred to as its “policy of seduction”. Yet it was just unclear who was seducing whom. Though there were joint scientific studies of fish stock, the sale of licenses remained exclusively British. Though the UK allowed families of Argentine soldiers killed during the war to visit the islands, it unilaterally claimed maritime jurisdiction around the South Georgia and South Sandwich islands. And while both countries set up a joint commission in to oversee oil exploration in disputed waters, Britain continued its independent sale of numerous oil licenses.

Oil, Water and the Antarctic

Oil Platform (Photo: Stacy Lynn Baum)

As fish supplies dwindle, securing oil and fresh water reserves has become the main strategic role of the Falklands for Britain. Though scientists had long been suspected there were large oil reserves around the islands, exploration has only begun in the past few years. In February of 2010, British Desire Petroleum began drilling 100km from the capital of the Falklands, Port Stanley, for what may be 200 million barrels of oil worth an estimated £17bn. By May, British Rockhopper Exploration joined the frenzy, along with a host of other companies that have won large contracts for oilrig and equipment services.

Great oil and gas reserves also lie underneath the Antarctic, a continent Britain has also set its sights on. Thanks to its control of the Falklands, it has claimed over 660,000 square miles of Antarctic territory. In May of 2009, before the deadline for countries to make submissions to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, it submitted an additional claim of 386,000 miles of ocean off of its Antarctic holding. Many, including Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund, condemned the UK in what is seen as an environmentally dangerous move to secure access to oil, water and other natural resources.

The Antarctic is also the continent that holds 70% of the world’s fresh water reserves, a resource becoming scarcer and more valuable each year. The Antarctic Treaty signed in 1959 has thus far protected the continent’s environment from resource extraction and military activity. However, it neither affirms nor denies territorial claims currently held by seven countries. As access to fresh water becomes more critical, the treaty may become another ideal purported on paper but trampled in practice.

Military Manoeuvres

F3 Tornado of the Quick Reaction Alert Force based at Mount Pleasant Complex (MPC) in the Falkland Islands at dusk. (Photo: Harland Quarrington)

One of the most significant outcomes of the Falklands War was Britain’s construction of the Royal Air Force base called Mount Pleasant, established in 1985. It is complete with four Eurofighter Typhoon jets, transport aircrafts, helicopters, silos for large weapons storage, two runways capable of accommodating heavy aircraft, and last year the Navy deployed attack submarine HMS Sceptre to the area. Currently, more than 2,500 Army, Navy and RAF servicemen and personnel are stationed there.

Though by its own admission the likelihood of an Argentine military attack is slim to none, the military conducts regular exercises simulating invasion that involve heavy artillery fire upon targets off the coast. In October of last year, the base also conducted a series of missile tests that Britain called “routine”. Argentina, backed by Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay, called the exercises and tests acts of aggression and lodged a formal complaint to the UN, stating: “A permanent member of the UN Security Council is behaving like something from the colonial past.”

Vice-president of the World Peace Council, Rina Bertaccini, has studied foreign military bases and activity in Latin America for over 30 years. To her, Britain’s military objective is clear: “To maintain military bases, control over maritime routes, and control over the natural assets of the region that they prey on at will.”

Additionally, in March 2010, 150 troops from the 1st Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment arrived at Mount Pleasant to begin training for deployment to Afghanistan to join the other 9,500 British troops stationed there as part of NATO’s continued war. It is a reality that raises questions as to the extent the islands are being used, or could be used, for NATO purposes. Some, like Bertaccini, believe that the difference between the British base and a NATO base is a mere “subtlety”.

“What’s certain,” says Bertaccini, “is that you cannot install a military base with 2,500 troops to defend 2,500 inhabitants, it doesn’t make sense.”

Self-determination

But it is precisely the desires of those 2,500 inhabitants that the UK has used to justify its sovereign claim over the islands. In poll after poll, the people living on the Falklands declare their nationality as British and wish to remain under British authority. Invoking the UN Charter’s principle of self-determination, Britain has stated “there can be no negotiations on sovereignty of the Falkland Islands unless and until such time as the Falkland Islanders so wish.”

But applying the principal of “self-determination” becomes tricky when the population is made up of the same colonizing force that seized the islands. Argentine Minister of Foreign Affairs Rafael Bielsa said before the UN Committee on Decolonization in 2004: “Sustaining the idea the inhabitants of the islands have a right to self-determination would create a territorial dispute of which the country that has implanted them is part of. Meaning, the colonial power would confirm its own usurpation and implicate itself.” In a 2006 address to the same committee, former Minister of Foreign Affairs Jorge Taina said that the inhabitants are a “British population transplanted with the animus to establish a colony.”

While the assertion that the population of the Falklands is “implanted” is strong, census data collected by Britain reveals that it is largely true. In a 2006 report, Argentine congress member Daniel Oscar Gallo and a team of researchers presented a document that revealed that not only are military personnel often included in the count of 2,500 civilians living on the islands, but that just 40% of the population has lived on the islands for more than ten years, and only 42% of the population was born on the island.

Using UK census data, the document claims that “it is impossible to claim the application of principle of self-determination when in an analysis of the demographic of a period of ten years between two censuses, it turns out that more than 57% of the inhabitants over the age of ten have been implanted.”

Future of the Falklands

Malvinas War Monument from Ushaia (Photo: Esteban)

On this anniversary of the Falklands War, Argentines and Britons alike will mourn the death of soldiers and loved ones sent to battle what was ultimately a senseless war. To truly honour them along with the veterans who have suffered since, we would do well to fully understand the roots of this conflict, why the islands are so strategic and what the future may hold.

At a recent press conference discussing oil scarcity and new exploration, US president Barack Obama assured the North American people that the US government is working with partner nations and industry, and “taking steps to explore potential gas and oil resources off the mid- and south-Atlantic”. It is a statement as vague as it is alarming, as oil exploration and extraction moves forward in the Falklands and the region becomes more and more strategic to global superpowers.

Argentina may be able to diplomatically muscle its way toward negotiations as it has had consistent regional support from Mercosur, Unasur, and the Rio Group. But understanding what Britain stands to lose if it truly engaged in a discussion over Falklands makes it clear why the cries of a far inferior military power like Argentina go ignored. For now and as before, with so much at stake economically and strategically, might will be making right.

Francesca Fiorentini is a freelance journalist based in Buenos Aires. She is also an editor of Left Turn magazine and a regular contributor to WarTimes.org.

Photo by Kate Stanworth

Founded in 1680 by Portugal as ‘Colônia do Sacramento’ but soon after disputed by the Spanish who were settled on the opposite bank of the river at Buenos Aires, the colony now known as Colonia del Sacramento kept changing hands from crown to crown until it became part of the independent country of Uruguay in 1828.

Colonia del Sacramento (more commonly known as Colonia) has expanded to the north and east from its original historic quarter built by the Portuguese. This quarter, designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, retains its irregular, terrain-matching streets laid down by the first Portuguese settlers, which contrast with the wider, orthogonal streets in the newer Spanish areas.

The Buquebus hydrofoil service from Buenos Aires leaves Puerto Madero on a daily basis, seven days a week, also travelling as far as Montevideo and Punta del Este. You have the option of the slower ferry journey lasting three hours or the faster ferry journey lasting one hour. The 17thcentury cobblestoned streets of the historic quarter are within walking distance of the ferry terminal.

Photo by Kate Stanworth

Our Buquebus experience was quick and hassle-free. Immigration at the ultra-modern Puerto Madero terminal is well-organised with quick-moving queues. The ferry itself is spacious and the reclining cushioned seats very comfortable. There is a canteen-style restaurant onboard as well as a well-stocked duty-free shop. We arrived into the port at Colonia in time for a quick wander before lunch.

The national currency in Uruguay is the Uruguayan peso, but everywhere in Colonia will accept Argentine Pesos and many will also accept US dollars. The official exchange rate at the time of print is six Uruguayan pesos to one Argentine peso.

The tree-lined Plaza Mayor is the central focal point of the historic quarter, flanked by Colonia’s most notable visitor attractions. Colonia is a small, easily walkable town but there are numerous fairly-priced vehicle hire companies renting out everything from scooters to go-karts to golf buggies.

As we headed away from the hustle and bustle of the ferry terminal towards the historic quarter, our curiosity was sparked by two middle-aged ladies racing down the main road in a six-person golf cart. We stopped them at the crossroads and enquired as to where we could hire such a vehicle.

Photo by Kate Stanworth

Shortly afterwards, we were in possession of the keys to the ‘EZ-GO’, a four-person, roofless, doorless golf buggy that we hired from ‘Thrifty’. Although given basic instructions on how to drive the thing, our knowledge of Uruguayan traffic law was somewhat limited and after several blocks of driving on the left-hand side of the road with total disregard for one-way systems, we enlisted the help of a bemused but obliging traffic warden for a crash-course driving lesson.

I highly recommend hiring a buggy as, although the go-karts may look a lot of fun, they are very low to the ground and don’t lend themselves well to being driven down cobbled streets (not that the buggy was the most comfortable ride either, be prepared for a bumpy time unless you stick to the main roads).

The great thing about the golf buggy is that you can park it almost anywhere whilst you wander off sight-seeing as Colonia is much safer than Buenos Aires as well as more accessible.

Watch where you leave your buggy though, because upon parking up and going for an ice-cream, we returned to our buggy cone in hand to discover a policeman scribbling away on a notepad and noting down our vehicle registration number. He handed us a parking ticket and informed us that we had in fact parked in a bus stop and caused quite a disturbance, but let us off the fine when we pleaded our innocence as clueless gringas. Although Colonia seems a world away from the chaos of BA, traffic laws still apply!

We had lunch on the roof terrace of the Colonia Yacht Club and I had the typically Uruguayan chivito (thinly cut beef), the special at practically every restaurant in Colonia, whilst my companion enjoyed a salmon sandwich. Your meal is cooked on a grill on the terrace in front of your eyes, sound assurance that the food you are about to eat is fresh and piping hot.

Photo by Kate Stanworth

Heading through the city gate over the wooden drawbridge (on foot) our first port of call was the lighthouse and ruins of the 17th century Convent of San Francisco. Make sure you apply sun cream liberally as Colonia is a very windy seaside town and you won’t realise you are burning! For five Uruguayan Pesos you can climb the staircase to the top of the lighthouse and take in the breathtaking view.

At a stone’s throw from the lighthouse is the Municipal Museum, rebuilt by the Spanish in 1835 as the Casa del Almirante Brown. It exhibits artefacts and documents of the city’s different periods and cultures. Our issue was that we made our visit on a Tuesday, the one day of the week the museum is closed, strangely enough!

The Iglesia Matriz – the oldest church in Uruguay, dating from 1695-99, is also worth a visit, as is the Basilica del Sanctísimo Sacramento, built of stone by the Portuguese in 1808. Explore Colonia’s original Portuguese roots at the Portuguese Museum – constructed in the 18th century, it exhibits Portuguese furnishings, jewellery, uniforms and old maps of Portuguese naval expeditions.

After soaking up so much culture, we decided to soak up some sun at the end of our day in Colonia and strolled down the beach; leaving our shoes in the buggy (the beaches are not accessible by car). Reluctant to hand our keys back in at the Thrifty office (the buggy had been our mobile home for the day), we paced it back to the ferry terminal and slept the whole journey back to BA.

Visit www.buquebus.com for ferry information. A weekday day-return (leaving BA 9am, returning from Colonia 7pm) costs $124. We hired the ‘EZ-GO’ from Thrifty for US$40 for the whole day. Visit www.thrifty.com.uy for car hire information or drop in at Gral. Flores 172 upon arrival (booking not necessary).

Photo by Kate Stanworth

At midnight each year on 24th May crowds gather in front of the city’s historic cabildo on the eve of the anniversary of one of the most important events in Argentine history. The claiming of power in Buenos Aires by the local creole population (Spaniards born in the Americas) on 25th May 1810, in what became known as the ‘May Revolution’, set in motion a series of events that culminated in independence from Spain on 9th July 1816.

The ‘Colonial Pact’

During this time, the territory today known as Argentina was part of the Spanish Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, which contains present-day Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay, and was governed from the capital, Buenos Aires. It was ruled by a viceroy appointed by the Spanish crown and defended by the royalist army. For almost 300 years the absolute Catholic monarchy had presided over its colonies, represented by its appointed officials and audiencias, as the sole source of justice and power, the imparter of cultural identity and figure of unquestionable authority.

The social world that existed in the Americas was of a deeply traditional, patriarchal mould. Its orderly structure bound social classes together through reciprocal ties of patronage and tribute – the granting of favours to social inferiors (invariably the subjugated indigenous populations) in return for their loyalty and obedience. The monarchy set the seal on this patriarchal order of society, and above the king, stood only God. With religion providing the ultimate rationale for political authority, the Catholic monarchy and the hierarchal society it had cleverly created were, together, incredibly powerful forces for unity.

Early rebellion in Buenos Aires: the forging of a porteño identity

The beginnings of conflict with the Crown’s authority started in Buenos Aires when the Spanish declared its full monopoly on trade, prohibiting all commerce with English, French and Portuguese merchants, whose ships were now banned from even entering the city’s port. Despite this legislation the defiance of the king’s authority through illegal foreign trading or ‘contraband’, was widespread.

However, though the creoles were often seething with resentment against Spain, their discontent did not boil over to serious rebellion. No matter what their frustrations, the creoles had no alternative source of legitimate authority and any attempt to carry grievances too far would essentially leave them in a dangerous constitutional void. Any direct attack on the monarchy carried the risk of bringing down the complex ideological structure of a patriarchal colonialism that, in the words of Edwin Williamson, ‘kept the Indies from collapsing in bloody chaos’. It was only when external forces destroyed the authority of the monarchy back in Europe that the creoles were forced into the void they had resisted for so long.

Further distance grew between the Río de la Plata viceroy and the Crown following the disastrous 1806/7 British invasions. With no support from the Spanish military, local militia groups took to the streets to defend their city from attack and were so successful that half of the British soldiers were killed or injured, forcing the enemy to withdraw. This resistance served to create a distinct Porte?o identity that would later come to prominence when unforeseen events back in Europe would destroy royal authority both in the Old and New Worlds and force the creoles deep into this long-resisted void.

Napoleon and the Crisis of Legitimacy

On 13th May 1810, the arrival of a British frigate in Montevideo confirmed the rumours circulating in Buenos Aires: Napoleon I of France had invaded Spain, capturing and overthrowing King Ferdinand VII, who was replaced by Napoleon’s older brother Joseph Bonaparte.

In the absence of the desired king, juntas (committees) sprang up in various Spanish towns, assuming temporary sovereignty before eventually placing themselves under the authority of a Supreme Junta at Seville, later to take refuge from French troops in Cádiz.

The abrupt disappearance of the sovereign king now led to the question of where legitimate authority lay in the colonies: with Joseph Bonaparte, the Viceroy, or the Seville Junta? Did it perhaps lie with the creoles themselves, who might set up juntas following the Spanish example and assume provisional authority in the absence of Ferdinand?

Photo by Kate Stanworth

The Primera Junta in Buenos Aires

Such revolutionary implications meant that for the first time the creoles would legitimately be able to exercise power in America without deferring to a viceroy or being disloyal to the king. And so, on 25th May 1810, a junta proclaiming direct loyalty to Ferdinand VII seized power in Buenos Aires removing Viceroy Cisneros the same day.

Presided over by Cornelio Saavedra, the committee very quickly fell to the liberal sway of deputies such as Mariano Moreno. It soon opened the port for trade with all nations and proclaimed the equality of all citizens regardless of race. Instead of keeping the sovereignty of the king, the junta did the exact opposite.

The radicalism of the new governing body did little to endear it to the more conservative, loyalist provinces, namely Paraguay, Banda Oriental (Uruguay) and Upper Perú (Bolivia), who opted to accept the authority of Cádiz. Over the next few years, the junta would send military expeditions from the capital to reduce these provinces by force of arms, and in turn, gain support for the revolutionary ideas of Buenos Aires.

In 1813 it called a national assembly and designated it as the United Provinces of Río de la Plata, even though independence from Spain had not yet been declared.

The Return of the King

Meanwhile back in Europe, following the defeat of Napoleon in Spain, Ferdinand reverted to absolute rule in 1814. Whilst royalist and republican forces battled over the silver-rich lands of Upper Perú, the congress formed in 1813 met on 9th July 1816 in Tucumán and declared independence for a new state that was in time to be called Argentina.

Shortly afterwards, José de San Martín and Simón Bolívar would set off on their respective courses for the liberation of South America. Avoiding direct confrontations with royalist armies, they would seek the advantage of surprise by seizing vulnerable territory and setting up independent government offering the creoles an alternative political future to the Catholic monarchy. And so, San Martín put together an ‘Army of the Andes’ and advanced over the mountains towards Chile.

Broken dreams and the aftermath of independence

Although over the next decade the Americas would gain their independence from Spain, Bolívar would never realise his dream of a pan-American union. After difficulties faced in conflict over Perú, San Martín would take a self-imposed exile to Europe, followed soon after by Bolívar who, disillusioned by his experience famously declared: “America is ungovernable. Those who have served the revolution have ploughed the sea.”

Despite replacing the authority of the Catholic monarchy with that of the people, as happened in the French Revolution for example, in South America this change was not accompanied by any comparable revolution in society or the economy: the Americas retained its very traditional patriarchal and hierarchal society, still ruled by a privileged white elite. The liberal ideals of democracy with which the revolution was fought could only undermine state authority in societies such as these. In the Americas the ancién régime had not disappeared, rather the monarchical state that had allowed it to function had effectively broken down. As such, any republican constitution could never command the same loyalty or generally accepted political authority as an absolute monarch.

Though the creole elites had won the freedom they desired it was to come at the price of constant instability that would continue to frustrate their efforts to achieve prosperity and power comparable with advanced European countries. These problems would bring about moves towards ever-more authoritarian constitutions for the newly liberated territories, a fact that would haunt the new states throughout their histories and to the present day