Malvinas Spat ( United Kindgom beating war drums )

[ElQueso]

Well, the UN has been calling both countries to negotiate for years, something which is being ignored by the UK.

BS. The UK wanted to talk about negotiations related to the oilfield, for example, and Cristina refused. She wants all or nothing.

The UK didn't know about the oil in 1833 when yes, they did take off the small number of Argentine inhabitants that were living there. They didn't know about the oil in 1982 when Argentina attacked, unprovoked, the islands after it had been a British possession for 149 years prior to that!

As I said, it would be as bad or worse than giving Texas back to the Mexicans, which wouldn't make sense either and happened in the same time frame.

If anything, the islands belong to the French who put the first settlement there, before the Argentines and indeed before the Spanish before them! There were not even any inhabitants on the island at that point. The English came along a year later, completely unaware that there was already a French Settlement. The Spanish took over the French settlement and tried to get rid of the English in 1770, but that didn't work out. The English left while fighting with the US in the Revolutionary war, but left a plaque saying that it was still theirs, and then came back around 1820 to press their claim. In 1833 they successfully pressed their claim again and it has been solidly in their hands ever since.

Argentina has nowhere near the legitimate claim that the UK has. THEY are being the bullies and are doing the very thing they accuse the US of doing, which I find extremely ironic that no Argentine can see that. To wit, they are expressing what they see as their national foreign policy, without worrying about what other nation thinks about it. Of course, they are incapable of doing it on a bigger scale (they can't even do it on this scale, except sabre-rattle), so the world is at least safer from Agentinos than they are the US, but it makes the Argentines just as hypocritic...

 

[malbec]

ElQueso, I don't agree with you.
The Malvinas were never a 'hobby' for the UK. In 1833 it was not the oil but the whale hunting, etc.
In 1982 of course they did know there were prospects of finding oil! Come on! And on top of that there were the fishing rights, the geopolitical importance of the islands for claiming a share over the Antarctis, etc. Don't tell me they were just protecting the islanders because it is not true. No one is so naive.

Argentina has nowhere near the legitimate claim that the UK has.

In your eyes. Usually conflicts like this one don't have a single truth, it all depends on who you ask. One should aknowledge this and be respectful.

How can possibly Argentina be the bullies here??? Should we start attacking the British navy with oranges?

 

[cosaco]

Yes yes elqueso, you always talk too much just to say nothing.
Read again your own statement, there are things that you dont even mention.

 

[esllou]

cosaco/malbec,

I'd be interested in your thoughts on this. What do you think the argentine government's response would be if the UK government offered a hong kong style solution: "we'll give them back to you in 2100". 1997 was the date for the Hong Kong handover for a hundred years and it was given back right on schedule.

do you think that would possibly defuse the situation? And also give current residents 90 years to begin getting to know their new masters - or gaining permanent residency in the UK. Nobody living on the islands now would be directly affected by this.

I realise the UK government probably wouldn't consider this option, but what do you think the response here would be?

 

[malbec]

I think most normal people would say yes, but no idea what the government would say. Probably yes too (eventhough they wouldn't be in power by that time).
Sadly, I am afraid there is not much we can offer the islanders today. Maybe in 100 years it will be different, who knows.
Nevertheless I don't think this is going to happen.
I am realistic and that's why I think the best we can take out of this is an independent state with revised water territorial rights. In any case the conflict should be somehow resolved. Ignoring it won't do any good and would keep disturbing the relationships of both countries for years to come. Everyone would profit of a solution, the islanders too.

 

[fedecc]

I'd be interested in your thoughts on this. What do you think the argentine government's response would be if the UK government offered a hong kong style solution: "we'll give them back to you in 2100". 1997 was the date for the Hong Kong handover for a hundred years and it was given back right on schedule.

do you think that would possibly defuse the situation? And also give current residents 90 years to begin getting to know their new masters - or gaining permanent residency in the UK. Nobody living on the islands now would be directly affected by this.

I realise the UK government probably wouldn't consider this option, but what do you think the response here would be?

Actually, between the 60s and 80s there were several talks and negotiation regarding the falklands sovereignty. The most comically tragic of all is probably the one that took place when Tatcher took office and just a few months before the war. Her proposal was a 40 or 50 year lease back of the islands after which Argentina would have full sovereignty. But the proposal was blocked by the labour party and a few months later the war started.

 

[Napoleon]

This cracks me up. Giggling madly over hee...

I agree. After rolling my eyes every time this comes up, I think-

"Well if you think the islands are yours, then why don't you just take them back...

Oh SNAP!!!

You tried that already!..."

And lastly, I like to post what Matt84 wrote back in December:

On Sovereignty: There are almost no places in this Earth that had no native population by the eve of the Renaissance. The Falklands was one of those places. Its population came to be from British subjects from across the world. When Spanish America gained independence (thanks to the British) the southernmost frontier was Fuerte Bulnes, in Chile, and it was just a loosely defended military outpost. The actual frontier of the "Capitania de Chile" was around Araucania (north of Pt Montt), and the Southern frontier of the Virreynato del Rio de la Plata, later the United Provinces, was farther North, around Lujan. Practically all of Patagonia was uncharted, uncolonized and up for grabs.

Basically Argentina, as heir of the Virreynato, has more right to all of Paraguay and Chile, and parts of Bolivia, than to its own Patagonia, even less to its pre-colonized outlying islands.

How much sense would it make if a fascist leader took over Canada and decided to unite the country to "re-conquer" Saint Pierre et Miquelon? How much sense would it make for Demoratic Canada to claim those French Islands?

http://baexpats.org/newcomers-forum/4570-argentina-great-britain-diplomatic-spat-4.html

 

[ElQueso]

177 years the Falklands have been in British possession. The people are British, not Argentine. Argentina serves nothing looking back almost 200 years and disputing possession, based on the occupation of the islands by Argentina for about 50 years. Before that 50 year occupation, the British and French occupied it for almost as long.

I guarantee you the PEOPLE of the Falklands would say "NO" to any proposal to come under the government of Argentina. They ARE NOT Argentine at all. Talk about unjust! Two rights don't make a wrong, and a few people taken off the island in 1833, 177 YEARS AGO has nothing to do with taking people off the island now that have nothing to do with Argentina.

Cosaco, I questioned this to begin with, with the intention of being enlightened why the people/governmetn of aRgentina figured they ahd a legitimate right to the islands. Your answer is idiotic. If you feel there are reasons tell them - but they should be beyond "because we're close to them" or "because we said so." Neither of those arguments wash with anyone except the ARgentine people. I explained my thinking, in pretty good detail. Your (barely) two sentences don't mean anyhting - there was no content.

 

[Napoleon]

If Argentina took control, Brazil would take it away from them inside of 20 years. And then the whining would start all over again, but the "Shut up!'s" would have a musical, slurred, shh/ch tone to them.

The Argentine population is so easily distracted with things that don't matter it's not wonder that the country (as much as I'm fond of it), is a complete clusterfuck. (Or "quilombo" if you prefer.) A room full of A.D.D./A.D.H.D. kids on ecstasy can focus on the real issues that effect the country better than the Argentine public.

 

[cosaco]

177 years the Falklands have been in British possession. The people are British, not Argentine. Argentina serves nothing looking back almost 200 years and disputing possession, based on the occupation of the islands by Argentina for about 50 years. Before that 50 year occupation, the British and French occupied it for almost as long.

I guarantee you the PEOPLE of the Falklands would say "NO" to any proposal to come under the government of Argentina. They ARE NOT Argentine at all. Talk about unjust! Two rights don't make a wrong, and a few people taken off the island in 1833, 177 YEARS AGO has nothing to do with taking people off the island now that have nothing to do with Argentina.

Cosaco, I questioned this to begin with, with the intention of being enlightened why the people/governmetn of aRgentina figured they ahd a legitimate right to the islands. Your answer is idiotic. If you feel there are reasons tell them - but they should be beyond "because we're close to them" or "because we said so." Neither of those arguments wash with anyone except the ARgentine people. I explained my thinking, in pretty good detail. Your (barely) two sentences don't mean anyhting - there was no content.

Yes, whatever. Your posts are idiotic too, but just larger.
Talk and talk.
Of course, a colony of british people in a territory that didnt belong to britain in first place always would say "of course we´d like to be british".
Second, if there were in england the idea of give the islands back, why was that? Just because the england government was at that time very charitative? In cases of territorial claims, i guess that nobody offers to give them away unless there is a serious doubt about the true rights to them.
And, one last thing, people from uk didnt have any idea about malvinas, even during the war, they didnt even know their location.