Will the Falklands debacle soon be repeated?

John.
I am passionate about world history.
I want to make a disclaimer so i dont write about something like im an expert.
I think that Hong Kong had to do with a lease GB had with China. I dont have the entire story though.
Actually , I think the British population DOES have acess to the entire history,. Point i was triing to make is that argentina should not be closeminded. I learned that from the Dr Seuss story about the northbount Zot and the southbound Zot.
Right off the bat argentina is in a terrible position , they refuse to take it as an issue of DEBATE. There is no debate for argentina on this issue . ---> It goes nowhere fast.
The one time when argentina was in a position to get some consession from GB , its amassador was ordered ( costa mendez) to make unrealistic claims , as part of the strategy to invade the islands . I recently read that in declassified papers that were made available to the public.
 
It would benefit both sides for this problem to be resolved. I don't think the islands have much value to either side, but as Lucas said, to bolster a claim to the resources of the Antartic continent. I can only hope that the Antartic Treaty in effect will prevent anyone from exercising this claim, and probably starting more disputes and sadly, more warfare in a place, in my opinion (because I've been there) is not fit for man nor beast.
 
Fabe said:
John.
I am passionate about world history.
I want to make a disclaimer so i dont write about something like im an expert.
I think that Hong Kong had to do with a lease GB had with China. I dont have the entire story though.
Actually , I think the British population DOES have acess to the entire history,. Point i was triing to make is that argentina should not be closeminded. I learned that from the Dr Seuss story about the northbount Zot and the southbound Zot.
Right off the bat argentina is in a terrible position , they refuse to take it as an issue of DEBATE. There is no debate for argentina on this issue . ---> It goes nowhere fast.
The one time when argentina was in a position to get some consession from GB , its amassador was ordered ( costa mendez) to make unrealistic claims , as part of the strategy to invade the islands . I recently read that in declassified papers that were made available to the public.
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Prior to the Malvinas conflict , very few UK nationals knew where the islands were located.

Even now , I think the vast majority would find it difficult to place them on a world map.

I am not convinced tthat even 10% of my generation would have a clue as to the history of what happened and when. The British Empire was all about India and Australia to a lesser extent and a few Caribbean Islands which were great for an expensive vacation and supplying a few cricketers for the English team.

Having said that the same is probably true of my Argentinian friends / the only guy who knows an independent version of the history is a veteran who served in the Marines.
 
Fabe said:
Actually , I think the British population DOES have acess to the entire history,. Point i was triing to make is that argentina should not be closeminded. I learned that from the Dr Seuss story about the northbount Zot and the southbound Zot.
Right off the bat argentina is in a terrible position , they refuse to take it as an issue of DEBATE. There is no debate for argentina on this issue . ---> It goes nowhere fast.
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Fabe, I don't know why you're saying that Argentina's rejecting debate. I can imagine you hearing poor arguments from common Argentinians just as we may find disinterest in the subject among common Britons. But that quality of discourse is not extrapolated at the diplomatic and academic levels.

Argentina has been constantly requesting talks about sovereignty since 1833 and grounding its case. The complexities involved are not reflected in the Wikipedia article, for a better summary you can see, among good work from British, Argentine and other authors, Gustafson's The Sovereignty Dispute Over the Falklands (Malvinas) Island, published by Oxford University Press, Google offers a preview. According to Gustafson, Argentina has a superior historical argument. He explains that what may support the British case is the self-determination principle, but it's seriously challenged by the fact that the "self determined" people descend from a population that they implanted after removing the other by force.

The one time when argentina was in a position to get some consession from GB , its amassador was ordered ( costa mendez) to make unrealistic claims , as part of the strategy to invade the islands . I recently read that in declassified papers that were made available to the public.
Click to expand...

The UN gave pretty much support to the Argentine case before 1982 and there was even some occasional openness from the UK government, most noticeably in 1968 when they worked an agreement to transfer sovereignty but Kelper lobbying pressured them to move back. But in the immediacy of 1982 I don't see concessions. Costa Mendez, who was foreign minister, appeared at the UN only after the landings in April 2.

You may be referring to the negotiations that followed. Argentina's stance was too rigid, most probably due to misjudgement of British and American motivations. As you may know, it's also commented that Thatcher's administration was also rigid and there's even a theory that says that she hurried the HMS Conqueror to sink the Belgrano to prevent an agreement that the Parliament could force her to accept. It's clear that Thatcher got huge political gains from the retake of the islands.

That note aside, if Costa Mendez was not flexible enough it was only because he thought there wouldn't be a military conflict. In any case, I don't think this diplomatic incompetence of Galtieri's short-lived dictatorship should be taken as support for an hypothesis of 'close-mindedness' in the case that Argentina has been presenting for almost two centuries.

Regards,
Andy
 
I recently watched an argentine produced special regarding "new evidence" citing recently declassified documents. You may very well be correct that it might not have been Costa mendez.
Whomever the diplomat that was heading the negotiations BEFORE argentina invaded the islands, - according to the interpretation of the producers of that show , said diplomat was ordered to modify the terms . How it was done , what was demanded escapes me because it was not specified in that program.
Acording to the program , that was a tactic to scuttle the negociations on the part of the argentines and to precipitate the invasion.
Acording to the plan , A LANDING was the only thing in order . They were to land only to put pressure on the british goverment to negotiate and acording to the progranm , so argentina would be taken seriously. The plan originally called for "withdrawl on d+5"
When GB upped the ante , THEN , argentina invaded and reinforced its invading force. That was not in the original plan . I wish I had acces to that program again , as it was rather interesting how it all gathered momentum.
MT was a politician, of course she gained from it . I wont open the can of worms speculating as to the whys about sinking that ship and killing all those conscripts.
Of COURSE wikipedia isnt a prime source. I cited it because it illustrates points in the timeline that argentina has NEVER included in its mass indoctrination on the issue of ownership of the islands.
Therefore , I feel strongly if there is EVER to be any progress in settling this dispute , argentina , for one , has to get with letting go of the denial of basic facts.
Far am i from a historian or expert in international claims. It IS correct that the islands are either on or close to argentinas continental shelf . I beleive what the facts show:
There is a dispute , Argentina has a CLAIM , the islands are in the hands of british subjects. THIS is what I look at and what is clear to me . This is not however how the average argentine sees things. Not because I say so , but as a result of actually listening to their opinion on the matter.
 
I too, am not a historian, but I did visit the islands in February and March of 1982, and left Stanley less than a month before the Argentine invasion. There were only two "tourists" on my LADE weekly flight to Stanley from Buenos Aires. I was one, and the Italian ambassador to Montevideo was the other, and we were duly announced on the local radio station. I am not sure what relationship he had with president Galtierri, but did inspect the island's defences. We were the only guests at the island's only hotel, the Upland Goose. We went together to penguin rookeries with a Canadian pilot who told me that he had moved there with his family to avoid a nuclear conflict. The poor man wound up the next month being in the only place in the world with a war. I had gone only to examine some remains of the last existent U.S. built wooden clipper ship, the Snow Squall, which rested in Stanley harbor. I am not sure what, if any information that my friend gave to the Argentine president, but have always been suspicious. While thre an Argentine C-140 landed at their airport, the first time any Argentine military plane, other than the LADE airliner had landed there. When I left in March of 1982 I never thought I would hear about these islands again. When I returned to my ship in Galveston the company's port captain asked me where I had been this last trip, and I told him the Falklands, he had never heard of them. The next day was the invasion, and it was front page headlines around the world. I was really sad, what a stupid war and a failure of diplomacy. I feel sorry for the poor soldiers on both sides who fought and died for something that I considered to be of no value to anyone other than those who called the place home.
 
WOW Capt'n
What a interesting thing to read. A wonderfull oral history . Now its here , for posterity. When I hear these first person accounts i am better for knowing them and sad for the ones that arnt written down.
Being a child of the cold war , i have read much about those times. From that I extrapolate that many actionable intelligence is divulged in that verry manner, via diplomatic means. Although if i recall corectly Italy moved to embargo commerce during that conflict. Which is not to say that "cooperation ocurred unoficialy.
During that time , i recall watching on the local news that an El Al flight was quarrantined at JFK because it was suspected of containing mirage engines destined for argentina.
Thanks for putting your memories down.
 
Fabe said:
I recently watched an argentine produced special regarding "new evidence" citing recently declassified documents. You may very well be correct that it might not have been Costa mendez.
Whomever the diplomat that was heading the negotiations BEFORE argentina invaded the islands, - according to the interpretation of the producers of that show , said diplomat was ordered to modify the terms .
How it was done , what was demanded escapes me because it was not specified in that program. Acording to the program , that was a tactic to scuttle the negociations on the part of the argentines and to precipitate the invasion.
Click to expand...

Then I guess it could be what is explained here for 1982 Feb 26 to Mar 1:

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/999689-malvinas-1982-2008-cuando-la-soberania-fue-posible

To summarize, there was yet another refloat of the possibility to transfer sovereignity that was stopped previously by Kelper lobbying, but the Argentine government added a line without consulting its negotiators (led by Ernesto Ros) saying that Argentina retained the right to suspend negotiations and act by other means, which I guess doesn't help diplomacy and was (later) considered as expressing the intent to use force.

But I wouldn't call those talks a concession from the UK, at least not the best ever. The British negotiators had just taken a proposal for their government to study, these kinds of things had happened since the early sixties when bilateral negotiations started, and at times the openness of GB was greater. I'm saying this because what you wrote sounded to me like Argentina had the intent to boicot diplomacy as it supposedly refused its best diplomatic opportunity, but I think that's not fair. Argentina believed in diplomacy and insisted with it even after India's successful retake by force of Goa.

Fabe said:
Acording to the plan , A LANDING was the only thing in order . They were to land only to put pressure on the british goverment to negotiate and acording to the progranm , so argentina would be taken seriously. The plan originally called for "withdrawl on d+5"
When GB upped the ante , THEN , argentina invaded and reinforced its invading force. That was not in the original plan.
Click to expand...

More or less coincides with what I understand. Well, actually, the version that convinces me most is that the original plan was to retake the capital (not just land) and place it under the administration of the UN a few days later, but Galtieri changed plans presumably after seeing the popular response on April 2. It is known that the plan to defend the islands was not ready until mid April, plus Argentina was clearly unprepared (pilots not trained for sea operations, bombs not engineered for attacking ships, logistics at the islands were a mess, etc.)

Fabe said:
Of COURSE wikipedia isnt a prime source. I cited it because it illustrates points in the timeline that argentina has NEVER included in its mass indoctrination on the issue of ownership of the islands. Therefore , I feel strongly if there is EVER to be any progress in settling this dispute , argentina , for one , has to get with letting go of the denial of basic facts.
Click to expand...

I'm not so sure that facts like those are not taught in school, even though many are generally forgotten. Most Argentinians don't know these details just as most people all over the world remember little about basic facts in history. Maybe not WW II as there are tons of movies, but I guess that if you ask which countries fought in WW I and why, the answers won't be fantastic (*), and the same would happen with many important issues.

I understand that it can be irritating to see people so convinced about something they don't know enough to make an independent judgement, but what I meant in my previous post is that you shouldn't derive, from that, that Argentina is being stubborn and ungrounded at the diplomatic and learned levels, like you're doing again when you say that she "has to get with letting go of the denial of basic facts". I'm positive that Argentina, through its representatives and researchers as it would be expected from an organized (**) society, has the article at Wikipedia covered as well as much more, as do many amateurs interested in the subject. By the way, that article explains matters of sovereignty not only briefly but also poorly, e.g., it is written as if Argentina only started claiming in 1945 and they even haven't got the year of her independence right...

(*) IIRC, the correct answer is that it began when a guy named Archie Duke shot an ostrich because he was hungry.

(**) (somewhat)
 
glasgowjohn said:
And at the same time , I would love to know why we gave Hong Kong back to the Chinese without consulting with the HK residents.
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Because China isn't Argentina. There was supposed to be a two-year consultation process in the early '80s between the Chinese and the British. The Brits did nothing so after a year the Chinese came and said, "Well, a year has gone and nothing has occurred on the diplomatic front. So we expect you to bugger off out of HK in 1997 -- or else we'll turn the water off." (I understand the water for HK comes from mainland China.) This is what Ted Heath narrated on television (even though he wasn't of course a cabinet member at that time). Also remember that only the lease on the new territories expired in 1997 -- HK proper was ceded in perpetuity. But as I said, China even at that time was not a second-rank power like Argentina.
 
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