Argentina gets angry over Falklands again

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/06/2011617142628597606.html


Argentinian President Christina Kirchner has called Britain "a crass colonial power in decline" for refusing to hold talks over the disputed Falkland Islands.
Her remarks on Thursday marked almost 30 years since Argentina and Britain fought a 10-week war over the South Atlantic islands.
"In the 21st century, [Britain] continues to be a crass colonial power in decline, because colonialism is out of date as well as unjust," said Kirchner, who is expected to run for a second term in an October presidential election.
Britain says it will only agree to sovereignty talks if the territory's residents ask it to.
"As long as the Falkland Islands want to be sovereign British territory, they should remain sovereign British territory - full stop, end of story," British Prime Minister David Cameron said in response to a question in parliament.
Kirchner rejected his comments as a display of "mediocrity bordering on stupidity".
Centre-leftist Kirchner started her political career in Patagonia, where nationalist feeling about the nearby islands is especially strong.
Earlier this week, she gave a national identity card to the son of a Falklands war veteran born in the islands, celebrating his decision to seek Argentine citizenship.
Diplomatic tensions over the islands, which Argentines call Las Malvinas, have increased in recent years over offshore oil exploration.
Several exploration companies are drilling in waters off the coast of the islands, but tests have yet to establish whether there is enough commercially viable oil to justify investing in infrastructure.
Isn't it more imperialistic for Argentina to seek to claim the islands against the wishes of the 3,000 people who actually live there? If the UK were settling the islands out of the blue, Argentina's argument would make sense, but Argentina's elites were busy killing off the natives in Patagonia back when the English were settling the islands (the islands back then had no inhabitants). England is certainly a crass colonial power in decline, but that doesn't mean we should then go and encourage crass Argentine colonialism in its place!

Is there actually a logical argument from the Argentinians here, or is it just naive nationalism? It seems to be just popping up again over oil rights in the South Atlantic. It is sad that the British and Argentine desire for oil overlooks the actual needs of the islands' inhabitants. Either way, it is a dispute between two Capitalist powers looking for resources.

EDIT-that said, for purposes of development, its more than reasonable for Argentinans to demand a share of oil production, which of course the UK under rightwing Cameron would not be so inclined to do. But this does not justify their claims over the islands themselves.

[Tommy4ever]

Argentina's claims to the Falkands amount to proximity and the Treaty of Tordesillas.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Spain_and_Portugal.png


As you can see by this map the Pope clearly gave the islands to Spain in 1494, just as all Asia and Africa was given to Portugal. :rolleyes:

Following on from this treaty the islands would have been a part of the Spanish colony of La Plata, thus when that colony seceded from Spain the islands would have gone over to the state of Argentina. However, Argentina had no presence their nor any desire to assert any influence over those barren rocks.

Until the British arrived they were used for two primary purposes - piracy and whaling stations.

I have no doubt, however, that here on revleft we will find plenty of chest thumping anti-imperialists who will be able to give a very fine justification of why Argentina should annex the islands, ethnically clense the population and begin a campaign of colonisation. :rolleyes:

[bricolage]

I have no doubt, however, that here on revleft we will find plenty of chest thumping anti-imperialists who will be able to give a very fine justification of why Argentina should annex the islands, ethnically clense the population and begin a campaign of colonisation. :rolleyes:
likewise I have no doubt that we will find plenty of anti-anti-imperialists able to give a very fine justification of why we should support british maintenance of the last vestiges of her empire.
it's a clear cut intra-bourgeois dispute if I ever saw one, primarily used to sed to drum up patriotic support for both governments.
the revo-luthion-airey left has no business getting involved on either side.

[Tommy4ever]

likewise I have no doubt that we will find plenty of anti-anti-imperialists able to give a very fine justification of why we should support british maintenance of the last vestiges of her empire.
it's a clear cut intra-bourgeois dispute if I ever saw one, primarily used to sed to drum up patriotic support for both governments.
the revo-luthion-airey left has no business getting involved on either side.

I totally agree. Ideally, the Falklands should probably be an independent state. But I'm not sure that would be viable (3,000 people) or desired by the population. :/

What can you do?

[Comrade J]

I think the key line in that OP quotation is "diplomatic tensions... have increased in recent years over offshore oil exploration."

When the oil company Rockhopper found oil near the Falklands a few months ago, their share price went up by 17%. There's a couple of billion dollars worth of oil there, you can be sure that if Argentina decides to try again, the British state won't hesitate to defend them again and it will be a bloodier war than the last. Maybe they will wait until Britain is tied up in a war with Iran in 4 or 5 years.

[turquino]

From the response of the Brits here you’d think Argentina (or anyone else for that matter) plans to send the inhabitents of the Malvinas packing en masse. No – that’s the sort of thing their own country is wont to do, as with the people of Diego Garcia. The justifications for Britain’s rule of the islands sound like those given by witless right-wingers who opposed Hong Kong’s return to China in 1997. ‘We turned a barren rock into an outpost of civilization!’ is whiggish colonial rhetoric that belongs to the nineteenth century.

I don’t see why ‘self-determination’ should suddenly be unconditional when it’s applied to colonial holdings and concessions originally taken by force. Using that logic, do you think India’s invasion of Goa an imperialist violation of Portuguese inhabitants right of self-determination? Or what about Congo’s recapture of the Belgian colonists’ separatist state of Katanga, yet more ‘imperialism’?

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

From the response of the Brits here you’d think Argentina (or anyone else for that matter) plans to send the inhabitents of the Malvinas packing en masse. No – that’s the sort of thing their own country is wont to do, as with the people of Diego Garcia. The justifications for Britain’s rule of the islands sound like those given by witless right-wingers who opposed Hong Kong’s return to China in 1997. ‘We turned a barren rock into an outpost of civilization!’ is whiggish colonial rhetoric that belongs to the nineteenth century.


I don't think the people are saying the Argentinians want to commit ethnic cleansing. Just that the local people don't want to live under Argentinian law. Both the UK and Argentina are bourgeois states, and their governments only want the territory for its resources. Why defend the right of one bourgeois state to impose its writ on an island which it never really governed to begin with?



I don’t see why ‘self-determination’ should suddenly be unconditional when it’s applied to colonial holdings and concessions originally taken by force. Using that logic, do you think India’s invasion of Goa an imperialist violation of Portuguese inhabitants right of self-determination? Or what about Congo’s recapture of the Belgian colonists’ separatist state of Katanga, yet more ‘imperialism’?How are the Falklands comparable to Goa or the Congo? It's not like the Brits brutally took it from defenseless natives, and Goa and the Katanga part of the Congo always had a high portion of indigenous people (so self-determination would have actually justified annexing those colonies anyhow). The Falklands were totally uninhabited when the British arrived! On the other hand, Argentina at the time the British were building a colony in the Falklands were conquering Patagonia by killing many of the natives. I would rather pay attention to the wishes of the island's inhabitants over ancient land claims. Jews lost their territory by Roman force, that doesn't mean I think Israel has a right to annex Samaria 1900 years after the fact. Self-determination is often taken as unconditional because residents should, in accordance with the democratic ideal, be the source of sovereignty. This always trumps centuries-old land claims .

Really, there are so many actual crimes that were committed by the British empire, there's really no reason to accuse them of things they didn't do.

[Revy]

Argentina's claims to the Falklands are as baseless as a scenario, in which the US tries to lay claim to Bermuda. Their only argument is that it is close to them. That's the same argument that America can use to take over Bermuda, also a British territory, if they so desired. Hell, we don't need any scenarios, we can see it through American history. In fact, for a time, Cuba was an American territory, as were other countries, due to their victory in the Spanish-American war, where the Americans portrayed themselves as liberators, and the Spanish as colonial oppressors.

As for the "resources" argument, well then it just shows that greed is one of the motivations of the Argentine government in continuing to act like this is an "issue" worthy of the concern of the Argentine working class. Supporting Argentina's position because they are in the Americas, is as stupid as supporting America's position on their historical colonial expansions. Argentina was never "colonized" because Argentina itself was founded as a colony. The true colonized were the indigenous people that Argentina displaced or worse in their settlement of the new colony. It is a similar tale of colonization that you find all over the Americas. So Argentina using the "c word" is historically ignorant.

Colonialism, in the name of fighting colonialism, isn't that lovely. China should join the party and stake a claim on the Ryukyu Islands (because Japan are colonialz). America should grab Bermuda and the Bahamas, 'cuz it's close to us and Britain needs to get the fuck out the hemisphere, because that makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

[Revy]

likewise I have no doubt that we will find plenty of anti-anti-imperialists able to give a very fine justification of why we should support british maintenance of the last vestiges of her empire.
it's a clear cut intra-bourgeois dispute if I ever saw one, primarily used to sed to drum up patriotic support for both governments.
the revo-luthion-airey left has no business getting involved on either side.

Not supporting Argentine expansionism does not equal support for "British maintenance of the last vestiges of her empire". There is a third option, the British territories in question can become independent. I don't want to be beating a dead horse so I won't repeat the points I made in the post above, but you get the idea.

[Agnapostate]

There is a tendency to regard territorial disputes between European governments and Latin American governments as an issue of colonial resistance on the part of Latin American governments, perhaps, but Argentine history has certainly been characterized by mass colonialism and genocide of the Native American population, the most prominent example being the Conquest of the Desert (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquest_of_the_Desert).

[Coggeh]

There is a tendency to regard territorial disputes between European governments and Latin American governments as an issue of colonial resistance on the part of Latin American governments, perhaps, but Argentine history has certainly been characterized by mass colonialism and genocide of the Native American population, the most prominent example being the Conquest of the Desert (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquest_of_the_Desert).
I agree.

The point has to be made though again and again that Argentina only bring up the falklands when the economy is in trouble and are at risk of an angry working class getting organised. The same reasons Thatcher was so quick to into the falklands was the same reason the fascist junta went in in the first place, the Chicago boy free market economics in both countries were destroying the livelihood of millions of workers and the rulling classes used the war and patriotism on the one hand and oppurtunist anti imperialism dogma on the other to distract from the real issues at hand

[chegitz guevara]

Argentina never had a sovereign claim to the islands, except for a brief few years when they sent a governor to look over the whaling station/pirate haven. There is no indication this governor had any real authority. The people who lived there at the time were not a permanent population.

The Brits are the only ones who put a permanent settlement on the island, and their descendants have the right to determine whether they wish to be independent or part of some of other country. They turned down the equivalent of one million dollars each to vote for being annexed to Argentina and prefer to remain part of Great Britain. This was not forced on them, as it was the Chagossians.

Respect their right to self-determination.