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Originally Posted by Mr Angry
Yes, it is quite a good post - mildly amusing in parts - if a little jaundiced.
The alternate view , including actual cabinet office references and UN Resolutions, is equally interesting. |
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A year after the French landed, the British established a settlement at Port Egmont on West Falkland, but abandoned the territory in 1774. Spain maintained a presence on the Falklands until 1811. The newly independent United Provinces of the RĂ*o de la Plata (which included Argentina) believed that Spanish possessions should revert to them and in 1820 sent a ship to the abandoned Falklands. In 1829, Argentina appointed a governor. The British then sent two warships to the Falklands and struck the Argentine flag. Argentina, impoverished and divided, did not have the means to resist.
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Britain never ceded our claim on the Islands and when the United Province of Buenos Aires sent a settlement they still recognised that claim, they asked for approval after all. It went wrong when they appointed that governor against the protests of the British who subsequently went to reassert control. The Argentinians being impoverished and divided is immaterial to that matter and was largely a consequence of their own mismanagement of their settlement.
Argentina always reference the treaty were Spain granted them the Islands but they were not Spain's to give away, and referencing UN Resolutions is meaningless when the UN's policy on self-determination supersedes them. So we're back to the same position as we were before, legally they are British, and that is the will of the people of the Island.
That Argentina want the Islands based on a land despite that pre-dated their own existence as a nation is laughable.
They are welcome to challenge the legal status of the island as we have invited them to do twice, they declined twice. They don't want to challenge it presumably they know they would lose. We're not going to give up the Islands, they don't have the will or power to take them by force, they don't want to take it up in the International Court. Therefore they should let it go.