Sooner or later, the Falkland islanders will be sold out - TheNewTopical.com - current events, politics, culture, ethics, economics discussion forum

Zichao · #1 (**permalink**) 04-02-12, 06:33 PM

Sooner or later, the Falkland islanders will be sold out | Peter Preston | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Quote:

Political bluster comes easy; political honesty has to be ground out clause by clause. And there, for 3,000 Falklanders far away, is the message to cut out and keep, as David Cameron, amid all-party harrumphing, pledges eternal security for the islands. He may believe it for a few days. The next prime minister in line, and the one after that, may profess to believe it too. But it's still self-serving rubbish; and it still sells the best future for the Falklands perilously short.

Nicholas Ridley, a stalwart rightwinger when he wasn't being a Foreign Office minister, went to the islanders 33 years ago and gave them a sensible option. Britain couldn't bear the cost of supporting and defending them any longer. Too much cash, too much redundant toil. They'd get on far better if Argentina was a helpful neighbour. Geography and commonsense dictated a peaceful solution: leaseback. That way the islanders lived their lives as before, but Buenos Aires took sovereignty in the long run. It was what Ridley and, by inference, even Margaret Thatcher thought best.

But the 3,000 said no, the Argentine junta got its messages mixed and disaster ensued. There was one huge benefit: a vicious military dictatorship collapsed. Argentina gained a stable democracy and there were warm promises against any further attempt at a military solution (and the defence budget anyway declined). Diplomacy was left to rule OK. Except that there was no diplomacy.

And now, 30 long years on? Our own defence budget is shrivelling too. We manifestly can't fulfil all the commitments we've made. But 1,000 men, with planes, boats, radar stations and swimming pools, sit in the Falklands, supposedly deterring some non-existent invasion – while a flotilla of admirals lobby the Treasury to get their aircraft carriers back. Billions dribble away over the years to no lasting avail. The Argentinians, who might be our loudest supporters in South America (try seeing how the long ago settlers from Wales enjoy Patagonia), grow bored and frustrated. Prince William sparks predictable tabloid bombast. Nothing gets addressed, let alone resolved.

Things will get worse, much worse, if Buenos Aires plays its cards shrewdly. The Falklands need their air link with Chile. Cut that and supply lines, let alone a semblance of normal life, become impossible to maintain. Will Santiago oblige? The tide of South American opinion has moved against Britain. Barack Obama isn't Ronald Reagan. Nicolas Sarkozy won't lend us a carrier. The squeeze, if President Fernández de Kirchner wants to exert it, is on.
A union flag flies from a British war cemetery overlooking San Carlos Water, Falkland Islands. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian
And all we can do is what we always do in such binds: cry God for Harry, William and St George. Summon up the dispatch box blood. Replace fair dealing with synthetic rage. Forget the Falklanders' best interests yet again.

There's oil in the seas around the islands. There are oilmen flocking to Port Stanley. What there isn't, though, is any big company involvement in looking for it or developing a proper industry that would make the 3,000 (though not George Osborne) rich. For where do you sell that oil? Where do you bring it ashore? How do you unlock a potential future that axiomatically excludes Argentina?

Honesty includes the one element that David Cameron leaves out. If you're going to give the Falklanders a choice and referendum on what comes next, then the choice needs to be real, not rhetorical mush. Could the heirs of Ridley do a deal with Fernández de Kirchner? Of course they could. That's option A on the ballot form. But what can we, the taxpayers of Britain, offer as option B? Do we want to keep paying and paying as the decades roll away? Paying to sustain a little colony that can't grow and prosper without fear. Shouldn't we be allowed to say what future we can afford to offer the Falklands beyond a status quo we can't sustain? Our choice for them.

For, sooner or later, oil and forgetfulness will contrive to sell the islanders out in any case. That's the dirty secret behind the bluster, and the truth that needs recognising at last. If Cameron's vetoes in Europe don't last three weeks, why suppose they will last three centuries in the south Atlantic? Why not solve it now?

By... er... selling them out immediately rather than at some point in the distant future? That's some admirably cynical defeatism you've got there.

Thing is, we might not be ideally placed to defend the Falklands, but the Argentines aren't in any position to attack them either. In any case, it would technically be feasible to defend them without an aircraft carrier or a fleet of Harriers. It wouldn't be much fun, but hey, you go to war with the army you have, and the public would be willing to tolerate casualties over the Falklands in a way that they just weren't in Iraq or Afghanistan.

What interested me in this case was this very 20th century obsession with solutions. You'd think that postmodernism would have cured everyone of teleology once and for all, but you still hear earnest lefties banging on about solutions. We're always hearing about how Israel and Palestine can't possibly go on like this. Why not? They've gone on like this for a century. Clearly they've got some good inertia going. Why stop now? Why can't these people accept that sometimes low-level war is the natural equilibrium?

Gilles de Rais · #2 (**permalink**) 05-02-12, 10:41 AM

A couple of points - While I agree that "sell out early because we'll sell out anyhow" is a bit stupid, the lease back idea isn't too bad a concept.

I don't believe that the UK cannot defend the Falklands. As long as you got nukes and Argentina doesn't, it's a matter of communicating clearly how much damage you're willing to inflict on innocent Argentinians to retain the Falklands.

But saying "we'll give you the island back in 99 years and, in the meantime, what says we establish a JV for that oil stuff? 90% ours but you get a taste with a 10% cut" isn't a bad deal if it stabilises the situation to allow majors to invest and cut down security expenses.

And by then the oil will be exhausted or irrelevant because tech will have move on.

Zichao · #3 (**permalink**) 05-02-12, 11:01 AM

Oil companies are used to working around unstable situations. If those guys are willing to work in fucking Nigeria then the Falklands aren't going to give them any problems.

Zichao · #4 (**permalink**) 09-02-12, 10:00 AM

Falkland Islands newspaper calls Cristina Fernández de Kirchner a bitch | World news | guardian.co.uk

The Falkland Islands newspaper the Penguin News has triggered uproar on Argentinian social networks by calling President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner a bitch.

The newspaper's website uploaded a photo of Fernández briefly using the insult as a file name on Wednesday, a day after she accused Britain of militarising the south Atlantic islands.

The word triggered an immediate avalanche of complaints and abuse from Argentinians, reflecting heightened sensitivity towards the archipelago in the runup to the 30th anniversary of the war with Britain.

The Buenos Aires daily La Nacion said the word, "perra" in Spanish, was a strong "anglo-saxon term ... signifying disrespect". Within hours more than 2,000 readers responded with comments, many vitriolic.

The Penguin News, which is printed weekly and online updated daily, usually has a tiny readership – the islands have a population of 3,000 – but the escalating diplomatic row between London and Buenos Aires has in recent weeks attracted many readers in Argentina, which calls the islands Las Malvinas and asserts ownership.

To illustrate a story about Fernández's speech on Tuesday it uploaded a photograph of the president with the offending word. Those who saved the image found that the default file name was "bitch".

Challenged by an Argentinian on her Twitter feed the editor, Lisa Watson, replied: "emmm oops – not now you'll find." The word was removed. Watson referred to colleagues' "dry humour". By then however the page had been saved and posted on multiple websites, prompting online fury.

The editor's Twitter feed reflected angry and often vicious hate messages. Penguin staff did not reply to emails or phone calls last night but last week, before the controversy, Watson told the Guardian she had been receiving abusive messages for weeks.

"I receive threats and insults via our work email address and on Twitter. The threats I try not to take seriously, particularly as the individuals tend to sign their name and even offer 'besos' (kisses) after claiming they are coming to the Falklands and their first task will be to kill me. Mainly I am referred to as a prostitute, liar, thief and pirate, other words I really wouldn't like to mention."

She did not keep such emails, she said. "I read and delete immediately because it's not something you want to keep as a souvenir, but one said 'Die you decadence whore', others say things like 'I am coming to the Malvinas so walk softly because I will find you.'"

She did not take them seriously. "I assume it is simply people momentarily angry because they have read something in their newspaper about the islands – I suppose we all feel like that sometimes but threatening to kill me seems a little extreme."

Watson said she was more upset about random calls to islanders. "It's intimidating to be woken in the night to someone shouting at you in Spanish."

Nevertheless she said it was important to have dialogue. "I have no objection to chatting and debating with Argentines. My reason for doing so is in the hope they will see us as a people with our own culture and our own thoughts. I live in hope that they will understand we are not 'British imperialists' but a population that has struggled to develop this little country and deserve to be allowed to live in peace.

"I should say that I also receive many messages of support from Argentines or messages from people who do not agree with my point of view but want to offer kind thoughts anyway."