MALVINAS/FALKLANDS: Islanders, Argentinians Pass the Test

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Aug 16 1999 (IPS) - The first week-long visit by a contingent of Argentinians to the Malvinas/Falklands islands since the 1982 war ended without serious incidents and with shows of goodwill.

A symbolic football match between the “Falklands” and the “Rest of Argentina” teams ended Friday with a triumph by the islanders and evening festivities in a local tavern, amidst a climate of warm camaraderie.

What remains to be seen is whether the new era of coexistence, which aims at least for a return to the pre-war situation – tourists visiting the islands in the 1970s were sold oil and gas by Argentina, and an Argentinian airline had an office in Port Stanley – will lead to Argentina’s recovery of sovereignty over the archipelago, occupied by the British for over one and a half centuries.

That at least is the final objective of the government of Carlos Menem, which has signed with Great Britain an agreement allowing Argentinians to visit the islands. And as of October, flights to the islands out of Chile will stop over in an airport in Argentina.

The first contingent was comprised last week of tourists, business representatives, a veteran of the 1982 war and photographers, who strolled through the frozen streets of Port Stanley/Puerto Argentino, attempting to strike up conversations with locals and capture their faces on film.

Businessman Alejandro Maglione, interested in tourism based on visits to farms and rural estates, said he perceived an “extraordinary shift” in the attitude of the islanders as the week wore on – from initial cool indifference to a shared birthday celebration for Maglione thrown in a house rented for the occasion.

Last week’s was a very different sort of arrival to the one recalled all too vividly by locals – the armed invasion staged in 1982 by the military dictatorship headed by General Leopoldo Galtieri, which ended in a military rout for Argentina by Great Britain, and a rupture of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

After that unanticipated bloody invasion, which squashed all previous diplomatic advances towards peaceful recuperation of the archipelago, the only Argentinians allowed to visit the islands – under severe restrictions – were families visiting the graves of their loved ones killed in combat.

Diplomatic and commercial ties with Great Britain were not reestablished until 1990. And among the islanders, bitterness and mistrust continue to reign – which, they say, is only to be expected.

An estimated 40 percent of the roughly 2,500 local inhabitants suffered bombings and losses, or in other ways were direct witnesses to the war, which claimed a total of 700 lives. As the only unfortunate incident during last week’s visit demonstrated, a glimpse of Argentina’s light blue and white flag is enough to upset them.

Tempers flared when a visitor from Argentina placed a flag in the cemetery where the Argentinian troops are buried. But under pressure from Argentina’s foreign ministry, the visitor issued a written public apology.

With that exception, however, the experiment in coexistence was considered positive by the governor of the islands, Donald Lamont.

The travellers found that many islanders were interested in a friendly chat. Many locals recalled the pre-war days, when they occasionally visited the South American continent, and a few were even able to practice their long-rusty Spanish.

A woman born on the islands was moved after making contact once again, through a visiting radio journalist, with an Argentinian family with whom she stayed for two years in Buenos Aires during her teenage years in the 1970s.

Others remembered how well they were treated in the British Hospital in Buenos Aires and other health centres. And many admitted they had missed the fruit, meat, wine and other Argentinian products reaching the islands once again.

Last week’s visit coincided with the arrival of an islander to Argentina. Football player Martyn Clarke, age 19, flew to Buenos Aires to test his luck with Boca Juniors, one of the leading local teams.

The strategy of the Argentinian government, which has come in for heavy criticism by the opposition, is to break through to the islanders and convince them of the need to discuss the issue of the archipelago’s sovereignty.

Foreign Minister Guido Di Tella has resorted to methods that analysts have considered at best unusual, such as sending each islander a New Year’s gift, such as movies, cartoons, greeting cards and children’s stories.

The Ministry of Foreign Relations, in the meantime, has rebuilt the dialogue with Great Britain, which allowed for the first post- war visit by an Argentinian president to London. On his visit last year, Menem met British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Queen Elizabeth.

And last March, Prince Charles made his first visit to Buenos Aires, where he expressed his hopes that Argentina could coexist in a friendly manner with another democratic and modern people living a few hundred miles off the coast.

“I hope this occurs with a spirit of mutual understanding and respect,” and that no one feels fear and hostility again, said Prince Charles. Some interpreted his words as a support for self- determination by the islanders, another alternative.

Argentina has no hopes of getting Great Britain to return the islands, as it handed back Hong Kong to China in 1997. Unlike Hong Kong, where 90 percent of the population is Chinese, not a single Argentinian lives on the islands.

Nor is there the slightest contact between Argentina and the Malvinas/Falklands, as there was between China and Hong Kong, where thousands of people flowed across the border daily, and joint ventures prospered on both sides.

Gibraltar, meanwhile, was not seized by Great Britain, but yielded by Spain in the Ultrecht treaty. And while the two countries are able to speak of the issue of sovereignty, Argentina is not to even mention the word.

There is not even a chance of beginning to address “that” question. Other issues, like natural resources – fishing and oil – or flights to the islands can all be discussed, as long as the “sovereignty issue” remains off-limits.