Would you go away? You're the only person on this thread making no effort to contribute to the discussion.
As far as I know, the information posted in wiki is false. The activities of Davidoff have been made public in Argentina -and not during the time of the illegal Junta when they controlled information, but later when there was free press-. Here is an interview Davidoff gave recently which unfortunately is in Spanish: http://www.prensasc.com.ar/2009/04/06/constantinodavidoff.html Basically Davidoff claims that he bought the rights to the whaling station, which was abandoned, in order to dismantle it. He hired some local fishermen from Patagonia, 39 people, to work for him. He had legally bought the rights and he has provided evidence that he had permision from the British to do the work, so he had not done anything illegal. It was one of those hired workers who first raised an Argentine flag on the Island. Davidoff claims that he never brought any Argentine special forces with him, that he was there to do his business. The British claim that he brought Argentine troops hiding as civilians, but he has always strongly denied that, and so has the Argentine military -although I grant the military doesn't have much credibility- . At any rate, the notion that Davidoff brought the troops with him and was there illegally is an assertion that the British military forces made, but which was never proven. The understanding in Argentina is that the military personnel came later, and not with Davidoff. If there were any civilians in that Island who were English or wanted to be English at the time, then I have never heard of it. But perhaps you are right and there was somebody. Do you have proof that there was? If you provide some proof -and I don't mean wiki, because anybody can write anything there- then I'll concede the point, but as far as I know there were no civilians there at the time other than Davidoff and his crew. Anyway, regardless of what the truth is about Davidoff's legal standing, the point I was trying to establish was that the main reason the British are staying in the the Malvinas has nothing to do with self determination. My premise is that the British would stay in the Malvinas even if there was not one civilian there who wanted to be British, because what they really want is a presence in the South Atlantic in order to claim its resources. That is why I asked the question, about the Malvinas, to see if anybody would refuse to concede the point. But nobody refused to concede the point. In fact, it wasn't me who brought up the Georgia Islands and the fact that they were uninhabited, it was one of the British posters. EDIT: I went back to look it up and actually it was you who brought it up, and I appreciate your being candid about it. The events at the Georgia Islands do help make my point, because the British still threw out the Argentines from that particular island, even though as far as I know there was not one civilian British citizen nor anybody else who wanted to be a British citizen in that Island. The only civilians there were Davidoff and his employees, one of whom raised the Argentine flag. So, it's hypocritical to take the moral superiority tone and claim it was about self determination. It is not about self determination, which is what I am trying to establish.
But not by the UN, which was founded precisely to deal with such issues and disputes. But I guess the UN doesn't apply to the powerful nations, only to the less powerful. Right?
http://www.britains-smallwars.com/Falklands/South-Georgia.html states he had bought the rights to the whaling stations and mentions as most other accounts do, the British Antarctic Survey team, non-military government employees. Also had I edited Wikipedia, you'd be able to see it in the article history.
Here is a book that has a fair analysis of both the Argentine and British position as well as that of the UN (in chapter four) http://books.google.com/books?id=cN...resnum=1&ved=0CAYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=&f=false The UN has specifically recognized that a colonialist situation exists, and has ordered both Argentina and Britain to negotiate in order to reach a peaceful resolution to the dispute.
By civilians I meant private citizens or residents who were living in the Island or conducting private business in the Island, because that is what I've read from many sources. I meant to exclude military or government employees who were on duty. If you are saying that there were British government or military personnel assigned to the Island then I won't disagree with that. My point is that Davidoff and his crew were the only private people on the Island at the time. Anyway, some of the facts claimed by the British government worker do not square up with Davidoff's own story. But whatever the truth is, it does not change the fact that there were no people who wanted to be British living in that Island who could lay claim to self determination, yet the British still claimed sovereignty over them and fought for them. And I believe the British would have done the exact same over the Falklands even if they would have no civilians living either. The claim that the reason they were fighting was over the right of self determination of 3000 people - actually much less than 3000 back in 82 - rings hollow. What Britain really wants is to have a presence in the South Atlantic in order to take its resources, and they will fight and assert their military might over that, Kelpers or no Kelpers. Do you dissagree with that?
I presume you're referring to Resolution 2065, which specifically refers to the (unspecified) solution needing to be in the best interests of the population of the Falklands? The population that overwhelmingly desires to remain part of Britain? The UN has never advocated returning the Falklands to Argentina, and the only thing making the Falklands different from any other former colonial dependency is Argentina making a stink about it. Which they have absolutely no right to do, because the only connection Argentina has to the Falklands is that a couple of centuries ago, for a few years, they inherited them as a colonial possession themselves. Ironic, huh?
Even presuming this is true, none of it would give Argentina any greater claim over the UK than vice versa. Even if you take the settlers/settler descendents out of the picture (which I don't agree with in the slightest) you are still left with a barren group of rocks with no non-colonial ties to any existing country, and no native populace to assert a claim. As I've said previously, Argentina's claim then boils down to "our colonial predecessors were here before your colonial predecessors", which is a pretty weak argument even before you consider that Britain's presence there is many times longer than Argentina's, far more established, and (here's the kicker) currently in existence.
The problem with the Davidoff situation is many but quite simply you can't enter another countries soil illegally, move in and claim self-determination it simply doesn't work like that. For self-determination to take place the country overseeing the Island/country needs to accept the citizens are legally there and have been for there for sometime otherwise it would make it an easy loophole to exploit don't you think? Also with respect please stop saying we are there for the resources we have been there for nearly 200 years and it's only over the last 30 odd years have we identified the natural resources (I'm not talking about fishing here). As LU said, fishing rights equate to $40m where as it costs us more than $100m a year for our military upkeep there and supposedly $150-200m this year with additional assets down there and that's not including the 1.2b it cost us for the war, so economically it's been a massive loss. Now we know this could all change if oil is found but there is no guarantee this will happen and clearly it's only recently we've become aware there could be great reserves down there. Even if oil is found they would have to extract a huge amount for the islands to even break-even in cost terms for the money we've spent. You would do better to argue Britain has kept the islands for military purposes since we can launch into latin countries from there, that argument would carry a great deal more weight and is infinitely more likely. Also when you combine the fact we are simply not going to give the Islands up after the 82' war since it would be political suicide for the party in power. I really can't emphasis enough how strongly British people feel about the defence of those islands.
As a barometer for British opinion you may want to check out this thread running on the biggest car site in Europe called Pistonheads. And just like your leader, our current leader is also suffering the same political low point and would gain a great deal if he went on the attack against any suggested concessions. It's kind of ironic both of our leaders are at a low point and could do well in the public's eyes to attack the other! http://pistonheads.co.uk/xforums/to...&i=0&nmt=falklands will it kick off&mid=29572
Before the war Britain was trying to work out some sovereiggnity sharing arrangement with Argentina (thoguh one of the main sticking points was that the Islanders simply did not want5 to be udner Argentina's control), so no it doesn't ring true and as I said the resources that go with island pretty much support the islanders and nothing else (though as I also said oilmay change that). The Falklands Islands are actually a financial burden on the British treasury, one of the reasons for the Falklands War was that Argentina saw a chance when Britain withdrew it's patrol, the reason being that Britain thought that it was a waste of money. Like I said it's academic now anyway, the Falklands War essentially ended any chance of Argentina having any form of sovereignity over the islands
Well, yeah. We have a resolution: Britain owns the islands, and we do not recognise any Argentine claim. It's a colonial situation, it was colonised by the British, the same way Argentina was colonised by the Spanish, Welsh etc. If it weren't for colonialism, we'd all be living in the primordial ooze.
This kind of brings us back to the "special relationship" stuff earlier in the thread and the suggestion that Obama is undermining it. Sometimes a "special relationship" requires one party to stand up and tell the other that they are nuts and they won't support them. We would all be better off if Tony Blair would have taken a look at the Downing Street memos and told George Dubya to take a leap. Instead, the "stand behind each other like brothers" nonsense gave Dubya the international clout he needed to start a war of choice. Without England, that coalition of the willing was even more pathetic with only a handful of military commitments for mostly cosmetic purposes. I don't pretend to know the ins and out of this situation, although this thread is very educational. Still, I think we should consider that the "special relationship" might require the US to tell England to go slow.
I'd agree, however on something as clear cut as this and with other countries trying to gang up on Britain you'd expect your supposedly special friend to back you. Also it's not like he is saying we should do anything, he's just saying it's nothing to do with me which we've seen before from the US. Either way, it doesn't really matter if the US give us their support or not, we don't need it anyway but it is highly disappointing after our recent outings at essentially the request of the USA.
Yes I think Obama is making a misstep there. You can't please everyone all the time, trying to take the middle ground will be seen as a stab in the back of Britain
As I see it, the people of Argentina in general have a problem with Britain's presence for a number of historical reasons, not just the forceful removal of the Argentine governor from the Islands, but many others, including the two invasions of Buenos Aires, the later British blockades meant to stiffle the Argentine economy, as well as many other acts of interference by the UK in Argentine affairs, which of course are very much highlighted at school in history courses. I think you can understand why for historical reasons Britain is generally not trusted, and its presence in the South Atlantic will continue to be a slap in the face of Argentines and other Latin Americans as well. From the standpoint of the government, Argentina desperately needs sources of revenue to support a very socialistic -as well as corrupt- system that the nation can hardly afford, in fact modeled to a large extent on Western European socialism. So they need additional sources of revenue, and they'd like to be able to sell the fishing rights and oil drilling rights to the South Atlantic, rather than watch the British get rich from doing it. Those amounts of money, as well as the potential future revenues, mean much much more to Argentina and its economy than to Britain, in relative terms. On the other hand, demagogues like the Kirchners probably welcome the situation, because it helps them deflect attention from their own internal problems and gives them a hot button issue that they can use effectively to rally support. I should add that there is a large British immigrant community in Argentina, and certainly there is great British influence in our culture. There is no widespread hatred of British people in general, but mostly of the British government and its policies. British culture has made some great contributions to the Argentine identity. Having said that, there is no doubt that the arrogant attitudes of some British people, and the British-Argentine community in particular - to some extent perceived but also in many ways real- are resented by most of the rest of the population, the majority of whom has Spanish or Italian ancestry. The strong feelings of resentment against the idea that Britain's policy is based on moral reasons, brought forth by some here, have to also be seen in that light. A side of my family belongs to the British-Argentine community, and I have to say that there is an air of moral superiority that they have, an attitude that to some extent contributes to other Argentines resenting them and by extension the British in general. So those things do contribute to the problem.
Argentina, like most countries, just wants to be the big dog in its neighborhood. Can't blame them for that, any more than you can blame Britain for wanting to maintain such a useful outpost.
Good post and I think most British wouldn't argue with our joint history. You have to ask why they haven't tried to extract oil in Argentinian waters so far although we all know the answer theres little point in investing billions when there is a strong chance the government may rip you off leaving you with nothing in return. It's a shame really because Argentina is rich in natural resources and could get itself of the hole if the government would act for the people rather than themselves.
Not that I really care one way or the other, but how the f*ck exactly do the British fancy themselves superior to the Spanish?! I've been to both places on numerous occasions and not that I especially dislike England, but if I were to choose to live between the two, it wouldn't take me half a second to pick Spain.