Forty years ago, on April 2, 1982, the Falklands War began. The military junta in power for six years in Buenos Aires, in search of popularity, launched an offensive to recover the archipelago located 500 kilometers from the Argentine coast (and 12,000 kilometers from London), under British control since 1833. From the Next day London replied by sending its fleet. After seventy-four days of war, 649 dead on the Argentine side and 255 on the British side, Buenos Aires capitulated on June 14.
The war has caused heavy trauma on both sides. Argentinian associations of ex-combatants estimate that, since 1982, between three hundred and five hundred former soldiers, children barely of age, poorly trained, under-equipped, have committed suicide. In the Falklands, the landing of thousands of soldiers had a lasting impact on the inhabitants of this archipelago lost in the midst of the screaming fifties and beaten by the Atlantic Ocean.
Since 1833 and the British invasion of the islands, which until then belonged to Argentina, Buenos Aires has never ceased to claim sovereignty. To recover “The Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands” is enshrined in the country’s constitution as “a permanent and indeclinable objective of the Argentine people”.
Forty years after the war, the territorial dispute continues. But with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Buenos Aires wants to give new impetus to its claim. “The legitimate condemnation of the Russian invasion proves Argentina right, point Guillermo Carmona, secretary of the Falklands, Antarctica and South Atlantic of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The United Kingdom demands, quite rightly, that we respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine, but, at the same time, has violated that of Argentina for one hundred and eighty-nine years. »
form of colonialism
In 1965, the UN recognized that the situation in the Falklands (“Falklands”, for the British) constitutes a form of colonialism which must end. And forced the two countries to sit down at the negotiating table. But London refuses any resumption of dialogue. “We can establish a certain parallelism with the situation in Crimea, notes Marcelo Kohen, professor of international law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. The Russians control this territory and claim sovereignty over it, but Ukraine does not recognize it. Until this is the case, the question will remain open. »
On the British side, it is also to claim sovereignty over the Falklands that the Russian invasion is mentioned. “The war in Ukraine is at the forefront of our concerns in the Falkland Islands community, not least because it brings back strong memories of forty years ago, when our peaceful home too has been invaded by a hostile neighbor bent on grabbing land and asserting sovereignty”wrote the agency MercoPress on March 10.
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