MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina targets Falklands' “sovereignty umbrella”

A “drastic change” in Argentina's policy towards the Falklands/Malvinas dispute including a dismantling of the “sovereignty umbrella” was openly admitted by President Nestor Kirchner's administration in reports published over the weekend in Buenos Aires main dailies and attributed to sources with access to the “president's office”.

According to those reports the stronger Argentine attitude which has "no rush or timetable" will definitively bury the "seduction" policy of the nineties under former president Carlos Menem and his Foreign Secretary Guido Di Tella, when the objective was to conquer the goodwill of the Islanders and reap a positive opinion of Argentina.

It was precisely in the early nineties under the formula of the "sovereignty umbrella" agreed with the Menem administration, which "froze" the sovereignty dispute and Argentine claims that practical agreements regarding fisheries, hydrocarbons and links in the South Atlantic were reached.

The "in crescendo" Kirchner administration stronger policy insisting in bilateral Falkland/Malvinas sovereignty talks with the UK could "even coincide" with the president's bid for re-election in October 2007.

However the articles in the Buenos Aires press point out that the new emphasis is no surprise: President Kirchner anticipated it with his hard line approach regarding the ban on additional charter flights to the Islands; limiting fisheries cooperation and in his speech on Malvinas Veterans Day April 2, when he called on Britain to negotiate "in good faith" adding that dialogue, diplomacy and peace do not mean "living with heads in submission".

Last year Argentina formally presented the British Embassy in Buenos Aires 15 letters of protest claiming "unilateral actions" undertaken by the Islands in fisheries and oil affairs.

Furthermore Foreign Affairs minister Jorge Taiana's has repeatedly denounced in international forums, "UK's unilateral actions" insisting that 24 years since the end of the war, "the provisional agreements reached, unfortunately have not facilitated the path for the reestablishment of talks on sovereignty".

In the recent presentation before the United Nations Decolonization Committee the Argentine delegation, on suggestion from President Kirchner, included the chairmen of the Senate and Lower House Foreign Affairs Committees.

"Malvinas will have top priority and we will show the world, time after time, Britain's non fulfillment", has promised Minister Taiana.

From now on in all diplomatic exchanges Argentina besides the traditional gift of the classic "Martin Fierro", an epic book on the conquest of the pampas by the "guachos", will be giving a DVD describing Argentina's claim to the Malvinas and other South Atlantic islands.

This week a multiparty Parliament Observatory specifically for Malvinas affairs will be officially launched to "keep track of the presidential agenda on the issue" and to strongly lobby on fellow parliamentarians from other countries "who have stances in line or contrary to that of Argentina in Malvinas affairs".

The group is made up of seven Congress members from government and the opposition plus seven distinguished academics with the purpose of promoting all type of academic activities related to Malvinas, but basically geared to "reformulating a State policy, brushing aside Di Tella's seduction approach".

However Andres Cisneros, former Deputy of Di Tella, who was not invited to the Observatory, argues that the "seduction policy" did not forget decolonization and only privilege relations with the UK, "on the contrary it was a simultaneous approach: the legal claim which is correct, but is insufficient. Something else in needed".

Apparently regarding the Malvinas Islands claim there are two main lines of thinking in Argentine politics: one which favours a low key, silent approach and another high key and "noisy", which was chosen by President Kirchner or at least the line is "keep talking about the issue".

But Cisneros has a more pragmatic position suggesting "a return to the pre 1982 war situation with trade, transport and investment links, sufficient confidence building so as to allow British politicians and diplomats, (sometime in the future) vote in Parliament the devolution of the Islands without having to sustain the condemnation of British public opinion".

The former official recalls that in 1975, four months before the death of Juan Peron and in 1982, a month before the war, Argentina "received proposals to resolve the issue, including sovereignty, but we replied no".

The two articles also quote British diplomatic sources which allegedly admitted that the Foreign Office was aware of the policy changes but also cautioned that "this will not lead Argentina to find a solution, but rather a greater resoluteness", both the UK and the Islanders.