MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands prepared to face C24.

Emphasizing the significance of self determination, by as many countries as possible, is the Falkland Islands policy when elected Councillors Mike Summers and Roger Edwards address the United Nations Decolonization Committee, or C 24, in New York next June 18.

Interviewed by Sue Gyford from FIBS in Stanley, Mr. Summers said that they will be targeting members of C24 such as Fiji, Papua Guinea, Sierra Leone who have recently fought for self determination themselves.

Although admitting that no surprises can be expected given the track record of C24, "our objective is to get them to say that the issue of self determination is at the core of this dispute and that the C24 should concentrate on that as an issue".

Mr. Summers described the UN C24 as "a slightly odd committee in that it hasn't achieved anything for a considerable period. They talk about the process of decolonization and the like, but they don't really seem to have a mechanism to de-list people who are perfectly happy with their existing status".

The Falkland Islands are listed in the Non-Self Governing Territories of the UN Special Committee on the Situation with Regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, (also known as C-24) which every year meets to discuss developments in those territories, hears statements from appointed and elected representatives of the Territories and petitioners, dispatches visiting missions to the Territories, and organizes seminars on the political, social, economic and educational situations in the Territories, in the context of the Second International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism (2001-2010).

"The problem in our case is that there's this dispute with the Argentines so what tends to happen every year is that a motion is sponsored by friends of Argentina, who basically call for negotiations over the sovereignty of the Falklands and of course we go and resist that. So it's a slightly odd resolution in terms of the C24 because negotiations over sovereignty are not really their remit - so it ends up as a sort of a non-debate in a way", added Councillor Summers.

Another complication is the fact that "the United Kingdom Government has a policy of basically not cooperating with C 24. It passes no resolutions that are binding on any of the UN member states so the UK is entirely free if it wishes - and it does - to simply ignore the C24 because they regard it as an irrelevance in terms of governance of their Overseas Territories and in that they may well be right". But, emphasized Mr. Summers from the point of view of the Falklands government policy "it's not particularly wise to let Argentina and their friends in Latin America to go putting resolutions in UN bodies and making speeches and the like that go uncontested".

Therefore even when no one will vote for the Falklands and there will be a unanimous resolution supporting Argentina's sovereignty claim over the Islands, getting two, three, four or five states to highlight self determination, can be considered "some kind of victory".

South American countries support the Argentine claim to sovereignty, "and what they will say is that the so-called "Malvinas" dispute should be solved by discussion between the parties", added Councillor Mike Summers. "The British Government rightly says, as we do, that sovereignty is not for discussion, therefore there can be no discussion. The only way to solve this dispute is by listening to the people of the territory itself."

"The resolution effectively will say that the UN calls upon Britain and Argentina to solve the sovereignty dispute in the South Atlantic by discussions and amicable means or something like that - and of course we can't subscribe to that because discussions on sovereignty indicate some kind of willingness to compromise and there is no willingness to compromise on that issue."

Self determination means what the people of the territory want, not what UK or Argentina want.