MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Travel Mart Latin America: New Argentine Protest.
“The Argentine Government wishes to remind that the Malvinas Islands, Southern Georgias and South Sandwich Islands and the maritime spaces around them are an integral part of the Argentine national territory and, illegitimately occupied by the United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland, are the subject of a sovereignty dispute between the two countries.”
This was part of the text of a letter received in August at the Jacksonville, Florida offices of W.H.Coleman Inc., a company which specializes in the organization of international events for the travel trade and specifically Travel Mart Latin America, held this year in Foz do Iguazu, Brazil between the 29th September and October 1st. The sender was the Argentine Embassy in Washington and the letter was prompted by the inclusion of companies from the Falkland Islands among the destinations represented.
Elsewhere in the unsigned letter, the writer adds: - "The Argentine Republic also rejects the participation in the Travel Mart and the registration in its web site of individuals or entities that define themselves as originating from the Islands as them being a territory separate from the Argentine Republic."Travel Mart Latin America is an annual commercially organized event, which brings together specialist travel operators from around the world and South American destination representatives. It is held each year in a different city in Latin America. Every year since 1998, the Falkland Islands has been represented, originally by the Tourist Board and more recently also by representatives of receptive travel agencies in the Islands. MercoPress is aware that representations along similar lines have been made before to the organisers, W.H.Coleman Inc., who have chosen to ignore them. Usually, however, they have been made at a local consular level.
This new protest by the Argentine Embassy in Washington is consistent with a string of similar recent restatements of the Argentine position over the Falklands by high ranking officials including Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa and Ambassador to the UN, Cesar Mayoral. Both have recently been at some pains to emphasis that from their perspective, Falkland Islanders do not exist as a separate people, entitled to self-determination.
This morning, speaking to MercoPress, Falkland Islands Governor, Mr. Howard Pearce, described such attitudes on the part of the Argentines Government as "a disappointment" to the British Government. Britain, he said, wishes to have good cooperation and bilateral relations with Argentina on a "a whole range of issues, including the South Atlantic." He went on to state that the key to the British Government's position over the Falkland Islands was its consistent and firm backing of the Islanders' right to self-determination. This, he said, was "a fact of life" which the Argentine Government would ultimately have to accept.
On a lighter note, the Falkland Islands participants at Travel Mart: Ms. Jenny Luxton of Stanley Services Travel, Mrs. Sally Ellis of International Tours and Travel and Mrs. Connie Stevens of the Falkland Islands Tourist Board, enjoyed the event's opening ceremony on the Argentine side of the Iguazu Falls, all the more because their Mercosur identity cards, issued for the occasion by the Argentine authorities, all proudly bore the nationality, "British". The group arrived back in the Islands on Saturday's LAN flight and a fuller report on their participation in the event may be expected shortly.
John Fowler (MP) Stanley
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