MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Antarctica: Argentina celebrates 101 years

Argentina confirmed its commitment to the Antarctic Treaty on Tuesday as it celebrated 101 years of uninterrupted presence on the frozen continent where it maintains six scientific research stations.

Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa presided at the ceremony here commemorating the founding of the Orcadas Base on the like-named archipelago off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.

For 40 years beginning on Feb. 22, 1904, Argentina was the only country to maintain a permanent presence in Antarctica, running the first weather and magnetic observatory on Laurie Island in the Orcadas.

Since last September, Buenos Aires has been the seat for the headquarters of the Antarctic Treaty's Permanent Secretariat, the international organization administering the agreement first signed in 1959 and now having 45 member-nations.

The Antarctic Treaty System is a whole complex of arrangements made for the purpose of regulating relations among states in the Antarctic. Its central element is the treaty itself.

The Laurie Island station was established in 1903 by a Scottish expedition headed by the intrepid researcher William Bruce.

He went to the White Continent to study the polar icecap covering most of the Antarctic mainland, but his ship became trapped in the ice and the passengers and crew had to winter on Laurie Island, where they built a house of wood and stone as well as a meteorological station.

When winter ended, Bruce left the island and headed to Buenos Aires to acquire provisions that would allow him to continue his trip to the Antarctic mainland. While in the Argentine capital, he offered to let the government of then-President Julio Roca take charge of the Laurie Island installation in exchange for the help the country's navy had provided to him.

Roca accepted the offer and signed a decree ordering the outfitting of a scientific expedition to Laurie Island, and on Feb. 22, 1904, the South American country's white and sky blue flag was raised over the weather station there