MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Malvinas: “Assertion Day of Argentine rights”

The Argentine government ratified its “permanent and unrenounceable determination to recover” the Malvinas islands by “peaceful means” on the commemoration this Friday of the “Assertion Day of Argentine rights” over the South Atlantic islands.

As happened this week during the Organization of American States General Assembly in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the Argentine government reiterated Friday its sovereignty claim over the Malvinas, South Georgia, South Sandwich and surrounding maritime spaces.

A release from the Foreign Affairs ministry underlines Argentina's permanent disposition to resume negotiations with Great Britain with "the purpose of solving in the shortest time possible and in a fair and definitive way the still pending sovereignty dispute".

The June 10 event is identified as the "Assertion Day of Argentine Rights over Malvinas, islands and Antarctic sector" honouring the creation in 1829 of the "Islas Malvinas, Cape Horn and Atlantic Sea adjacencies Political and Military Command", according to a decree signed by interim Buenos Aires Governor General Martin Rodriguez.

The official release points out that from its very existence as an independent nation the Argentine Republic has, through acts of government clearly stated its firm political will to exercise effective sovereignty over the austral territories and maritime spaces inherited from Spain.

With the June 10/1829 decree the Argentine government reaffirmed its legitimate titles over the Islands and ensured the enforcement of laws for the better protection of activities by the Argentine population and from other countries residing in the Islands, involving no form of discrimination.

This way the "adequate" institutional framework was created for the latter "colonizing enterprise" by Islas Malvinas governor Luis Vernet.

"This effective sovereignty exercise was interrupted January 3 of 1833 when British forces occupied the Islands, expelling Argentine population and authorities there established and replacing them with other of British origin".

"This is why the Argentine people and government never consented to this act of force and today ratify the historic mandate reflected in the Transitory dispositions of the National Constitution referring to the peaceful recovery of the Malvinas".

Next Wednesday Argentine Foreign Affairs minister Rafael Bielsa will again address the Malvinas/Falklands issue, but this time before the United Nations Decolonization Committee or C24 in New York.(MP/DYN)