MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Ex Falklands Councillors deny acceptance of 1974 Condominium Proposal
Former Falklands' Councillors challenged statements from a senior Argentine diplomat regarding a joint Argentine British condominium over the Islands, allegedly proposed by the British Government in 1974.
"The proposal had the approval of the Legislative and Executive Councils". This and other statements recently made in his country's press by senior Argentine diplomat, Ambassador Carlos Ortiz de Rozas, regarding a joint Argentine British condominium over the Falkland Islands, allegedly proposed by the British Government in 1974, have been challenged in the Falklands by former members of the Legislative and Executive Councils of the time.
First into the breach to deny the acceptance of such a proposal was ex-councillor Robin Pitaluga, followed closely today, Wednesday, by his colleague of the time, William Bowles, who had this to say on the Falkland Islands Radio Service's News Direct programme:
"The proposal was for a condominium where the Islands would be ruled partially by Argentina and partially by Great Britain. We at the time in Joint Council decided that this wasn't on and did everything we could to throw it out, which we did?????It just wasn't going to work; we knew that, so we threw it out."
Asked to comment on the assertion by Ambassador Ortiz de Rozas that the invasion of the Falklands had been a mistake, ex-councillor Bowles said that he was sure that had the war gone the way of the Argentineans, they would now think quite differently about it.
Bowles, who served on the Falkland Islands Legislative Council from 1971 to 1981, told F.I.R.S. that during this time the Falklands had faced many changes and difficulties, not least the handing over of responsibility for finding governors for the Islands from the British Government's Colonial Office to the Foreign Office, who made a number of proposals about the future of the Falklands, including some which had to be resisted fiercely by the local council.
Despite the efforts of Legislative and Executive Councils, a high degree of dependency upon Argentina was forced upon the Falkland Islands by the 1971 Communications Agreement between the Argentinean and British governments. When the shipping service between the Falklands and Montevideo, provided by the RMS Darwin, was withdrawn in 1972, the Falkland islanders' only route to the outside world was cut off and they were forced to accept the offered Argentinean air service to Comodoro Rivadavia and onward to Buenos Aires.
Along with the dependence on Argentina for external communications, said Bowles, came scholarships to Argentine schools for Falkland Islands children, medical services and an Argentinean monopoly on the supply of fuels granted to YPF. To the extent that this unwanted dependency ended with the reoccupation of the Islands by British forces in 1982, Bowles said the Argentinean invasion could be regarded as "the best thing that ever happened to the Islands as far as the future was concerned." However, the fact that so many lives were lost made it, in his opinion, a cause for regret.
Even with the benefit of hindsight, said the former councillor, it was impossible to know what would have happened to the Islands if the Argentines had not invaded. He concluded, "They made the mistake, they made the error, they lost the deal. We won."
John Fowler (Mercopress) Stanley
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