MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Foreign Office's “Republic of Falklands” option

The independence of the Falkland Islands is an option not ruled out by the Foreign Office to ensure the continued presence of the United Kingdom in the South Atlantic and improve London's international standing, is the main argument of a book recently launched in Buenos Aires.

"Historia y futuro de las Malvinas" (History and future of the Malvinas) was written by Rodolfo Terragno, a member of the Argentine opposition and former cabinet minister under the administration of president Raul Alfonsin, belonging to the more liberal and updated wing of the Radicales. Mr. Terragano was also exiled in the United Kingdom for several years during the military dictatorship.

Mr. Terragno says that the idea of a "Republic of the Falklands" (which is the Foreign Office's winning card) is considered "impossible" by Argentina because the Islands are too small, minimum population and left to their own, "economically unviable".

However Terragno points out to the fact that several "micro-states" belong to the United Nations keeping their close links with the metropolis in fields such as defence, foreign affairs and international economic relations. The three cases mentioned are the Pacific islands of Palau, Tuvalu and Nauru, plus the special relations of Dutch and French overseas territories.

If the option of the "Republic of Falklands" is exercised by "the Foreign Office" the instrument, argues Terragno, is the magic word "self-determination".

Terragno also quotes from former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook in 1999 when he said Overseas Territories' relations were founded on self determination. "Our Overseas Territories will remain British as long as they wish to continue to be British. When they request to become independent, Great Britain will gladly comply". And if the people of the Falklands sovereignly decide to become "independent", the bilateral claim dispute between United Kingdom and Argentina will be pushed aside leaving a divided international community to address the self determination issue, plus considerably changing UK' standing.

"This is the big danger", underlines the Argentine writer, who insists Argentina must "counter-attack" taking advantage of British legislation defining citizenship and consequently the non applicable concept of "self determination" for Islanders.

According to Mr. Terragno things changed dramatically since the 1982 Falklands war and particularly with the British Nationality Act of 1983 which granted full British citizenship to Falkland Islanders and brushed aside the concept of "British Dependent Territories' citizens" from the previous legislation of 1981.

Previous to that Islanders, although British subjects, belonged to a special category which denied them the right to work and abode in the UK. But with the war and Mrs. Thatcher, "the wishes (before, the interests) of the Islanders became supreme".

The British Overseas Territories Act of 2002 further confirmed full British nationality. In other words the whole Falklands' population is British, just like the English, Welsh, Scots and North Irish argues Mr. Terragno adding that under the UN, self determination is only applicable to colonized populations.

"This is hardly the case when Islanders are but part of the British people belonging to the administrative power, which further confirms that the dispute is completely bilateral", he stresses. "We must recover lost time, all this evidence must be taken to the United Nations before Malvinas are proclaimed the Republic of Falklands", concludes Terragno.

Earlier in the book Mr Terragno claims that John Davies in 1592 was not the discoverer of the Falklands: the Islands figured in Spanish maps of the South Atlantic well before that date. Furthermore it was French navigator Louis Antoine de Bougainville, founder of Port Louis, who first raised a flag in the Islands in 1764 and later in 1770 ceded the rights and settlement to Spain, which then Argentina inherited. France's cession was followed by Spanish and Argentine governments until 1833, totalling 66 years, says Mr. Terragno who does admit the French just beat the British who founded Port Egmont in 1766.

Mr. Terragno confesses that before sitting to write, since all existing books are prejudiced either pro British or pro Argentine, he promised himself that with an open mind and after reading all literature and documents available, if he concluded the Malvinas are British, "I will say so".