MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Governor Pearce: “no likely solution to Falklands dispute”
“The beginning of wisdom for the Argentines is to recognise that they aren't going to get anywhere on the sovereignty issue”.
This was the opinion offered to Mercopress on Friday by retiring Falkland Islands Governor, Mr.Howard Pearce, who leaves his post on 5th August, after three and a half years service.
One of the consequences of the 1982 conflict, said Mr.Pearce, had been to make the UK Government more keenly aware of its responsibilities towards the Falkland Islands and more committed than ever to the principle of self-determination for Falkland Islanders. Apart from the considerable investment in the Falkland Islands made by the UK Government since 1982, principally the establishment of the international airport at Mount Pleasant, the loss of the lives of two hundred and fifty British servicemen was "a sacrifice which has to be respected". He was, he said, "absolutely clear that the commitment of the British Government is rock solid".
The very success of the military campaign to liberate the Falklands from the Argentinean presence had exploded the previously held official view that the Falklands could not be defended. It was this erroneous belief that had led to the search for a diplomatic compromise as typified by the Hong Kong style leaseback option urged on the Falkland Islanders by Nicholas Ridley in 1980 and roundly rejected.
Mr Pearce said that it was important to realise that within Argentina the Malvinas issue had always been as much about domestic politics as about foreign policy and that with a presidential election due next year, the world might expect further expressions of the hard line attitude towards the Falklands held by the current Argentine administration.
Speaking in his comfortable office overlooking Stanley harbour, Mr.Pearce said that a prior fascination with the Falklands and an awareness of the issues involved was part of the reason why he had been keen to accept the post of Governor of the Falkland Islands. From January 1975 to August 1978, he had been part of the diplomatic staff of the British Embassy in Buenos Aires, dealing on a regular basis with the Falklands/Malvinas sovereignty issue. This background, he said, had proved to be "enormously useful."
During his service in Buenos Aires, Mr.Pearce had visited the Falkland Islands on more than one occasion. It had been very valuable, he thought, to have a sense from his own experience of how the Islands and the community had changed since 1982. No amount of reading or consultation would have had the same force as seeing for himself the impact of the diversification of the economy, an increase in population, roads and the availability of twenty-four hour power and modern telecommunications.
In contrast to the huge changes that had taken place in the Islands since the seventies, Mr.Pearce commented that the attitudes, discourse and pre-occupation with sovereignty, shown by the Argentine Government had remained very much the same. This, he thought, was "rather sad".
Asked whether he foresaw any solution to the current situation, Governor Pearce replied that while it was in the nature of diplomats to look for solutions and compromise and to want to solve things, his own view was that there isn't a solution to the dispute, unless Argentina would be prepared to surrender the sovereignty claim, something which he thought was highly unlikely. Given that it was equally inconceivable that Islanders would change their view, the current positions of the Argentinean and British governments over the Falklands/Malvinas were therefore irreconcilable.
Mr. Pearce stated that what he thought most people, including the majority of Falkland Islanders, would like to see, was a situation where it was recognised on both sides that there were differences of view on the issue of sovereignty which would not change, but that this did not prevent the management of a good neighbourly relationship with practical cooperation in those areas where a mutual interest existed.
"While differing views on sovereignty remain, you've got to find a mechanism under which you can engage in sensible dealings without prejudicing the views of either side. The so-called "sovereignty umbrella" has provided the mechanism for doing that hitherto. Without that it becomes enormously more difficult."
"I felt it was right then and I feel it was right now"
Governors are never automatically popular with the Falkland Islands' inhabitants, but Mr.Pearce's obvious liking for the Islands and the local community has largely been reciprocated, especially when he and his charming Dutch wife Caroline chose Stanley Cathedral for their wedding and invited the whole of the Falklands to the party.
With certain sectors of the population the Governor's popularity was shredded when he and his wife invited a visiting group of members of the Argentine Families' Commission to Government House for a social occasion. Mercopress took the opportunity on Friday to ask Governor Pearce whether, with the benefit of hindsight, he was sure this had been the correct thing to do. His answer was firm and immediate:
"I am, absolutely, because they were here not as representatives of the Argentine Government, but as people who had suffered loss during the Conflict. I think everybody who came had lost a member of their family as a result of the conflict in 1982; there were many tragic stories and they were victims of that conflict." "Following the agreement of the Falkland Islands Government to allow the construction of the memorial at Darwin, they came over, following the completion of that memorial, in order to visit it and that was clearly a very important experience for those who came." "The event that I held at Government House was attended by quite a number of Falkland Islanders and I very much welcomed that. I think one has to distinguish between the government-to-government relationship and relationships between peoples." "This is, I think, a caring humanitarian society and I think many people recognised that there were families in Argentina who had suffered deep personal tragedies as a result of a conflict about which they had no choice. I am absolutely clear that it was right to make them feel welcome here and it was right for me, as Governor, to do that and to have an event at Government House. I feel it was right then, and I feel it was right now. There will be people who will continue to disagree with me about that. That is their right."
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