MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina: Falklands census show Islanders are “implanted”

Based on information from Falkland Islands censuses, the recently created Argentine Parliamentary Observatory argues that Great Britain is not entitled to claim the self determination principle in the Islands since the population was “implanted”.

This fact according to the demographics report also cuts out the Falklanders from the bilateral diplomatic conflict negotiations.

Apparently "The fallacy of self determination" report to be officially presented this week in the Argentine Congress was compiled by Tierra del Fuego Deputy, Daniel Gallo and a multi disciplinary team working with Falklands' census figures stretching from 1851 to the latest edition of 2001.

"The report's results supposedly reflect that the local (Islands) population is not originate, which would obstruct Britain's claim that the current inhabitants of the Islands have a right to decide on the territory's sovereignty", says the Sunday edition of the Buenos Aires magazine Perfil.

The report indicates that according to the 2001 Falklands census, of the total 2.971 inhabitants, 48% were born in Great Britain or Commonwealth members and only 45% is originate from the Islands. The remaining 7% was born in third countries.

Further on the report points out to how Islanders consider themselves: according to official statistics, in the www.census.com.uk, 79% of Islanders define themselves as British which means the self determination principle claim that Britain pretends to adjudge is "not applicable", since its own British subjects are being called to arbitrate in a "sovereignty issue", plus the fact that 57% of the population has been implanted with over ten years residence.

Comparing the Falklands' 1991 and 2001 census, 274 people were born and 135 passed away in that period, with another 77 children from local residents born overseas, but arriving in the Islands before they were six months old. Of the 77, 54 are British born, one from Chile and 22 from Argentina.

Deputy Gallo is quoted by Perfil saying that British arguments to uphold the "illegitimate occupation of our Malvinas islands are collapsing one by one", and now the time has come for "self determination", which is non other but an excuse to "prolong colonization and satiate the eternal British ambition of having access to our oil and fisheries resources, and the so much coveted transoceanic crossing".

In the diplomatic dispute over the Falklands sovereignty, both sides appeal to International Law: Argentina arguing the "territorial integrity" principle (supposedly the Islands geographically belong to the continent), while Britain the "self determination" principle which entitles the Islands' people to determine about their future and status