MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina Falklands claims' inventory adds two supports

Argentina's Falklands/Malvinas sovereignty claim support inventory added two more statements this last week during the meeting of Latinamerican and Caribbean leaders in the northeast of Brazil.

Early in the week at the Mercosur presidential summit when the pro tempore chair was handed by Brazil to Paraguay for the next six months, the block as usual added to the normal statement a few lines in support of Argentina's claim. All country members and associates state "their support to the legitimate rights of the Argentine Republic in the sovereignty dispute relative to the question of the Islas Malvinas". Following came the summit of Latinamerica and Caribbean leaders, CALC, the first of its kind and convened by Brazil to discuss "Integration and development". At the end of discussions the 33 leaders of the region also expressed their full support to Argentina's claim that the United Kingdom abide by the United Nations resolutions calling for negotiations on the disputed sovereignty over the Malvinas, Georgias and Sandwich del Sur Islands, as soon as possible, with the purpose of achieving a "peaceful solution" to the controversy. The declaration which describes the Malvinas question as a "hemispheric concern" was not considered a minor success by Argentine diplomatic sources because it was supported by all countries of the hemisphere (with the exception of United States and Canada that did not participate), but including Jamaica, "whose head of state is Queen Elizabeth II". Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner also illustrated her speech to the CALC conference on global financial calamities saying that the Malvinas are "a blatant example of inequality in the application of international law". The Argentine line of thinking is that "the unprecedented economic crisis and which originated in the central countries, not only already impacts on the region, but is forecasted to worsen and should find us (Latinamerica & Caribbean) looking for joint solutions". This inevitably demands for a change in the rules of the game (financial and economic) which have been dictated and imposed by the "central countries", but which are applied differently if the affected are emerging or fully developed countries.