MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands reasserts self-determination before C24 and calls for new de-listing criteria

Falkland Islands elected representatives called on the United Nations Decolonization Committee to acknowledge the Islanders right and wishes to self determination, based on the ethos and principles of the UN charter, and suggested updated re-examination of criteria for delisting the non self governing territories.

Richard Stevens and Janet Robertson also expressed on Thursday in New York the Falklands desire to engage with Argentina, but underlined that talks of mutual interest conditioned to sovereignty negotiations are equivalent to a demand of “total capitulation”.

The situation of the Falkland Islands is very disappointing for Argentina, “but desire for possession is not sufficient justification either for the exertion of economic pressure on a population or for the goal of annexation and subjugation of that same population”, said Ms Robertson.

Falklands’ representatives recalled that 2010 represents the end of the Second International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism and that the position in 2009 is very different from that of 1969.

The remaining Non-Self-Governing Territories are advancing from typical colonial situations into systems based on the principle of self-determination freely expressed through democratic processes and institutions and in regard to the Falkland Islands, “it is becoming ever more anomalous that this Committee should be making reference to a 200 year-old sovereignty dispute at the expense of the rights of inhabitants of a Non-Self-Governing Territory”, said Ms Robertson.

In his presentation Mr Stevens looks back into the strong roots and solid community identity of the Falklands, from the very beginning in the early 1800s, as evidenced by the repeat of families’ names then and now which have melted into a people of its own with more than ample history, nationhood and rights to freely adopt self determination.

Ms. Robertson is more technical and “dissects” each point of the C24 statement, with their inherent contradictions, such as “call for negotiations”, “peaceful solution”, “the non use of force or threat of force”, “due account of the interests of the population of the Islands”, “territorial integrity”.

In particular Ms Robertson describes how Argentina has appealed to different types of force that pre-empt peaceful solutions to matters of mutual interest and are an on-going facet of current relations. They refer to the end of cooperation in fisheries, hydrocarbons exploration, ban on charter flights if they are not from Argentina, the insistence of using since its creation in 1982 the name Puerto Argentino instead of Stanley, the capital, despite the fact that the town did not exist prior to 1842, “all point to a level of aggression that is not peacefully intended”.