MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

UN G24 president on official visit to Buenos Aires and Tierra del Fuego

Donathus Keith Saint Aimee, president of the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonisation

Donathus Keith Saint Aimee, president of the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonisation or G24 is expected in Argentina Thursday and is scheduled to visit the extreme south province of Tierra del Fuego that according to Argentine law has jurisdiction over the disputed Falklands/Malvinas, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands.

In spite of Argentine press speculations that Santa Lucia UN ambassador Saint Aimee arrival in Buenos Aires is linked to the recent protest lodged by the government of Cristina Kirchner against British forces military exercises in the Falklands, the invitation was extended last May.

The information was confirmed by Argentine ambassador before the UN Jorge Argüello who will be coming along with his Santa Lucia peer.

“The Malvinas issue will be on the table because it is one of the 16 cases currently under consideration by the UN Decolonization Committee, but ambassador Saint Aimee is not coming to Argentina specifically because of Malvinas, but as head of an institution and representative of a friendly country”, said Argüello according to the Argentine official news agency Telam.

Argentina has had a policy of standing support for the decolonization process from the very moment that special committee was created said Argüello who added the agenda includes meeting Foreign Affairs minister Hector Timerman, and honour-guest of a lunch hosted by Alfredo Atanasof president of the Argentine Congress Foreign Affairs committee.

On Friday ambassador Saint Aimee is scheduled to give a conference on the XXI century decolonization process at the Argentine Foreign Service Institute. On the weekend he will be travelling to Tierra del Fuego, a guest of governor Fabiana Ríos who invited him last June.

Governor Rios is expected to highlight the “indispensable and inalienable legitimate rights over the Malvinas, South Georgia, South Sandwich and their surrounding maritime spaces” that correspond to Tierra del Fuego by federal law 26,552. She will be also protesting Britain’s latest “unilateral actions” in the disputed Malvinas Islands.

The agenda includes several conferences and a tour of the Beagle Channel all the way to the Chilean side which is promoted by Argentina as an example of peaceful resolution of conflicts. Finally the Santa Lucia ambassador on Monday is scheduled to give a conference followed by questions at the Belgrano University. He will be talking about the United Nations sponsored decolonization process.