MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Put the islanders first: key to the Malvinas/Falklands dispute

Jorge Anaya, as a young officer in the sixties had already elaborated a plan to invade the Falklands.

By Robert Cox (*) - Charleston, South Carolina - The misbegotten war over the Islands that need not be named has reversed the concept that war is a continuation of politics or diplomacy by other means. The conflict continues in political and diplomatic terms in Argentina and in Britain. Lost in the clamour is the key to the solution: the interests of the native Islanders.

They used to call themselves Kelpers but are now, I learned recently, called Bennys, because British troops equated them with the bawdy, barmy and very funny comedian Benny Hill. That says something about the way the people who have a birthright to the land are viewed, even by their supposed protectors.

If the interests of the Islanders had been put first, by both Britain and Argentina, there would have been no war. As I wrote in this column in 2010, British Ambassador Michael Hadow, who was posted in Argentina from 1969 to 1973, pursued a British government policy to actively encourage a closer relationship with the mainland: “Scholarships for children to attend bilingual schools in Argentina were arranged. There was an exchange of teachers. Argentina was supplying gas and other valued commodities. Marvel of marvels, the Islanders could buy fresh fruit from Río Negro. All was going well.

”Ambassador Hadow told me that his frequent visits to the Islands were paying off. He held town meetings to explain to the Islanders how much better their lives would be if they had close ties with Argentina. The problem, he said, was that the Kelpers could not bring themselves to accept Argentina while this country was torn by violence and had no record of stable democratic governance. I recall him telling me how frustrating it was when, having secured agreements that could lead to integration, something would happen in Argentina that would scare off the Islanders. An obituary in The Independent noted that the then Sir Michael Hadow, 'correctly predicted that one day, under an irresponsible government, Argentina would probably attempt an invasion of the Falkland Islands.'“

I didn't write the actual words that Hadow used to describe the Islanders' attitude toward Argentina, but I think they are significant in that light of what has happened, or not happened, since the armed conflict. He said that he was making progress in establishing ties between the Islands and the mainland and was successfully persuading the Kelpers that their lives would be enhanced if the barriers to communication, trade and travel were abolished.

Then, when he believed that he had convinced the Islanders that their nearest neighbour was a bountiful country of friendly people with much to offer, ”Something would happen in Argentina that would have them climbing up the trees.“

Without belabouring the point, I think it is necessary to say that there are paternalistic and belittling overtones in a description that suggests that even Hadow, who was not mean-spirited in any way, considered the Islanders ”natives“ in the most demeaning sense of the word.

A lot has changed in official British policy, and in attitudes toward the Islanders, since then. But I think it is fair to say that while British government policy no longer belittles the inhabitants of the Islands, their interests are often cited as paramount when, in fact, they are still secondary.

Now to Argentine government attitudes to the Islanders:

I knew long before the military dictatorship decided, in an act of desperation, to invade that there was a plan that was ready to put into operation. I learned this from a neighbour of ours in Highland Park, Del Viso. In those days, Highland Park was a decidedly unpretentious rural community, formed around horse-stables and without a golf-course. During a discussion about building an outdoor oven to bake empanadas, my amiable neighbour, who was a retired Navy captain, informed me of the plan.

I was never quite sure whether he was joking, because he enjoyed joshing me about my piratical and imperialistic antecedents, but only a few days ago I stumbled on a report that confirms the existence of that plan. In a study by the US Marine Corps Command and Staff College entitled ”War Since 1945 Seminar, Offensive Air Operations of The Falklands (sic) War“ I read:
”Argentina in fact had developed a plan for an invasion of the Falklands in the late 1960s. This plan was thought to be realistic because of the success of the Indian government's military invasion of Portuguese Goa in 1961.

India's operation had taken place without condemnation from other countries leading some Argentines, especially naval officer Jorge Anaya, to believe a similar act, based on territorial integrity, could be carried out in the Falklands. This plan was originally conceived by then Captain Jorge Anaya, who, at the time of the Argentine invasion in 1982, had risen to the rank of admiral and was the ranking officer of the Argentine Navy and a member of the ruling Junta.

“The plan was simple. It included in sequential order a surprise landing on the Islands, the removal of all of the inhabitants, their transport to Montevideo and their replacement with Argentine settlers. In a naive comparison with the 19th Century, the Argentines reasoned the British had taken similar actions in 1833!

”There is speculation that the ruling Argentine Junta, plagued by internal unrest, economic woes including inflation and a threatened labour strike, had planned to activate the plan sometime between July and October 1982. The unexpected sequence of events in March supposedly caused them to take advantage of this opportunity and launch their operation ahead of schedule.

“This idea is denied by General Galtieri, the leader of the Junta. He refused to admit any plan for invasion existed and rejected any idea that public discontent with his military regime prompted the invasion as a diversionary tactic.”

I don't know whether it is widely known on the Islands that the invasion plan included “the removal of all of the inhabitants, their transport to Montevideo and their replacement with Argentine settlers,” but I do know that if the people who have a right, by birth, to the land they love are put first, there can be an end to the conflict over the Islands that I will now name as the Malvinas/Falklands or Falklands/Malvinas, if you wish.

(*) Robert J. Cox, also known as Bob Cox, is a British journalist who worked as editor of the Buenos Aires Herald an English language daily in Argentina. Cox became famous for his criticisms of the military dictatorship /1976/1983). He was detained and jailed and was later released and forced to leave Argentina in 1979 due to threats against his family. He moved to Charleston, South Carolina, US, where he became editor of The Post and Courier, owned by the same publishing company that owned the Buenos Aires Herald. In 2005 the Buenos Aires legislature recognized Cox for his valor during the dictatorship era.