MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Demand for US to recognize the Falklands and support the referendum

Nile Gardiner, is Director of The Heritage Foundation's Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom

By Harold Briley, London
A demand that President Obama should stop siding with Argentina in the Falkland Islands dispute and instead fully back Britain and the Islanders has been made by a team of eminent US academics. In a sustained attack, they condemn United States policies as hypocritical and dangerous by claiming a posture of neutrality while supporting Argentina, which is conducting a campaign of “bullying intimidation, aggression, coercion and confrontation”.

They urge the U.S. Government to support the Islanders’ referendum and their right to self-determination. The U.S. should continue blocking international loans because Argentina has not repaid huge previous debts. They want the U.S. to downgrade Argentina as a military ally and to provide military and intelligence assistance to bolster British defence of the Islands. They welcome Falklands’ oil and gas development as a welcome contribution to future Western Hemisphere supplies.

This devastating document of several thousand words, illustrated with maps and graphs, has been compiled by three eminent researchers at an influential United States Research Centre, the Margaret Thatcher Centre for Freedom, at the Institute for International Studies of the Heritage Foundation. The researchers are its Director, Nile Gardiner, PhD; its Margaret Thatcher Research Fellow, Luke Coffey PhD; and its Senior Research Fellow, Ted R. Bromund, PhD.

British claim “strong”, Argentina’s “weak”

Their report describes Britain’s claim to the Islands as legally “strong” and Argentina’s as “weak” based on assumptions which the academics rebuff in a detailed analysis of events, treaties and historical settlement of the Islands over several centuries. They say the historical background is secondary to the inherent right of the Islanders to decide how they wish to be governed and to whom they owe their allegiance. The U.S. was founded in 1776 on an assertion of this right. It should live up to this heritage by respecting the outcome of the Falkland Islands referendum.

They argue that United States policy poses serious risks to its own interests and is an insult both to its closest ally and to the rights of the Islanders. Backing Argentina’s call for a U.N.-brokered settlement “is an unwise and even dangerous policy”. The only threat to the peace of the South Atlantic stems from Argentina, waging its campaign solely to distract its own citizens from the collapse of its economy. By supporting Argentina’s demand, the U.S. risks alienating Britain and encouraging Argentina to take even more aggressive actions.

The traditional U.S. attitude is that territorial disputes should be “resolved peacefully and without coercion, intimidation, threats, or use of force”. Argentina has failed that test by its 1982 invasion and its “current campaign of coercion, intimidation, and threats”. Under the guise of neutrality, the U.S. echoes Argentina’s position. Sovereignty was emphatically settled by the 1982 conflict. It should not be reopened and the US should not suggest that it should.

Under President Cristina Fernández, Argentina has ceased to be a responsible partner for the United States. Brandishing her anti-American credentials, she supports countries critical of the US in South America and elsewhere such as Iran.

The Islanders, linguistically, culturally, and historically, are overwhelmingly British. The right to self-determination is guaranteed by the United Nations Charter and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Transferring the Islands to Argentina or allowing Argentina to win them by a campaign of threats and intimidation would place them under the control of a failed and autocratic regime to which they have no allegiance. The report quotes Falklands’ legislator, Jan Cheek, as pointing out that her grandchildren are the eighth generation of her to live there (here), considerably longer than the Argentine president’s family have lived in Argentina.

Argentina refuses to meet representatives of the Falkland Islands. Instead, Argentina has sought to press its campaign through every conceivable regional and international venue. Its enthusiasm for using the U.N. and for employing an out-dated concept of decolonisation may be related to the fact that the U.N. Special Committee on Decolonisation is chaired by a representative from Ecuador, which is closely aligned with Argentina, and diplomats from Sierra Leone, Cuba, and Syria head its bureau.

The U.S. military uses and benefits from bases on Britain’s Overseas Territories, including Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia on Cyprus, Ascension Island in the mid-Atlantic, and Gibraltar. The U.S. supports British claims to them. But because the U.S. military does not use the Falkland Islands, the U.S. applies a different standard to them.

U.S. Military and Financial Interests at Stake

The U.S. gains nothing and risks losing use of British bases by alienating Britain in an effort to placate the anti-American regime in Argentina. The U.S. has a great deal to lose, politically, militarily, economically, and strategically, by doing anything other than backing Britain. U.S. policy is wrong-headed and dangerous, with the risk that it encourages Argentina to believe that the U.S. would take its side in a military or economic confrontation. The U.S. would be partly responsible for making that threat worse.

Britain should not just maintain robust defence forces but also regularly practise rapid deployment of land, maritime, and air assets to the South Atlantic. Britain must also factor cyber warfare into its contingency planning. The Internet has changed the way Falkland Islanders live, and any disruption would have a serious impact on everyday life. In 2010, Argentine hackers attacked Falkland Islands news sites. The Islands need to be defended online as well as militarily.

Britain must have the military capability to re-take the Islands. The British position that the Islands will be defended so robustly that there is no need to consider having to recapture them is “a dangerous policy based on hope”. It is not good enough. Sending reinforcements by air would be impossible if Mount Pleasant air base was lost. The planned airfield on St. Helena, another British Overseas Territory, is welcomed as a strategic military staging point ad should be pressed ahead quickly. Argentina would be foolish to attempt an invasion. But the primary risk to the Islands is economic and political, not military

United States own material interests are also at stake. Cruise ships, some US-owned, were delayed and denied entry to Argentine ports, or forced to cancel their visits to the Islands, and passengers landing in Buenos Ares were intimidated by protesters, causing financial damage to US business by actions which contravene international law on freedom of the seas. The Argentine navy has harassed European vessels carrying the Falklands’ flag.

Potential Falklands’ oil and gas discoveries could add major production in the Western Hemisphere with relatively easy access to U.S. refineries. This resource is governed by a friendly people under the protection of a close ally, which welcomes US investments. This very promising development would be badly damaged if not destroyed by placing the Falkland Islands under the control of Argentina, which is politically hostile to the United States, and is near economic collapse, with a record of nationalising foreign-owned oil companies. Falklands’ oil could benefit the U.S. It is difficult to understand why it would want to disrupt it by siding with Argentina.

“Bullying” Argentina near economic collapse

Argentina has become “a regional bully”. Its economy is suffering high inflation and near collapse. It is moving away from democracy. Its campaign against the Islanders is a cynical example of political manipulation that seeks only to distract the Argentine people from the many failures of the Kirchner’s regime. Promoting economic freedom in South America would help to create a prosperous and stable Argentina, where politicians would not need to attack its neighbours.

President Obama’s policy has been a slap in the face for the UK when British troops are fighting alongside U.S in Afghanistan. The U.S. should help the U.K. to transfer RAF strategic airlift assets from Afghanistan to the South Atlantic. It should provide Britain with air-to-air refuelling assets and U.S. unmanned planes for use in the South Atlantic. It should temporarily take over Royal Navy’s counter- piracy and counter-terrorism operations in other parts of the world to free its vessels for the South Atlantic. It should support the Royal Navy because its presence benefits many U.S. global security aims.

In conclusion, the report urges the US to stop calling for negotiations on the Falklands’ dispute, recognise British sovereignty and treat its closest ally better than those who side with its declared enemies. It should call for an end to Argentine provocations and recognise the referendum as a legitimate expression of the right of free peoples, like the Islanders, to choose their own form of government.

Harold Briley, London