MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine lawmakers to call special session to reject Falklands’ referendum

Senator Filmus, head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

The Argentine ruling coalition and opposition lawmakers have coordinated efforts to convene an extraordinary session of the Senate to draw up a unanimous rejection of the referendum taking place Sunday and Monday in the Falkland Islands

The head of the Victory Front caucus in the Senate Miguel Ángel Pichetto, his caucus colleague Daniel Filmus, Progressive Front senators Rubén Giustiniani and Jaime Linares, and Radical Party senator Ernesto Sanz issued an official request to hold a special Congress session and pass the rejection statement condemning the referendum call.

“We must denounce the trap that hides under the appearance of popular participation in an implanted population case. Such advertising manoeuvre has no validity for international law”, Filmus, head of the Senate Foreign Relations committee said.

On Sunday and Monday the Falkland Islanders will be voting in a referendum to decide on their political status and future based on the right to self-determination. The initiative has been strongly condemned by the Argentine government.

The draft resolution rejects the referendum indicating it has “no sustain or validity in International Law since it is contrary to the UN General Assembly and UN Decolonization Committee resolutions”.

“All these actions infringe not only the legitimate rights of the Argentines, but also of the majority of countries and peoples of South America”, concluded Senator Filmus. No date has been marked for the special session.

The Buenos Aires media published that Foreign Minister Hector Timerman sent a message with clear instructions to all Argentine embassies in the world to try and neutralize and counter the impact of the ‘illegitimate’ referendum results at international level.

The Falklands’ government has invited international observers to attend the referendum, and the list includes electoral experts from Canada, US, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Uruguay and Chile among others.

In related news Argentine Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Adoldfo Pérez Esquivel addressed a letter to UK’s Prime Minister David Cameron rejecting the March 10/11 referendum.

“You do know that this referendum has no legitimacy. Not only because it is an implanted British population following the expulsion of Argentine authorities in the 19th century but also because the United Nations have not decided the fulfilment of the referendum. There is a reason why the British government has not called the UN”, Pérez Esquivel pointed out.

The 1980 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize also questioned UK’s military presence in the disputed territories.

“As for today, one out of three inhabitants (of the Islands) is a British military and only 1500 residents who have British citizenship will vote”, Pérez Equivel said and accused Cameron’s coalition government of “trying to justify the military base installed in the Islands, violating resolutions, demilitarization and nuclear non-proliferation treaties in the South Atlantic, putting at risk the British citizens in the Islands and the Continent”.

“(The Islands) will continue to be a British colony and the settlers will continue to be British. Argentina is a democratic country that seeks to resolve conflicts through national and international law”, Pérez Esquivel affirmed considering that the results of the referendum will not change “at all” the legal and historic situation of the Falklands/Malvinas Islands.