MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands ‘a NATO base’ and the referendum ‘unacceptable and ridiculous’, says Uruguay

Fernandez Huidobro said that with the ‘Falklands NATO base’, Argentina now has borders with Germany, the country that commands in Europe

Two of Uruguay’s President Jose Mujica closest ministers, Defence and Foreign Affairs said that the ‘British occupation’ of the Falkland Islands is ‘unacceptable’, represents a NATO base in the South Atlantic and described the recent referendum in the Islands as ‘absurd and ridiculous’.

“The colonial enclave in the Malvinas is unacceptable and must end soon through diplomatic means”, said Foreign minister Luis Almagro interviewed by Venezuela’s Telesur channel.

Almagro currently on a tour of Central American and Caribbean countries said that Uruguay is asking both sides in the sovereignty dispute “to sit round a table and begin dialogue”.

“We insist that UN General Assembly resolutions must be complied which means beginning to dialogue and we shall defend the positions that have emanated from the different multilateral organizations and which have been very clear”, added Almagro.

Defence minister Eleuterio Fernandez Huidobro said that the British occupation of the Malvinas has turned the Islands into a military base of NATO.

“Now Germany has borders with Argentina, because as we all know in Europe the orders are given by Germany. We also have France in the Guyana which is considered part of metropolitan France; Curacao is Dutch, in other words a NATO base”, said Fernandez Huidobro who is a founding member with Mujica of the urban guerrilla movement that took off in Uruguay in the early sixties.

“The next world war, if there is one will be for natural resources and we have abundant resources in South America. We have to prepare to defend ourselves, but together because no one country can face such a challenge, not even Brazil”, said the Uruguayan Defence minister who then praised the creation of the Union of South American Nations, Unasur and its defence policies.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War “we have a multi-blocks world which helped create Unasur, to which Uruguay belongs and helps coordinate the region’s defence policies with a geopolitical coincidence on global affairs”.

“This vision of a collective defence of South American countries is a major historical change, which the left has not yet taken account of, because the left normally is not interested in military issues or geopolitics”, underlined Fernandez Huidobro who is also a member of the Argentine sponsored ‘Malvinas forum” Uruguay chapter.

Almagro who this week is scheduled to accompany Argentine foreign minister Hector Timerman when he meets UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to request the re-launching of Falklands/Malvinas sovereignty talks with the UK, described the recent Falklands referendum “as absurd and ridiculous”.

“It is something which lacks all logical reasoning, it is an absurd and ridiculous effort by the Foreign Office not to comply with UN resolutions calling for bilateral dialogue”, said Almagro.

Fernandez Huidobro added that the referendum was a ‘farce’ and was not worth talking about it since it’s part of NATO’s strategy to keep bases in the region.

The Defence minister has been particularly critical to the two Uruguayan lawmakers that were part of a major team of observers at the Falklands March 10/11 referendum in which Islanders overwhelmingly voted to remain a British Overseas Territory.

When it was announced that opposition lawmakers Jaime Trobo and Jose Cardoso would be travelling to the Falklands, Fernandez Huidobro said their action was “shameful” just short of an act of treason against to South America and Argentina’s claims. .