MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Malvinas: Argentina remembers Rights reaffirmation Day and calls on UK to resume negotiations

Falklands’ events in 1833 when the Union Jack was flown in the Islands

Argentina reaffirmed on Monday its “inalienable right” over the Malvinas and other South Atlantic Islands, and its “strong will to promptly restart negotiations with the United Kingdom” over the what it considers to be an “unacceptable and anachronic colonial situation”. Argentina also complains about the March referendum held in the Falklands last March.

According to the Argentine calendar of national events, 10 June is Affirmation Day of Argentine rights over the Malvinas, (other) Islands and the Antarctic Sector, and to that effect on Sunday the Ministry of Foreign Affairs released an official communiqué.

Each 10 June Argentina recalls creation day in 1829, of the Political and Military Command of the Malvinas Islands and those adjacent to Cape Horn by the government of the Province of Buenos Aires.

Since its independence from Spain the Argentine to government “as heir of the austral territories and the adjacent maritime spaces which had belonged to the metropolis” exercised its rights sustainedly, proceeded to write norms and the establishment of juridical and administrative for the consolidation of juridical and administrative structures that consolidated the exercise of sovereignty over the territories.

The release added that this promoted “the development of commercial activities, the establishment of population and a local administrative office”.

“The culmination of this process was that dictated by the decree establishing the Civic-Military Command of Malvinas, which today we remember, and the naming of D Luis Vernet to head it”, adds the reference to the Malvinas Affirmation Rights Day.

However four years later in 1833, the Argentine Command of the Malvinas was ousted by the British, taking full control of the disputed Islands.

However “despite the time elapsed and the invitations to dialogue from Argentina, the UK refuses to resume sovereignty negotiations” thus not complying with repeated UN recommendations. Likewise Argentina is not alone in its claim: Latinamerica and the Caribbean wholly support Argentine legitimate rights over the Malvinas as well as other groups of countries from Asia and Africa.

Nevertheless “the UK organized last March a vote among the inhabitants of the Malvinas Islands to ask them on questions which pretend to distort the true juridical condition of that territory”.

“That vote finds no sustentation in any of the forty UN resolutions on the Malvinas question, does not alter the bilateral nature of the dispute nor does it relieve the UK from complying with its obligations imposed under International Law, that is the resumption of negotiations”, underlines the release.

Finally to the memory of those patriots and pioneers expulsed from their lands in 1833, “the Argentine government reiterates its inalienable right over the Islands, as well as its disposition to promptly resume the negotiations to which the UN exhorts to reach an end for such unacceptable as anachronic colonial situation”.