MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Theresa May pledges no compromise on Falklands' right to self determination
In a personal Christmas message to Falkland Islanders, Prime Minister Theresa May emphasized that she would not allow anyone to compromise Islanders’ right to self determination. Her full message follows: Read full article
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Disclaimer & comment rules, 'On 3 January 1833 a British Royal Navy corvette with the support of another warship in the vicinity, threatened to use greater force and demanded the surrender and handover of the settlement.' And 'The act of force of 1833, carried out in peacetime without prior communication or declaration by a government friendly to the Argentine Republic...'
Dec 22nd, 2017 - 09:11 am - Link - Report abuse +1Falkland Islands – The Usurpation (1 pg): https://www.academia.edu/34838377/Falkland_Islands_The_Usurpation
Since before the Kingdom was United and since before Argentina was even Argentina or even anything like Argentina, the Falklands have been on the frontier of two great Empires, and sooner or latter they had to reach the final phase of stability which is as we know them today.
Dec 22nd, 2017 - 10:25 am - Link - Report abuse +9Every inch of Argentina is a XIX century Empire, all was conquered “by the cross or by the sword” before and after “independence”, Buenos Aires has done quite well with its conquering, but you can't win them all, and we can't go back in time to re-write history either, specially only those bits which we don't like, that would open the door to Mexico claiming half of the USA for example.. or even worse.. who inherited the Roman Empire? .. How far back do we go?
To say that the Falkland people don't have a right to chose the Crown is as illogical as saying Canada hasn't got the right to chose the Crown and that Canadian people have less rights than the people of USA.
There is no logic to Argentina trying to extend the XIX in to the XXI century in order to change it. This is a time to draw a line in South America, nearly everybody is implanted with their original European languages and all the rest and have traveled 8000 miles to get there. We are where we are and we are what we are. The age of conquest is now complete, the problems of the South Atlantic exist only in the class rooms of Buenos Aires, and only Buenos Aires can consign them to the dustbin.
Although I opposed the war, I totally support the right of self-determination of the Falkland Islanders. But I condemn the blatant hypocrisy of the May and successive British governments that have denied the right to self-determination of the Diego Garcia Islanders, thrown off their land to make way for a secret US airbase. The international support for the Falklanders case would been greatly enhanced if they lent their support for retribution for the Diego Garcians. Will they do that or are they under the thumb of the British elite?
Dec 22nd, 2017 - 11:20 am - Link - Report abuse -6“Secret US airbase”? What is secret about it? Everyone knows it is there. There is nothing unusual about people being relocated for defence/security purposes. The people who lived in the villages of Imber, Tyneham, Worbarrow and many more in the UK were evicted during World War Two and have never been allowed to return. There were no permanent residents on the island of Diego Garcia since there is no potable water on the island (water is shipped in to the airbase every day).
Dec 22nd, 2017 - 06:19 pm - Link - Report abuse +4But I condemn the blatant hypocrisy of the successive Argentine governments that have denied the right to self-determination of the indigenous South American peoples, thrown off their land and murdered to make way for Argentine settlers.
Dec 22nd, 2017 - 11:37 pm - Link - Report abuse +4You see Py that's the problem with throwing about accusations they can always be turned round and thrown back.
There is little doubt that the Chagos will be returned to Mauritius at some point. Britain promised that in the 1960's and the PCA decision was that the UK was bound by those promises. I suspect that the current ICJ case will come up with something similar.
Dec 22nd, 2017 - 11:45 pm - Link - Report abuse 0The UK did not recognise self-determination as a right until after Resolution 2625 in 1970. Prior to that the UK had argued that it was only a principle. That was the thinking in the 1960's when a Labour Government commenced the de-population of the Chagos as the USA had demanded before they'd sign the deal.
England will return the Malvinas within 25 years.
Dec 24th, 2017 - 03:50 am - Link - Report abuse -6Ohh my Asha...you had a lil to much Christmas cheer....or are you just “'Cuckoo”...?.....Dream on...it will NEVER happen...!
Dec 25th, 2017 - 12:02 am - Link - Report abuse 0@stoker
Dec 25th, 2017 - 10:52 am - Link - Report abuse +2“There were no permanent residents on the island of Diego Garcia since there is no potable water on the island ”
What do you define as permanent?
Over 7 generations?
The gravestones on Diego Garcia are the proof.
As for the great Chagos water myth.
Water was obtainable by digging into the water table, that's how the Chagossians on Diego Garcia, Peros Banhos and the Salamon Islands got water since the late 19th century.
I doubt water was shipped into the Islands to the French plantations (circa 1770-1814), then the plantations run under British rule, especially during the 1800s.
One of the island groups around the Chagos group had high rainfall (more than that of the UK) so I doubt there was a water shortage. Will research more as to which part of the islands these were.
These subterranean supplies of water probably would not sustain the airbase, but the Chagos Islanders did not need vast amounts of water to survive
@Pytangua
“I condemn the blatant hypocrisy of the May and successive British governments that have denied the right to self-determination of the Diego Garcia Islanders”
Especially as the Chagossians, whether originating from Diego Garcia, Peros Banhos and the Salamon Islands are proud to be British and wish to be a BOT.
And also as the Chagossians were indigenous to the Chagos islands (they were too poor to move anywhere else when they retired, in tied accomodation), their return to the islands would enable the Islands to be British for a long time as the islanders accept there are not enough of them to achieve independence.
It is sheer stupidity that the UK have said they would return the islands to Mauritius as Mauritius never owned the Chagos in the first place, and the return of the Chagos islanders to become a BOT, would nullify the Mauritian claim.
The Chagossians I have met do not want Mauritian sovereignty over the Chagos due to the despicable way they were treated by Mauritius.
There are people buried all over the globe in places they were not resident. I do not believe Ernest Shackleton was a “permanent resident” of Grytvikin, South Georgia yet he is buried there. There were no permanent residents on Diego Garcia - just transient workers, fishermen, etc. As already stated the island was required for global security as were the villages of Imber, Tyneham and Worbarrow. The residents of those villages received far less monetary compensation than the so-called “Chagossians” got paid but are they still whining about being forced out of their homes all these years later?
Dec 26th, 2017 - 10:22 am - Link - Report abuse +1@stoker
Dec 26th, 2017 - 12:31 pm - Link - Report abuse 0If people are present anywhere several generations of their families have been raised, then they are permanent residents, i.e. in the Falkland Islands where a family has been there for 5 or more generations, makes the Falkland Islanders permanent residents, not transient or implanted.
It is wholly false to say that every plantation worker was imported into the Chagos Islands from outside. Indeed it was of great benefit to the plantations that several generations of Chagossians dating back at least to the early part of the 19th century, provided a stream of labour through sons and daughters of the workers. One of the gripes that Chagossians have is that they are unable to die on the Islands where in many cases their great grandparents, their grandparents and parents were born. The myth that no Chagossians or their forebears were born on the islands is a myth every much as false as the Argentine Malvinas myth. The myth that the Chagossians were a transient population was a deliberate ploy by Harold Wilson's government of the late 1960s to eject people who they knew full well had been on the islands for several generations, many over 5. It has been established with government records that have come to light that there are memos on the status of the Chagossians from the 1960s entitled “ Maintaining the fiction”. These records were used in court where a British judge ruled that the eviction of the Chagossians was illegal because most of them were indigenous.
“ As already stated the island was required for global security ,”
Correction, only, Diego Garcia was required for global security, not Peros Banhos, and the Salamon Islands were Chagossians were initially resettled .
The Chagossians were subsequently evicted from these outer islands with no justification..
A Sunderland refuelling base on Diego Garcia operated in WW2, without any of the Chagossians living there getting on the blower to Hitler or Tojo.
There were no permanent residents on Diego Garcia. When the workers who were temporarily living there were removed they were compensated handsomely. They are now just another set of riders on the SJW driven gravy train.
Dec 27th, 2017 - 10:38 am - Link - Report abuse -1@Stoker
Dec 28th, 2017 - 05:57 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“There were no permanent residents on Diego Garcia”
(British) Colonial Film Unit filming on Diego Garcia 1954:
“Out of a total of 100 or more little islands, only some half a dozen are permanently inhabited, partly by people from Mauritius and the Seychelles, but mostly by men and women born and brought up on these fragments of land.”
“were compensated handsomely”
After with holding the compensation money paid to them by the UK, the Mauritian Government finally passed on under £3000 to each Chaggosian in 1979.
Because the compensation money had not been passed on after it had been paid by the UK, the Chagossians were in debt and could not pay off all the rent debts accrued, so continued to live in the derelict Beau Marchand Estate, which before inhabitation had been infested with animals and rubbish. Also the derelict houses on this estate had no water or sewage facilities or electricity and up til the 21st century families were sleeping in shifts 25 to a room.
What a life of luxury they lived after the 'handsome' compensation eh Stoker?
“ I do not believe Ernest Shackleton was a “permanent resident” of Grytvikin, South Georgia”
I agree. The great man's family had not been working on South Georgia for 5-6 generations, and he and his forebears weren't born on South Georgia either.
What are the surnames of these “permanent residents” of Diego Garcia whose families lived on that barren island for 5-6 generations? Maybe next time I am in Crawley I can meet up with some of them and find out how they managed to set up home there on only three grand ;-D
Dec 29th, 2017 - 11:45 am - Link - Report abuse 0@Stoker
Dec 30th, 2017 - 01:33 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I am extremely grateful for your question as I do not currently have a big list of Chagossian names, not having had the opportunity to visit the cemeteries on Diego Garcia, Peros Banhos and Boddam on the Salomon Islands.
I can give you one surname Talate,(Marie Lisette), who I believe is recently deceased but gave birth 6 children on Diego Garcia, 2 of whom died in the appalling conditions of the Beau Marchand Estate (Port Louis). I hope that some of her children are in Crawley, for you to visit.
Thank you for your replies. They have led me to further investigate the Chagos Transplanted myth, (parallel to the Argentine Falkland Islander transplanted myth), having found more ex Government( and one USA) official memos where the status of the Chagossians was falsified and that falsification admitted to.
“ lived on that barren island”
I would be very interested to see your definition of barren.
For example the Falkland Islands have been described as 'barren rocks'
Having walked around a large part of West Falkland in my younger days I can confirm that the Falkland Islands are anything but barren.
As I do not know what your definition of barren represents I cannot assume it means 'without water'.
In many cases the description barren sometimes refers to a lack of water.
The myth that there is no water in the Chagos Islands is interesting as in the North of the group, the rainfall for Peros Banhos has been measured as 4 metres per year and it is a little drier in the Salomon islands at 3.5 metres per year.
I have no figures for Diego Garcia but this youtube clip from DG in 1945 filmed by the RAF, shows that DG is clearly not devoid of water, as long as it can be stored.
All the water for this farmhouse(pre 1950s) was once stored in tanks under the garden.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN7cYTSnoh
I will endeavour to find more surnames, thanks for asking. :-)
I clicked on your link and found that the video “does not exist”. A metaphore for your arguments perhaps.
Dec 30th, 2017 - 02:04 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I will endeavour to find these people in Crawley as I am most interested in how they managed to relocate to West Sussex (where one only need turn a tap to get water) on only £3000 ;-D
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