MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina publishes easy-read guide on Malvinas for “adequate reporting and avoiding inaccuracies”

“We have detected there is a lack of knowledge in the media about the arguments in which Argentina's legitimate claims are supported,” said Public Defender Miriam Lewin.

Argentina's Public Defender's Office set out a booklet with a list of recommendations for the “adequate treatment by media” of issues linked to the sovereignty dispute over the Falklands/Malvinas, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, and adjoining maritime spaces with the purpose of avoiding “inaccuracies towards audiences”.

“We have detected that there is a lack of knowledge in the media about the arguments in which Argentina's legitimate claims are supported, which as a consequence deliver inaccuracies among audiences”, said Public Defender Miriam Lewin.

The announcement was done by Lewin at the Malvinas and South Atlantic Islands Museum, who on the occasion was accompanied by Culture Minister Tristan Bauer, the head of the Malvinas, Argentine Antarctica and South Atlantic Desk Guillermo Carmona, the head of the Museum, Edgardo Esteban and professor and researcher Maria Laura Guembe from the University of Buenos Aires.

Errors identified as the most common have to do with “the constitutional acknowledgement of the claim, because it is a case of usurpation and colonial status; information about an alleged self determination in a people that have been implanted; the absence of coverage about the role played by the Argentine women in the conflict; the identification of combatants buried in the Islands in unmarked graves, and the crucial task by the team of Argentine forensic anthropologists”, Lewin said at the presentation.

Presentación de las “Recomendaciones para el tratamiento periodístico adecuado de la disputa de soberanía con el Reino Unido sobre Malvinas e Islas del Atlántico Sur” en @MuseoMalvinas. pic.twitter.com/kudUnUJ0jC

— Miriam Lewin (@miriamlewindefe) March 16, 2022

And now “we are launching this easy-read instrument for a well informed and responsible coverage that takes into account several aspects, the historic context, the constitutionality of the claim, the toponymy and terminology used when referring to the Malvinas question, like pointing out something that many ignore and which is that Malvinas belong to the province of Tierra del Fuego”.

Carmona said that the document is “an instrument that tries to present the Malvinas question as a State policy”, and “a contribution that can help us with the Malvinization process, as clearly mandated by our Constitution”

“It is an initiative which strengthens the claim policy of Argentine sovereignty in Malvinas and creates awareness, pointing out to the strategic value of the Islands, for our country and our people”, added Carmona.

The head of the Malvinas Desk also affirmed the task of social communicators, and the importance that it can be supported by contributions that enable a communication pointing to the priority of our foreign policy which is the Malvinas question and with this cause that unites us as a people“.

Minister Bauer referred to the easy-read document as a résumé of ten points which are ”another milestone of our standing fight for peace, the recovery of our territories and the full exercise of our sovereignty“

”A most significant work which offers images, concepts, words, beginning with the continental map, where the mere perception of this chart gives us a new concept of our territory“, added Bauer in reference to the new layout of the Argentine bi-continental map with the incorporation of the outer boundaries of the Argentine continental shelf.

Bauer also underlined the importance of surfacing stories that have been kept silent, for too long, ”such as the number of suicides among our heroes, our veterans and former combatants. We must also address this pain, not hide it, learn in depth the horrors of war“

Edgardo Esteban, head of the Malvinas Museum and a Veteran from the war admitted he was surprised at the great lack of awareness about the Malvinas cause, not only the war and stories about the conflict, but that 502 years have gone by since the first sighting of the Islands, and 189 since the usurpation in 1833; ”very few know what happened before the usurpation“.

”War is useless, we need to build roads and peace alternatives thinking what the sovereignty claim means. We must do it with knowledge, in depth, working, supporting and giving all the possible tools to the Malvinas Desk in the Argentine foreign ministry, so they can build that integration path, fundamentally for the great Fatherland, because we are going to return to Malvinas from the hand of Latin America“, underlined Esteban.

Finally Professor Guembe cautioned about ”looking out desperately for color stories, finding that minor injury that can be displayed“, and instead recommended doing the following question before addressing the issue, ”what do we really want to report and say, publish or film about the Malvinas?, and then make the report in that context”.

The easy-read guide with recommendations for an adequate address of issues linked to the Malvinas question, and destined to journalists was done by the Public Defender Office with the contribution from the Malvinas, Argentine Antarctica and South Atlantic Islands Desk at the Foreign ministry, the Malvinas Museum, Veterans organizations journalists and academics.