MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Falklands: Stop double standards UN says MLA Short
Gavin Short MLA; two big powers talking together about our future whilst we Falkland Islanders, the people of that country MEMBER of Legislative Assembly Gavin Short called on the United Nations not to have “double standards” when it came to the Falklands while giving a speech during a meeting in St Lucia.
At a Pacific Regional Seminar on ‘Advancement of the Non-Self Governing Territories through the coronavirus disease pandemic and beyond’ MLA Short said if Russia was being treated as an outcast for its actions in brutally invading its neighbour then UN should also publicly condemn, “another member state who clearly has the same ambitions towards the Falklands.
” He added: “I wonder to myself how can the members of the decolonization committee pontificate on the Falklands as they have never once had the decency to set foot on the Islands and see the reality of our country for themselves, despite repeated invitations to do so. This makes me suspicious that they might be bowing to the pressure of a country that isn’t interested in the Falklands exercising self-determination and decolonizing when the people vote for it in a referendum - but one that wishes to return the Falklands to a true colonial state. Putting peoples under the yoke of a would be foreign colonial power is not what this committee is all about and I respectfully ask you to remember this.
” He went on to describe any resolutions that called for talks between the UK and Argentina over the Falklands as colonialist language: “two big powers talking together about our future whilst we Falkland Islanders, the people of that country, are whitewashed out of the picture.”
He later added: “I do not come here to ask you to take sides in a so called dispute between the UK and Argentina about something that happened almost 200 years ago– no, what I am asking you to do is to stand up and be heard, to be heard saying that all people have the absolute right to determine their own future. Nowhere in the UN charter does it say that the right to self-determination applies to everyone except the Falklands.” (Penguin News)
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Read all commentsAnd yet, Liberato, they are all still members of the Commonwealth of Nations, in the same way that the Falklands and others are. There is no “empire”. Empire was disbanded voluntarily, but the Commonwealth remains.
May 23rd, 2022 - 09:46 am +4Liberato
May 22nd, 2022 - 08:11 pm +2Your argument would only make sense if the UK hadn't peacefully disbanded its Empire voluntarily (The only Empire in history to do so), with1/4 of the land mass of the Earth returned or given to either the indigenous people or indeed in the case of Australia or Canada the predominantly British inhabitants.
The territories remaining are remaining because the inhabitants wish that to be the case, Canada would still be a “colony” had Canadians wished it...they didn't.
Until you can explain why a Canadian is a Canadian, an Australia is an Australian. or indeed an Argentine is Argentine....but a Falkland Islander is an implanted British person, your argument will fail.
The only difference from a British point of view is that the Islanders have not requested independence, nor have the 60 or so folks on Pitcairn, or the population of Bermuda. When then do, they can have it.
I know it eats you up that there is no scenario where Argentina gets to steal the islanders, because the islanders will not request independence whilst Argentina threatens and bullies them.
Diego Garcia is an interesting and unique case, although I am very pleased you recognise the Chaggosians rights. The vast majority accepted full and final compensation to leave Diego Garcia, the few that didn't had no means to support themselves on islands with no fresh water. Their wish to return is more likely a wish for more compensation.
“It’s like Hitler convincing its people that … “
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Promulgated by the American attorney and author Mike Godwin in 1990, Godwin's law originally referred specifically to Usenet newsgroup discussions. He stated that he introduced Godwin's law in 1990 as an experiment in memetics. Later it was applied to any threaded online discussion, such as Internet forums, chat rooms, and comment threads, as well as to speeches, articles, and other rhetori where reductio ad Hitlerum occurs.
In 2012, “Godwin's law” became an entry in the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. In 2021, Harvard researchers published an article stating the law does not apply in Reddit discussions.”
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