By Ian Dunt @IanDunt<http://twitter.com/iandunt - “The protection of peoples' self-determination to choose their own government is the protection of the weak from the strong”
“It is unacceptable to engage in an economic blockade of the Falklands, there can be no justification, legal, moral or political, for efforts to intimidate the people of the Falkland Islands”, said Foreign Officer Minister Jeremy Browne on Wednesday.
Reacting to the news this week that all Mercosur member countries had agreed to close their ports to ships flying the Falkland Islands flag, Cheryl Roberts, chair of the Falkland Islands Fishing Companies Association, stated that: “It is still too early to say exactly what the effect might be, whilst obviously disappointing we are now working to find solutions to minimise any potential impacts, both operational and economic, of the recent decision.
“Malvinas is not an Argentine cause, it’s a global cause because they are taking our fisheries and oil resources” said Argentine president Cristina Fernandez on taking the Mercosur rotating chair for the next six months.
Mercosur member countries (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay) finally agreed Tuesday to close its ports to ships flying the flag of the disputed Falkland/Malvinas Islands, announced Uruguay's president at the closing of the group’s two-day summit in Montevideo.
Uruguayan President Jose Mujica addressing his peers at the Mercosur summit in Montevideo ratified the country’s position barring Falklands’ flagged vessels from Uruguayan ports in active support of Argentina’s sovereignty claim over South Atlantic Islands, which has led to a serious diplomatic controversy with the UK.
“Any jurisdictional acts coming from Malvinas is invalid for us” and therefore Malvinas flagged vessels are barred from Uruguayan ports, a decision which is extensive to all Unasur members, said Uruguayan Foreign Affairs minister Luis Almagro.
Mercosur member countries meeting in Montevideo for their regular six-month summit are drafting a resolution that would bar Falklands’ flagged vessels from all Mercosur members’ ports, following on the traditional Argentine policy and now openly supported by the Uruguayan government.
Falkland Islands fishing companies association, FIFCA expressed their “extreme disappointment” with Uruguay’s decision not to allow Falklands’ flagged vessels enter the port of Montevideo, which “will only serve to punish its own people”.
British ambassador in Chile Jon Benjamin met this week in Punta Arenas with a group of local students from municipal managed schools who were recently part of an exchange program with the Falkland Islands and underlined the close links between the two communities.