Described as ‘fantastic’ despite the bad weather over 300 vehicles plus motorbikes, quads, old tractors and horse riders flying Falklands flags and Union Jacks turned out on Sunday in Stanley for a march along the sea front and the Liberation Monument in support of the two-day referendum on the Islands future.
The UN Decolonisation Committee has not received any further requests on the Falklands/Malvinas issue, and “there is no such procedure as self-determination regarding the Islands dispute”, according to the C24 president Diego Morejón Pazmiño, standing Ecuadorean ambassador before the UN.
The 43rd British Islands and Mediterranean Region (BIMR) Annual Conference of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA), held in the Falkland Islands on the 12th and 13th February 2013, was described as both fascinating and provoking by delegates.
The Falkland Islands are an British Overseas Territory by choice, entirely self-governing except for defence and foreign affairs and have been settled for at least nine generations, well before Argentina even claimed what is today Tierra del Fuego, points out the Falklands’ elected government in a release-reply to the open letter from Argentine President Cristina Fernandez published on Thursday in the British press.
The Falklands referendum on March 10/11 is designed to simply ask the people of the Islands to state clearly their wishes regarding their political status, and this is supported by democratic practice, the UN guiding principle of self determination and even by Ban Ki-moon in recent reports in the Argentine press, said lawmaker Dick Sawle.
Foreign Minister Jeremy Browne begins this Monday a four day visit to the Falkland Islands, the thirtieth anniversary of the conclusion of the South Atlantic conflict and in a brief message pointed out that thirty years after the conflict the Falklands’ people are being forced to defend themselves once more this time from “the policies of coercion and intimidation” by the current Argentine government.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron has paid his own personal tribute to the 255 soldiers, sailors and airmen who gave their lives to liberate the Falkland Islands. Making his first visit to the national Armed Forces Memorial as Prime Minister, Cameron also reaffirmed his commitment to defend the Falkland Islanders' right to self-determination.
Argentine ambassador in London Alicia Castro who on Monday surprised and embarrassed (‘ambushed’, according to the UK media) Foreign Secretary William Hague asking him at a public meeting on talks on the disputed Falkland Islands future, has promised more of the same stuff.
The Falkland Islands sovereignty dispute has reached the US capital triggering an interesting exchange in the Washington Post, involving the newspaper and the ambassadors from Argentina and the UK.
To affirm the Special Relationship, Barack Obama should offer his support to the islanders, writes Jim Sensenbrenner.