  |
|||
|
|
|
||
|
Posted by Joseph Allen McCullough Mar 4, 2007 |
No country in the world has more experience dealing with the issues of decolonisation than the United Kingdom. For the last hundred years, this once vast Empire, has been busy extracting itself from various corners of the world. Sometimes, this has been in the name of democracy, other times it has been forced out by the will of the people. From India, to Hong Kong, to Zimbabwe, the British have turned over government to someone else, happy to have one less far-flung part of the world to worry about.
But in 1982, Britain actually went to war in order to preserve a small group of islands that is nearly as far away from Britain as it is possible for a human settlement on earth to be. What makes this case different from the others?
It is simple really. The population of the Falkland Islands is British. They are born British, they think of themselves as British, they are proud to be British.
Argentina claims these islands based on two main points. First, the islands were legally owned by Spain at the same time as Argentina declared its own independence from Spain. The problem with this argument is that Spain’s ownership of the islands has always been contested, and there was no worldwide body around at the time to confirm this ownership.
The second claim Argentina makes upon the islands is their proximity to Argentina. Actually, the islands are 400 miles away, far outside any reasonable claim of territorial waters.
None of these claims should really matter though. In the modern world, where most of the world has accepted the idea of rulership by will of the people, the will of the people is to stay a part of the United Kingdom. This isn’t the result of some modern land-grab, but a situation that has existed for nearly a century.
It is time for Argentina to worry about what goes on inside its own borders, and to let go of its weak claims to the Falklands.