SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON DECOLONIZATION

General Assembly

GA/COL/3225

Department of Public Information • News and Media Division • New York

Special Committee on Decolonization

6th & 7th Meetings (AM & PM)

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON DECOLONIZATION ADOPTS DRAFT ON FALKLAND ISLANDS (MALVINAS), REQUESTING ARGENTINA, UNITED KINGDOM TO RESUME TALKS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE

Addressing the Special Committee...

MARÍA ANGÉLICA VERNET, Director of the National Historical Museum of the Buenos Aires Old Town Hall and May Revolution, Argentina, said her family’s roots lay deep in the history of the Malvinas Islands, where Argentine citizens who had lawfully occupied that territory had been stripped of their property and expelled by the United Kingdom in 1833.  Her great-great grandfather, Luis Vernet, had been the first political and military commander for the Malvinas Islands.  The political and military command office for those islands and others adjacent to Cape Horn in the Atlantic had been created in June 1829 to enhance the domain exercised by Spain since 1767.  As a legitimate occupant of the islands inherited from Spain, Argentina had exercised its sovereignty over them, but had been forced out by the United Kingdom.

Born in Hamburg and emigrated to Argentina by choice, Luis Vernet had colonized the Malvinas Islands, she said, applying orderly and methodical management of natural and strategic resources that had strengthened Argentine sovereignty over the archipelago.  He had activated new trade areas and had shared with the Argentine Government his research on the archipelago’s production potential, as well as land surveys and feasibility studies for the settlement of a fixed population.  He had been convinced that a colony would be to the country’s advantage and, for that reason, had asked for ownership of the vacant lands on Soledad and Staten islands, in exchange for the commitment to establish a settlement with a fixed population.  The Argentine Government’s decree of 11 January 1828 had issued him the deeds to do so.

In less than two years, the population of Puerto Soledad had reached more than 100 stable inhabitants, she said, adding that the island had become a trading post, whose main activities had included cattle raising and fishing.  The colony organized by Luis Vernet had had a multinational, yet mainly Argentine population, which had been dispersed and replaced by British immigrants in 1833.  “The usurpation of the Malvinas Islands in 1833 was the usurpation of a territory that, both in fact and in law, belonged to Argentina,” she insisted.

The population living on the islands today was not a people in the legal sense of the term, she said, as they and their ancestors were British either by birth or by origin.  They did not constitute a nation or specific ethnicity.  They had never been subdued by a “metropole” to be subjects of self-determination.  As an Argentine citizen and descendant of a pioneer of Argentina’s sovereignty over those territories, she was convinced of the sovereign rights that her country upheld over the Malvinas Islands and other archipelagos of the South Atlantic.

ALEJANDRO BETTS said he had been born in Puerto Argentino in 1947 into a family that, at that time, had accounted for 105 years of residence in the territory.  He had been a permanent resident of the Malvinas Islands until the end of June 1982, when he had moved to Argentine continental territory, where he currently lived.  He had publicly stated that Argentina was “absolutely right” in the sovereignty dispute, which, in turn, had created a consensus among “parochial islanders” that such disrespect warranted his expulsion from the colony.  He had left behind his parents, brothers, sisters and his eldest daughter.

As a stateless individual but Malvinas Islands native, he said he was recognized as a native Argentine citizen, but if he wished to reside again in the place he was born, the occupying Power “quite simply would not allow me”.  That exclusion extended to all people born in the Malvinas Islands who had decided to settle in Argentine continental territory.  That discriminatory policy had turned the Malvinas Islands into a colonial enclave, where an Argentine national was not allowed to enter — even as a temporary worker — because the laws on labour force recruitment required a permit, but that was denied to people from Argentine continental territory.

Indeed, the United Kingdom had kept tight demographic control on the islands with regard to Argentine nationals, he explained, noting also that, since the British Parliament had passed the British Nationality Act (Falkland Islands) on 28 March 1983, the colony’s population had been recognized as British.  In 2002, the Parliament had adopted a new act granting automatic British citizenship to all inhabitants of United Kingdom Overseas Territories, which included the Malvinas Islands.  Thus, there was an indisputable colonial situation in the Malvinas Islands with an occupying Power, whose nationals represented the effective occupation of the archipelago.

He went on to clarify that, in 2011, there were no political parties in the Malvinas Islands, there was no party representation on the Legislative Assembly and further, the alleged 62 nationalities representing almost 30 per cent of the population lacked active participation in island politics.  Candidates for elective positions in the public administration were united only by their pledge of loyalty to the Queen.  The colonial situation arising out of continued British occupation of an integral part of the Argentine island territory had been further aggravated by the military re-conquest in 1982.  The only way to decolonize the Malvinas Islands was by restoring the archipelago to the Argentine Republic, their rightful owner.

Statements

HÉCTOR MARCOS TIMERMAN, Minister for Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship of Argentina, recalled that the United Kingdom had abstained from adopting General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) (1960), showing its selective adherence to the decolonization process.  Reiterating the “unrenounceable” rights of Argentina over the Malvinas, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands and the surrounding maritime spaces, he said he was supported today by the Argentine society as a whole, which, since the plundering of 1833, had staked its claim to those occupied territories.

Indeed, the General Assembly had applied resolution 1514 (XV) (1960) to the question of the Malvinas Islands, he said, and through resolution 2065 (XX) (1965), had classified it as a sovereignty dispute between Argentina and the United Kingdom, reiterating its commitment to end colonialism in all its forms and inviting both Governments to negotiate a peaceful solution.  Sovereignty negotiations had started between the parties, which had been unilaterally interrupted by the United Kingdom in the early 1980s.  The United Kingdom still refused to resume negotiations, despite multiple calls by the international community and its duty as a United Nations Member to peacefully resolve disputes.

Reviewing history, he said the United Kingdom had occupied the Malvinas Islands since 1833, when its fleet had driven away the population and Argentine authorities, a “shameful, imperialist act” consistent with the expansionist intent of the British Crown.  It had replaced the Argentine population with its own subjects in a discriminatory and systematic matter.  In the 1960s and 1970s, the United Kingdom had driven away almost 1,800 indigenous Chagossian inhabitants from the island of Diego García in order to satisfy its political and economic interests.  Although British courts had upheld the illegality of such expulsion and the right of the population to return, various British Governments had failed to adhere to those decisions.

Such acts made it difficult not to notice the United Kingdom’s attempt to rely on the principle of free determination as an excuse not to negotiate on the question of the Malvinas Islands, he said.  That was also clearly reflected in such illegal activities as its exploration and exploitation of renewable and non-renewable natural resources in the disputed archipelagos and waters.  The situation had been compounded by the United Kingdom’s increasing military presence, which had turned the Malvinas Islands into a fortress.  The conduct of military exercises from those islands had been going on for years.

Clarifying three points, he said “Argentina has nothing against the inhabitants of the islands”.  It had included in its Constitution the commitment to take into account their interests and respect their lifestyle, a permanent position that was part of the safeguards and guarantees offered by Argentina and negotiated with the United Kingdom in the 1970s.  While Argentina had always advocated the right to free determination of peoples, the United Nations, on the question of the Malvinas Islands, had determined that such a principle did not apply, since the inhabitants of the South Atlantic islands had not been subjugated to a colonial power.

Finally, he said Argentina was not contrary to cooperation with the United Kingdom on practical aspects arising from the de facto situation in the South Atlantic, under the due legal safeguards and for the purpose of creating a suitable framework for both parties to resume the negotiations urged by the international community.  That was evidenced by the multiple provisional understandings on cooperation reached in that spirit, many of which, unfortunately, had become unfeasible, as they had been used by the United Kingdom as an attempt to give a “false appearance” of legitimacy to its unilateral activities.  Since 1965, the United Nations had reiterated its call on both parties to negotiate as the only way to resolve the sovereignty dispute.  Argentina had no doubts about its sovereignty over the Malvinas, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands and the surrounding maritime areas, and had reiterated its willingness to negotiate, in order to comply with the duty incumbent on both parties.

In closing, he said Argentina attached great value to the role to be played by the Secretary-General under the good offices mission entrusted to him by the Assembly and systematically renewed for the purpose of bringing the parties to the negotiating table.  With that, he extended a formal invitation to the British Government to resume negotiations, in good faith, in order to resolve the sovereignty dispute and end an “incomprehensible” colonial situation that was unacceptable in the twenty-first century.

Action

The Special Committee then adopted by consensus the resolution on the question of the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) (document A/AC.109/2011/L.7).

Also taking the floor, an observer from Guyana, speaking on behalf of the member States of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), described a declaration adopted by the Union at its fourth regular summit in 2010, by which it had adopted “all appropriate regulatory measures to prevent entry into their ports of vessels flying the illegal flag of the [Falkland] Islands”.  By the same declaration, those States had undertaken to inform the Government of Argentina about any vessels or marine structures travelling to the Falkland, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands with cargo to be used for illegal hydrocarbon and/or mining activities on the Argentine continental shelf.  UNASUR member States reiterated their strong support for the legitimate rights of Argentina in the sovereignty dispute with the United Kingdom, and said that the region had an “abiding interest” in the resumption of negotiations between the two Governments leading to a peaceful and definitive solution as soon as possible, in accordance with all relevant texts of the United Nations and the Organization of American States.

Also speaking after action, on behalf of the Ibero-American Countries, an observer for Guatemala said the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) were part of the American continent.  The General Assembly had recognized the sovereignty dispute between Argentina and the United Kingdom through many resolutions.  That colonial situation had been defined as “special and particular”, as it involved characteristics that differentiated it from “classic” decolonization cases.  The sovereignty dispute stemmed from 1833, when part of Argentina’s territory had been occupied by force.  Through that colonial policy, perpetrated by force, the United Kingdom had transferred its people to Argentinean land.

“This is a colonized territory, not a colonized population,” he said, underscoring that the United Nations, bearing in mind the special nature of the situation, had decided not to apply the principle of self-determination.  He expressed hope that Argentina and the United Kingdom would resume bilateral negotiations to find a just, peaceful and lasting solution to the sovereignty dispute.  He also hoped that that call, contained in the resolution, would help achieve the United Nations aim, set forth in 1965.