Partners grabbed for fresh Falklands dance

Territorial disputes are, as the Spanish phrase puts it, matters of “mucha teología” and, as with many theological arguments, prone to misunderstandings and exaggerations that sometimes flare into violence. The Anglo-Argentine dispute over the Falkland Islands is a perfect case in point.

This week, as the South Atlantic islands’ 3,000 inhabitants were preparing to mark next year’s 30th anniversary of Argentina’s 1982 invasion, Buenos Aires launched a new verbal assault on their sovereignty.

President Cristina Fernández said Las Malvinas, as her country calls the islands, “are not an Argentine cause but a global cause, because they are taking our oil and fishing resources”.

Argentina’s partners in the Mercosur trade pact – Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay – agreed. The result was a ban on ships carrying the Falkland Islands’ flag from entering their ports – and British anger over the blockade. Who was playing the imperial colonist now?

There is much that is quasi-theological about these events.

The first is Ms Fernández’s exaggeration of the Falklands as a “global cause”, although the escalation is, perhaps, inevitable given that she has made the cause a near-obsessive focal point of Argentine foreign policy. (It also illustrates Argentina’s diminished ambitions; neighbouring Brazil has set its sights on a truly global goal: a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.)

Second are the misunderstandings that surround Mercosur’s agreement.

Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay may have wanted to curry favour with a sometime neurotic neighbour for economic gain. They may have seen such support as being virtually cost-free, as any vessels carrying a Falklands flag could replace it with another and enter their ports. As a result, the UK would surely not mind. However, this position ignores the depths of argument that surround the Falklands.

Argentina and the UK have disagreed about the islands’ sovereignty for almost two centuries: both countries have taken a genuinely long-term view. Yet the question, “who owns the islands?”, has gone on even longer.

The first recorded landing was by an Englishman in 1690, although Captain John Strong did not take possession then. The first colony was established by France in 1764, and in 1765 Commodore John Byron also took possession in the name of Britain’s King George III.

When Madrid protested at the French claim, Paris acquiesced to its then ally, leaving two colonies on the island: one British, the other Spanish. That changed in 1770, when a large Spanish expedition expelled the British.

Much constructive diplomatic ambiguity between Madrid and London followed, with the matter half settled in 1790, when Britain signed the Nootka Sound Convention and ceded the right to any future establishments on the South American seaboard and islands.

Latin America’s wars of independence muddied the waters further. Island rule was withdrawn and re-established from Buenos Aires. In 1831, Captain Duncan, of the USS Lexington, which flew a French flag, then sacked the islands and declared them free of government.

The Argentines and British disagreed – although London prevailed in 1833 when Commander Onslow raised the British flag again. There the matter has remained ever since, acting like a persistent neurosis that, like all neuroses, is kept in check by exercise and keeping the mind on other things – but never quite goes away.

Indeed, the possibility of oil discoveries or even minor irritants – such as next month’s release of a celebratory Margaret Thatcher biopic starring Meryl Streep – can cause it to erupt again.

Argentina says it owns the islands as the successor state to Spain. Britain invokes the islanders’ right to self-determination. The Argentines reply that they may have lived there since 1833 but they are not indigenous, so such rights do not apply. This legal pedantry might worry Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders.

Ms Fernández may calculate that the issue will rally Argentines and distract them from spending cuts and coming economic problems. Perhaps so, although it will not help her to get the Falklands.

Britain insists it will never hand over the Falklands against the islanders’ wishes. Besides, any preliminary talks must involve the islanders, too. “It takes three to tango” is perhaps the apt phrase. But Argentina, so far, refuses to entertain this possibility in the diplomatic equivalent of the theological argument over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin – a dispute as interminable as the one over the islands themselves.