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The Falklands Dilemma

© Derek Royden Guiler

The would be historian (or amateur analyst) is confronted by a morass of conflicting opinions and allegiances when dealing with the Falklands (or Malvinas) islands, contested 18 years ago in a short war between the United Kingdom and Argentina. The history not only of the islands but of the protagonists of that 1982 war are entwined by more than three-hundred years of prior history. Although the main islands may or may not have been sited by Amerigo Vespucci in 1502*; the Spanish, the French, the British and finally the Argentines have all laid claim to them at one time or another. Although there were some threatening gestures made by both Britain and Spain during the 17th and 18th centuries, aside from Port Egmont which was maintained by the English, the Falklands were from the former century until early in the 19th firmly under the thumb of the Spanish crown.

When Argentina declared its independence from Spain in 1810 it also laid claim to all former colonies that were within its territorial reach, including the Malvinas. After a dispute with the United States over sealing in Argentine waters and the resultant American military intervention that left the islands without the faintest vestige of government (1831) the British moved in and by 1842 they had begun to colonise the islands over the increasingly bitter protests of Argentina*. By the 1960's, after some years of patient lobbying on the part of the Argentines, the UN passed a resolution making the Falklands a colonial issue and demanding high-level negotiations between the two countries in the hope of a solution*.

Increasingly disappointed by the slowness of the process and by the negative response of the Islanders themselves to joining the country, the Argentine military junta decided to take the islands by force, and the invasion, seemingly launched as much as a propaganda device as a patriotic mission, helped prop up a corrupt and unstable regime for a short time but also ultimately led to its demise. It also led to the deaths of a thousand Argentines (about half of the population of the islands being contested). The British response to the invasion was prompt and decisive and had a great effect on the image of Margaret Thatcher who used tactics similar to those of the junta to inflame the British people with a patriotic fever not seen in at least a generation. It is interesting to note that there were encouraging signs of offshore oil at the time but that these hopes seem to have been dashed by subsequent exploratory drilling*.

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