THE FALKLAND ISLANDS, A CONFLICT OF SOVEREIGNTY

The Falkland Islands Flag

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the Falkland Islands, an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf whose history and sovereignty is well-known by being a continuous centre of dispute between the United Kingdom and Argentina.

It is an old diplomatic conflict that started in 1774 between the United Kingdom and Spain; it had another important episode when the United Kingdom claimed sovereignty over the Falkland Islands on a day like today in 1833, during the 1960s, and in 1982 when the conflict finished in a war between the United Kingdom and Argentina.

The Falkland Islands, in Spanish Islas Malvinas, is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about 483 kilometres east of South America's southern Patagonian coast, and about 1,210 kilometres from the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, at a latitude of about 52°S. The archipelago, with an area of 12,000 square kilometres, comprises East Falkland, West Falkland and 776 smaller islands.

As a British overseas territory, the Falklands have internal self-governance, and the United Kingdom takes responsibility for their defence and foreign affairs.

The Falkland Islands' capital is Stanley on East Falkland.

More information: Falkland Islands Government

Controversy exists over the Falklands' discovery and subsequent colonisation by Europeans. At various times, the islands have had French, British, Spanish, and Argentine settlements. Britain reasserted its rule in 1833, but Argentina maintains its claim to the islands.

In April 1982, Argentine forces occupied the islands. British administration was restored two months later at the end of the Falklands War.

Almost all Falklanders favour the archipelago remaining a UK overseas territory. Its sovereignty status is part of an ongoing dispute between Argentina and the United Kingdom.

The population, 3,398 inhabitants in 2016, consists primarily of native-born Falkland Islanders, the majority of British descent. Other ethnicities include French, Gibraltarian and Scandinavian. Immigration from the United Kingdom, the South Atlantic island of Saint Helena, and Chile has reversed a population decline. The predominant and official language is English. Under the British Nationality (Falkland Islands) Act 1983, Falkland Islanders are British citizens.

More information: Falkland Islands

The islands lie on the boundary of the subantarctic oceanic and tundra climate zones, and both major islands have mountain ranges reaching 700 m. They are home to large bird populations, although many no longer breed on the main islands because of competition from introduced species.

Major economic activities include fishing, tourism and sheep farming, with an emphasis on high-quality wool exports. Oil exploration, licensed by the Falkland Islands Government, remains controversial as a result of maritime disputes with Argentina. 

The Falkland Islands

The name Falkland Islands comes from Falkland Sound, the strait that separates the two main islands. The name Falkland was applied to the channel by John Strong, captain of an English expedition which landed on the islands in 1690. Strong named the strait in honour of Anthony Cary, 5th Viscount of Falkland, the Treasurer of the Navy who sponsored his journey. The Viscount's title originates from the town of Falkland, Scotland -the town's name likely comes from a Gaelic term referring to an enclosure, but it could less plausibly be from the Anglo-Saxon term folkland. The name Falklands was not applied to the islands until 1765, when British captain John Byron of the Royal Navy, claimed them for King George III as Falkland's Islands. The term Falklands is a standard abbreviation used to refer to the islands.

The Spanish name for the archipelago, Islas Malvinas, derives from the French Îles Malouines -the name given to the islands by French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville in 1764. Bougainville, who founded the islands' first settlement, named the area after the port of Saint-Malo, the point of departure for his ships and colonists. The port, located in the Brittany region of western France, was named after St. Malo or Maclou, the Christian evangelist who founded the city.

More information: BBC

At the twentieth session of the United Nations General Assembly, the Fourth Committee determined that, in all languages other than Spanish, all UN documentation would designate the territory as Falkland Islands (Malvinas). In Spanish, the territory was designated as Islas Malvinas (Falkland Islands). The nomenclature used by the United Nations for statistical processing purposes is Falkland Islands (Malvinas). 

Although Fuegians from Patagonia may have visited the Falkland Islands in prehistoric times, the islands were uninhabited when Europeans first discovered them. Claims of discovery date back to the 16th century, but no consensus exists on whether early explorers discovered the Falklands or other islands in the South Atlantic. The first recorded landing on the islands is attributed to English captain John Strong, who, en route to Peru's and Chile's littoral in 1690, discovered the Falkland Sound and noted the islands' water and game.

The Falklands remained uninhabited until the 1764 establishment of Port Louis on East Falkland by French captain Louis Antoine de Bougainville, and the 1766 foundation of Port Egmont on Saunders Island by British captain John MacBride. Whether or not the settlements were aware of each other's existence is debated by historians.

More information: Lonely Planet

In 1766, France surrendered its claim on the Falklands to Spain, which renamed the French colony Puerto Soledad the following year. Problems began when Spain discovered and captured Port Egmont in 1770. War was narrowly avoided by its restitution to Britain in 1771.

Both the British and Spanish settlements coexisted in the archipelago until 1774, when Britain's new economic and strategic considerations led it to voluntarily withdraw from the islands, leaving a plaque claiming the Falklands for King George III.  

The Falkland Islands

Spain's Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata became the only governmental presence in the territory. West Falkland was left abandoned, and Puerto Soledad became mostly a prison camp.

Amid the British invasions of the Río de la Plata during the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, the islands' governor evacuated the archipelago in 1806; Spain's remaining colonial garrison followed suit in 1811, except for gauchos and fishermen who remained voluntarily.

Thereafter, the archipelago was visited only by fishing ships; its political status was undisputed until 1820, when Colonel David Jewett, an American privateer working for the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, informed anchored ships about Buenos Aires' 1816 claim to Spain's territories in the South Atlantic. Since the islands had no permanent inhabitants, in 1823 Buenos Aires granted German-born merchant Luis Vernet permission to conduct fishing activities and exploit feral cattle in the archipelago.

Buenos Aires attempted to retain influence over the settlement by installing a garrison, but a mutiny in 1832 was followed the next year by the arrival of British forces who reasserted Britain's rule. The British troops departed after completing their mission, leaving the area without formal government.

More information: The Guardian

In 1840, the Falklands became a Crown colony, and Scottish settlers subsequently established an official pastoral community. Four years later, nearly everyone relocated to Port Jackson, considered a better location for government, and merchant Samuel Lafone began a venture to encourage British colonisation.

Stanley, as Port Jackson was soon renamed, officially became the seat of government in 1845. Early in its history, Stanley had a negative reputation due to cargo-shipping losses; only in emergencies would ships rounding Cape Horn stop at the port. Nevertheless, the Falklands' geographic location proved ideal for ship repairs and the Wrecking Trade, the business of selling and buying shipwrecks and their cargoes. Aside from this trade, commercial interest in the archipelago was minimal due to the low-value hides of the feral cattle roaming the pastures. 

Economic growth began only after the Falkland Islands Company, which bought out Lafone's failing enterprise in 1851, successfully introduced Cheviot sheep for wool farming, spurring other farms to follow suit. 

More information:  The Guardian

In 1881, the Falkland Islands became financially independent of Britain. For more than a century, the Falkland Islands Company dominated the trade and employment of the archipelago; in addition, it owned most housing in Stanley, which greatly benefited from the wool trade with the UK.

In the first half of the 20th century, the Falklands served an important role in Britain's territorial claims to subantarctic islands and a section of Antarctica. The Falklands also played a minor role in the two world wars as a military base aiding control of the South Atlantic. 

After the WWII ended, the Falklands economy was affected by declining wool prices and the political uncertainty resulting from the revived sovereignty dispute between the United Kingdom and Argentina. 

21 May 1982, Argentina surrendered to the UK

Simmering tensions between the UK and Argentina increased during the second half of the century, when Argentine President Juan Perón asserted sovereignty over the archipelago.

The sovereignty dispute intensified during the 1960s, shortly after the United Nations passed a resolution on decolonisation which Argentina interpreted as favourable to its position. In 1965, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 2065, calling for both states to conduct bilateral negotiations to reach a peaceful settlement of the dispute. From 1966 until 1968, the UK confidentially discussed with Argentina the transfer of the Falklands, assuming its judgement would be accepted by the islanders.

An agreement on trade ties between the archipelago and the mainland was reached in 1971 and, consequently, Argentina built a temporary airfield at Stanley in 1972. Nonetheless, Falklander dissent, as expressed by their strong lobby in the UK Parliament, and tensions between the UK and Argentina effectively limited sovereignty negotiations until 1977.

Concerned at the expense of maintaining the Falkland Islands in an era of budget cuts, the UK again considered transferring sovereignty to Argentina in the early Thatcher government. Substantive sovereignty talks again ended by 1981, and the dispute escalated with passing time.

In April 1982, the disagreement became an armed conflict when Argentina invaded the Falklands and other British territories in the South Atlantic, briefly occupying them until a UK expeditionary force retook the territories in June.

After the war, the United Kingdom expanded its military presence, building RAF Mount Pleasant and increasing the size of its garrison. 

More information: The Atlantic

Based on Lord Shackleton's recommendations, the Falklands diversified from a sheep-based monoculture into an economy of tourism and, with the establishment of the Falklands Exclusive Economic Zone, fisheries. The road network was also made more extensive, and the construction of RAF Mount Pleasant allowed access to long haul flights. Oil exploration also began, with indications of possible commercially exploitable deposits in the Falklands basin. 

Argentina and the UK re-established diplomatic relations in 1990; relations have since deteriorated as neither has agreed on the terms of future sovereignty discussions. Disputes between the governments have led some analysts to predict a growing conflict of interest between Argentina and Great Britain... because of the recent expansion of the fishing industry in the waters surrounding the Falklands.

The United Kingdom and Argentina both claim the Falkland Islands. The UK bases its position on its continuous administration of the islands since 1833 and the islanders' right to self-determination as set out in the UN Charter. Argentina's position is that it acquired the Falklands from Spain when it achieved independence in 1816, and that, in 1833, the UK expelled Argentine authorities and settlers from the islands with a threat of greater force and, afterwards, barred Argentines from resettling the islands.

In 2009, the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, had a meeting with the Argentine president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, and said that there would be no further talks over the sovereignty of the Falklands.

In March 2013, the Falkland Islands held a referendum on its political status: 99.8% of voters favoured remaining a British overseas territory. Argentina does not recognise the Falkland Islanders as a partner in negotiations.

More information: The Sydney Morning Herald

The Falklands War was the most managed story

in the history of journalism...

total control of communication.

Morley Safer