On the 191st anniversary of the British takeover of the Islas Malvinas (as Argentina calls the Falkland Islands), the recently sworn-in government of Javier Milei renewed Buenos Aires’s desire to re-engage in bilateral talks on who should control the islands.
On the same day, Brazil issued an official statement supporting “Argentina’s legitimate rights in the sovereignty dispute” over the Malvinas, South Georgia, and South Sandwich Islands.
The Malvinas have barely 3,000 inhabitants and far more sheep than people. They were referred to by the late U.S. President Ronald Reagan as “that little ice-cold bunch of land down there.” But the islands transcend all political divisions in Argentina, where citizens overwhelmingly support national sovereignty over the territory.
The British took over the islands on January 3, 1833, marking a watershed moment in Argentina’s convoluted colonial history, and ultimately leading to an all-out war in 1982, when Argentina tried to reclaim the territory in the dying months of its last military dictatorship.
The 11-week conflict killed 255 British and 649 Argentinian combatants and three civilians — and precipitated the final collapse of the Argentinian regime in 1983.
Calls for a negotiated settlement have been met with a shrug by the British, who argue that 92 percent of Falkland Islanders prefer to remain part of the United Kingdom, according to the results of a 2013 referendum, while Argentina sees those residents as an implanted population whose wishes should not take precedence over national sovereignty.
Brazil has always been sympathetic to the Argentinian cause, and historians consider the country’s formal neutrality during the 1982 war as tilting toward the Argentinian side. Interestingly, this is an issue where Brazil ignores the principle of self-determination — never mentioning the will of the islanders.
The calls for reopening negotiations over the Malvinas do not mean that Mr. Milei’s government will make this a priority for his administration — it is merely standard practice for any president of Argentina. Shortly before his election last year, Mr. Milei reiterated the idea that the Malvinas “indeed belong to Argentina,” but that “the position of the people who live [on the islands] cannot be ignored.”
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