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Robbie Parry
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 June 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 12185
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| Posted: 06 March 2012 at 5:57pm | IP Logged | 1
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Great post, Stuart. There are things which are disputed, but your post has made excellent points. Anyway, we're dealing with the modern world now. If you go by history, some of it disputed, then you'd have to be fair, surely, and apply it to ALL nations and give ALL land back. If you did that, though, who'd benefit? People who may have been displaced centuries ago are no longer around to reap the benefits.
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Brennan Voboril
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Joined: 15 January 2011
Posts: 1735
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| Posted: 06 March 2012 at 6:13pm | IP Logged | 2
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There is a longstanding dispute. You side with your nation. I side with Argentina. We have been going in circles. I refer you to the Argentine government position (at the link I posted above). They argue it far better than I can.
It is curious to me that some of you speak of rights. What of the rights of the Argentine people? There are nearly 42,000,000 of them. I suspect most support their nation's claims to sovereignty over the Malvinas but have no evidence to support that. This is one reason why I don't buy the argument that the only ones who have a say are the current inhabitants.
I think Roger Waters modified his quotes but still stands by the gist of his statement (not that his opinion is any more valid that ours).
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Brian Floyd
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Joined: 07 July 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 8788
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| Posted: 06 March 2012 at 6:19pm | IP Logged | 3
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You know what? The hell with the rights of the Argentine government and their people. Because they have no right to the Falklands, and it doesn't matter what their population is compared to that of the Falklands.
Argentina has no valid claim to the the Falklands whatsoever and the people living there DO NOT WANT TO BE PART OF ARGENTINA. So it doesn't matter.
How you can't seem to see that, Brennan, is beyond me. Your argument is totally invalid.
Edited by Brian Floyd on 06 March 2012 at 6:20pm
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Robbie Parry
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Joined: 17 June 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 12185
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| Posted: 06 March 2012 at 6:24pm | IP Logged | 4
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I'm siding with the islanders. It's not about Britain, it's not about Argentina, it's about them. And if my friend over there, along with the majority of the population, wanted to be part of Argentina, I'd wish them well. They don't want to be, though.
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Stuart Vandal
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Joined: 02 July 2008
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 143
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| Posted: 06 March 2012 at 6:41pm | IP Logged | 5
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"What about the rights of the Argentinian people?"
Nobody's trying to force them to become part of a country they don't want to belong to, so their rights are doing just fine. By your argument, the United States can claim Canada because they are close to one another and the US population outnumbers Canada, so Canadians not wanting to be part of the US is going against the rights of the US citizens.
Everyone else here seems to understand that the ONLY people whose opinion counts in this debate are the Falkland Islanders. This isn't about Britain and colonialism (an arguement that lost what little validity it might have had decades if not a century ago), or Argentina being geographically closer than the UK (an argument that never had validity) - those are all just excuses used by the Argentinians because they want to paint themselves the victims in this. But they are not - the Islanders are. They were the ones who were invaded and held at gunpoint by Argentinian soldiers only a few decades ago. They are the ones the Argentinian government keeps trying to cut off from the outside world to force them into capitulating to outside rule.
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Doug Campbell
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Joined: 29 March 2008
Location: United States
Posts: 365
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| Posted: 06 March 2012 at 7:05pm | IP Logged | 6
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Brennan: It is curious to me that some of you speak of rights. What of the rights of the Argentine people? There are nearly 42,000,000 of them.
I believe you just made an argument that the Falklands ought to belong to China.
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Mike Norris
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Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
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| Posted: 06 March 2012 at 11:11pm | IP Logged | 7
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What do the rights of the Argentine people have to do with the Falklands? They don't live there. They have no right to determine the sovereignty of the Islands, only the people who live there do. Why is that so hard to understand?
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Robbie Parry
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Joined: 17 June 2007
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: 07 March 2012 at 6:26am | IP Logged | 8
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Thank you for all your views, everyone. I can't add much more to this topic, but appreciate those who commented. The UK and Argentina have been dealing with this peacefully since 1982, but as my friend said, there's nothing to negotiate. They've lived there for generations, they are self-governing, they sustain themselves and wish to remain a British Overseas Territory. As far as I'm concerned, their rights have to be respected.
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Simon Bowland
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Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: England
Posts: 385
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| Posted: 07 March 2012 at 7:38am | IP Logged | 9
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Brennan, I'm assuming that you're not just trolling here, so why are you so elusive when it comes to answering and addressing perfectly reasonable questions and comments which people have thrown at you? I'll put it to you once again: how is what you're advocating any different to handing the United States landmass back to the Native Indian population?
The fact that you are unwilling, or unable, to respond to people directly here is just suggesting to everyone that your argument really has no foundation whatsoever. People are taking the time to ask relevant questions of you and your beliefs, and you're just completely ignoring them. Stop referring everyone to some propaganda link that you've posted, and explain YOUR opinions and views to us please.
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Brennan Voboril
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Joined: 15 January 2011
Posts: 1735
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| Posted: 07 March 2012 at 10:05am | IP Logged | 10
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Simon all my arguments are contained in the link of the Argentine government's I posted. It isn't propaganda. Those are my views.
Most of you who oppose Argentina are from the UK.
Edit: I do believe President Obama refers to them as the Malvinas and has called for sovereignty negotiations. I also support the US State Department's position on the issue.
Edited by Brennan Voboril on 07 March 2012 at 10:57am
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Simon Bowland
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| Posted: 07 March 2012 at 11:05am | IP Logged | 11
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You're still not answering any of the questions.
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Stuart Vandal
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Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 143
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| Posted: 07 March 2012 at 11:32am | IP Logged | 12
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"Simon all my arguments are contained in the link of the Argentine government's I posted. It isn't propaganda. "
Isn't it? It's history as written by the Argentinian government to support their claim, and it includes some very dubious "facts." First, it makes it clear that Spain's original claim is based on the Pope in the 15th century arbitrarily slicing up the New World and gifting the two halves to two Catholic countries. Even back then, why would anyone outside the Catholic faith believe the Pope had the right to do that? "Never mind who might already be there and have a claim to the land, they are heathens or heretics, so they have no right to it." And in the modern day, does ANYONE give credit to the right of the Pope to do that? And talk about colonialism!
So you have Spain taking the view that anyone but them exploring the region was trespassing, because it was all their's, sight unseen. But let's move past that. The Argentians claim Britain conceded the rights to the islands in a couple of treaties settling territorial disputes - except the islands aren't mentioned in said treaties, which is strange if they were meant to be included in the territories Britain was giving up claim to.
The Argentinian site claims they had a colony on the islands from the 1760s, acknowledging that there was a British colony there too for part of that time (both feeling the others were there illegally). The British admit to abandoning their colony for a while, but the Argentinian site claims their colony was there continuously until 1833. If that's the case, how come Captain Charles Barnard, who was marooned on the islands for 18 months from 1813 to 1814 after his ship was hijacked, never ran across them? Barnard was American, so he had no reason to lie for the British. The islands had become uninhabited. If there was an existing colony there, why did Argentina ask Luis Vernet to set one up in the 1820s? If there was an existing Argentine colony on the islands, why did Vernet feel the need to ask permission of Britain to set up the colony? The site you quote is propaganda, because it conveniently ignores any contradictory accounts, not just by Britain but also by American sources (and there was little love lost between Britain and the US at that time) and even by the likes of Vernet, who Argentina appointed Governor General of the islands?
The point remains - the history is nowhere near as clearcut in Argentina's favour as the Argentine site makes out. And the more important point remains - you can't unpick the past to find a clear historical claim, not unless you just ignore the evidence you don't like. But what's undisputed is that the people on the islands, who have been there for generations, consider themselves British. Their rights to decide their own fate is what matters here.
"Most of you who oppose Argentina are from the UK."
Some of us, yes. But it seems to me that a fair few people posting here are American. They have no axe to grind. They've just read the two sides of the argument, and made a decision based on that.
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