Argentina compares British sovereignty over Falklands with Russian invasion of Ukraine

Deputy foreign minister accuses UK of ‘double standards’ for backing Kyiv but refusing to negotiate over the South Atlantic islands

British forces in San Carlos, the Falkland Islands in 1982. The Argentinian government has accused the UK of 'double standards' for its support of Ukraine
British forces in San Carlos, the Falkland Islands, in 1982. The Argentinian government has accused the UK of 'double standards' for its support of Ukraine

The Argentine government has triggered a row with the United Kingdom by accusing it of “double standards” for its backing of Ukraine against Russian aggression while refusing to come to the negotiating table over the Falkland Islands.

Guillermo Carmona, Argentina’s deputy foreign minister for the Antarctic, Malvinas (the name Argentina uses for the Falklands) and South Atlantic, compared Vladimir Putin's invasion to the UK’s occupation of the remote South Atlantic archipelago in 1833.

In an interview with The Telegraph ahead of the 40th anniversary of the start of the Falklands War on Saturday, he said in both cases there had been an illegal military seizure of the sovereign territory of one state by another. London’s alleged hypocrisy, Mr Carmona adds, comes with significant “reputational costs”.

A source close to Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, said she viewed the comparison as “utterly spurious”, adding: “She supports the right of countries to self-determination, which is exactly what the Ukrainians are fighting for, and exactly what the Falkland Islanders did when they voted overwhelmingly to remain a UK overseas territory.”

A Foreign Office spokesperson added that the Government has “no doubt about its sovereignty over the Falkland Islands.”

They were responding to Mr Carmona’s comments to The Telegraph, in which he said: “The British Government has perhaps been one of the governments that have condemned most vehemently this violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity by Russia - and it’s very good that the British Government does this,” he said. “Argentina has also condemned the situation [in Ukraine].”

“But what is happening is that the British Government, at the same time that it condemns the violation of Ukrainian territorial integrity, has persistently maintained, for 189 years, a violation of the territorial integrity of Argentina.”

Guillermo Carmona, Argentina’s deputy foreign minister for the Antarctic, ‘Malvinas’ and South Atlantic, compared Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine to the UK’s occupation of the remote South Atlantic archipelago in 1833
Guillermo Carmona, Argentina’s deputy foreign minister for the Antarctic, ‘Malvinas’ and South Atlantic, compared Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine to the UK’s occupation of the remote South Atlantic archipelago in 1833

The Leftist government of President Alberto Fernández, and his predecessor and current vice president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, had enjoyed a close relationship with the Putin regime but voted in March in favour of the United Nations resolution condemning the invasion of Ukraine.

She, in particular, has frequently used the islands as a central campaign theme. This week, lawmakers from her Peronist alliance even proposed renaming one of the main thoroughfares in Buenos Aires after the Malvinas, the Spanish name for the Falklands.

Despite resuming diplomatic relations in 1990, Buenos Aires and London have failed to settle their differences over the islands, which Argentina’s military junta invaded on April 2, 1982, before a task force sent by the Thatcher administration defeated the Argentine military.

A total of 649 Argentine and 255 British servicemen died in the 74-day war along with three of the Falklands’ civilian residents.

Since then, Buenos Aires has demanded a resumption of talks over the sovereignty of the islands, citing a 1965 United Nations resolution calling on Argentina and the UK to settle the dispute as part of a global process “to end colonialism in all its forms”.

‘One of the most militarised zones in the world’

The UK, meanwhile, has refused to return to the negotiating table, instead insisting on the 3,200 Falkland Islanders’ right to self-determination. In a 2013 referendum, they voted 99.8 per cent to remain a British territory.

Mr Carmona says that the “interests” of the islands’ residents must be respected but that the principle of self-determination “applies in cases where people suffer the colonial process, not for those populations who are part of the colonial action”.

He also accused the UK of turning the Falklands into “one of the most militarised zones in the world” based on the one-to-two ratio of 1,500 troops to the islands’ tiny civilian population. Describing that as “irrational”, he added: “You get the impression that the British government is acting as though there weren’t democracy in Argentina.”

Almost unanimously, Argentines across the political spectrum support the country’s claim on the islands. It was arguably the only thing that the leftist Montonero guerrillas of the 1960s and 1970s saw eye to eye on with the brutal right-wing military dictatorship, says Carlos De Angelis, a sociologist at the University of Buenos Aires.

But there is also a word in Argentine Spanish, “malvinero”, for a politician who is overly nationalistic or uses the Falklands to score domestic political points.

Due to its bungling of the economy and appalling human rights abuses, the junta was already in serious trouble when it invaded the Falklands. Initially, the move sparked a tidal wave of euphoria in Argentina.  

But the mood quickly turned against the regime as the Argentine forces, many of them ill-prepared conscripts - similar to some of the Russian troops in Ukraine today - were routed by the British, leading to the dictatorship’s collapse and the return of democracy in 1983. 

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