It has been a good few days for Latin American unity and rhetoric against the evils of Western imperialism, and yesterday was no exception. At centre stage was the row over oil rights in the South Atlantic as a British oil rig began drilling 60 miles north of the Falkland Islands. As 32 regional leaders gathered in Mexico yesterday, however, the talk turned to a diplomatic onslaught against the “old colonialism” and a new formal alliance, words that reopened historic wounds left over from the days of conquest, empire and slavery.
“The question of Las Malvinas is not only a question about a sovereignty dispute,” President Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina, using the Spanish name for the Falklands, said. “It has to do with the history of the region and the world over the last two or three centuries.”
Mrs Kirchner got the approval she wanted, with the rest of the Rio Group signing a declaration affirming their backing “for the legitimate rights of the republic of Argentina in the sovereignty dispute with Great Britain”. She did more than rally support for its cause over drilling for oil in the South Atlantic — she framed the dispute in terms of a colonial threat to the entire region.
Argentina’s claim to oil rights was an “exercise in self-defence” of the continent, she said. After the meeting, the President said that winning such strong backing in the territorial dispute was an important development but warned that “even more important will be to achieve a change of attitude in the big powers, in this case those which have a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council”.
Mrs Kirchner has made the recovery of the islands a key theme of her presidency. At home the arrival of the Ocean Guardian oil rig has revived long-simmering resentment at what is perceived as a foreign occupation.
Furthermore, current estimates put Falklands reserves at anywhere between 8 billion and 60 billion barrels, meaning a potential bonanza for whoever claims ownership of the oil.
The regional leaders insisted on negotiations between Britain and Argentina, flagging up UN resolutions that require both parties to abstain from unilateral actions with respect to the islands while they remain under contention.
“We have approved a declaration in which leaders of countries and governments present here reaffirm their support for Argentina’s legitimate rights in its sovereignty dispute with the United Kingdom,” President Calderón of Mexico said.
Last week Mrs Kirchner moved to obstruct supplies to the oil operations, imposing shipping controls requiring all maritime traffic moving through Argentine-claimed waters to the Falklands to seek its authorisation. She sought to dispel speculation yesterday over the potential for conflict, insisting that Argentina would not blockade the islands but instead pursue legal options to halt the exploration.
However, she kept up the war of words. In the 21st century “the great challenge is going to be the management of natural resources, renewable and non-renewable — in this case oil — and fundamentally also the behaviour of the big powers of the world, who systematically break UN resolutions but impose on other countries compliance with those same resolutions referring to other issues when it affects their interests”.
This double standard was one of “principal sources of tension” in international relations, she added.
It was a theme leapt upon by the staunchly anti-imperialist President Chávez of Venezuela, who decried Britain’s presence in the Falklands as “the most gross expression of the old colonial era, allied to neocolonialism”.
The day before, he had addressed his remarks to the Queen, saying: “Things have changed. We are no longer in 1982. If conflict breaks out, be sure Argentina will not be alone like it was back then.” British control of the islands was “anti-historic and irrational”, he continued, adding: “Why do the English speak of democracy but still have a queen?”
He did not waste the opportunity to raise his own colonial complaint — Dutch control of the Caribbean territories of Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire “in the noses of Venezuela”, their closest neighbour.
Yesterday, at a meeting in Cancún between the Rio Group and the Caribbean Community (Caricom), leaders discussed plans for a pan-American alliance that would exclude Canada and the United States — a move backed by the continent’s vocal left-wing governments.
This could serve as an alternative to the Organisation of American States (OAS), which includes the North American neighbours and has been the main forum for regional affairs in the past 50 years.
David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, rejected accusations that Britain was acting illegally. “British sovereignty in respect of the Falklands is absolutely clear in international law ... There is no question about it,” he said. “The exploration that is going on off the Falklands ... is fully within international law, fully based on precedent.” The islanders had the right to a decent life and to build their own economic future, he added.
Chris Bryant, the junior foreign minister, said that the Rio Group’s position was nothing new and that it was not unexpected that Latin American countries would throw their weight behind one of their own.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7038490.ece
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