Plans to drill for oil in the Falklands provoke angry words from Argentina

EACH year a well-rehearsed performance takes place at the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonisation. Argentina’s government protests that Britain’s sovereignty over the islands it calls the Malvinas is a colonial injustice, and that the principle of territorial integrity demands that they be reunited with the mainland. Representatives from the Falkland Islands counter that they have a right to self-determination; that they have no wish to be part of Argentina; and that they do not consider themselves to be a colony of Britain anyway. Most of the time the argument gets no further than that. After going to war over the islands in 1982, Britain and Argentina have enjoyed diplomatic relations for 20 years now. But the arrival of an oil exploration rig in the Falklands this month will give new fuel to dispute that dates back to 1833.

On February 16th Anibal Fernandez, the presidential chief of staff, announced that ships sailing between Argentina and the Falklands would henceforth require a permit. Earlier the government barred a ship which it said had previously called in the islands from loading a cargo of pipes. (Techint, the Argentine manufacturer of the pipes, said they were destined for the Mediterranean.) Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Argentina’s president, said she would “work unceasingly for our rights in the Malvinas, for human rights.” A spokesman for the British embassy in Buenos Aires said that the application of laws in and around the Falklands was a matter for the islanders, and that Britain had no doubts over the sovereignty issue. …