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Falklands: the war at the ends of the Earth
By Dario Klein
AFP
STANLEY, Falkland Islands
Petroleumworld.com 03 30 07It was the most unlikely of battlegrounds for a major conflict, a windswept archipelago at the ends of the Earth fought over by two powers half a world apart.
But 25 years after they tussled for the Falkland Islands, Britain and Argentina are still at odds and dealing with the aftershocks of the war that reshaped their political landscapes.
Buenos Aires still lays claim to the islands it lost in the brief, bloody test of wills in 1982 between Argentinian dictator General Leopoldo Galtieri and Britain's Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher.
And British troops continue to patrol the Falklands, a lonely, forgotten clump of dots in the South Atlantic before Argentinia's invasion sparked Britain's biggest air and naval battle since World War II.
Today, the economy of the archipelago is booming, powered by fishing, tourism and the possibility of oil. Yet tensions between the two erstwhile antagonists still simmer.Only days before Monday's 25th anniversary of the war, Argentina scrapped a deal with Britain to share oil found in the Falklands and accused London of dragging its feet in talks on the islands' sovereignty.
A quarter-century ago, few Brits had even heard of the Falklands Islands. But on April 2, 1982 the nation woke up to find that the remote hilly islands, populated mostly by sheep and penguins, had been invaded by Argentine soldiers.Three days later, a British squadron was scrambled. With no ceremony and little warning, Britain was at war over a bunch of islands some 12,000 kilometres (7,400 miles) on the other side of the world.
Seventy-one days after that, seven ships, including Argentina's General Belgrano had been sunk, 649 Argentine and 255 British troops had been killed, and Britain emerged victorious.
The future of the islands, which had been ignored for years by London, had been changed forever. Also altered were the fates of the Argentine dictatorship and Thatcher's flagging Conservative government.
Analysts said the invasion was a desperate attempt by Argentina's then-military regime to retain its grip on power, which it seized in 1976. A year later the junta had fallen as the country returned to democracy.And in Britain, Thatcher's party rode a wave of patriotism to victory in the 1983 general elections, overturning a general malaise at her government and holding on to power for another seven years.
While Thatcher adroitly tapped into a vein of new-found British nationalism to secure the second of her three terms in office, Galtieri's similar attempt to stay in power backfired.
He had sought to whip up patriotic feelings among a population taught in school that the Falklands, known in Argentina as the Malvinas and lying 500 kilometres (300 miles) from their eastern shores, were theirs by right.
"Galtieri launched the occupation of the Malvinas to try to win popular support by exploiting anti-imperialist feelings," said historian Lisandro Rubiales.
The invasion came amid the first popular protests in Argentina in years as the brutal dictatorship, during which 30,000 people vanished, faced a severe socio-economic crisis with high unemployment and falling salaries.
Invading the islands with only 1,800 residents looked like an easy way to divert attention away from home, especially since the anti-Communist dictatorship thought it could count on the support of the United States following Ronald Reagan's arrival in the White House.
But Reagan plumped to back his ideological soul-mate and strategic Cold War ally Thatcher, and analysts say once she had unleashed two naval Task Forces and a total of 28,000 personnel she had no choice but to win back the islands.
Christopher Hill, a professor at Cambridge University, said the decision carried a lot of political risk.
"I think most British politicians would have thought that it was necessary, but not all of them might have had the nerves to send a military task force 10,000 miles into the Atlantic," Hill told AFP.
"She had, as we say, more 'balls' than the men," he said.
Confronted by a professional, militarily superior army, Argentine forces, largely composed of young conscripts, agreed a surrender on June 14, 1982.
For the Falklanders, the war catapulted them out of their isolation and into a new era of prosperity. Today per capita income has soared to some 25,000 dollars a year.The population has nearly doubled to around 3,000 and Britain maintains another 1,200 troops on the islands, where the Union Jack proudly flies from many homes.
AFP 29 0403 GMT 03 07
Copyright© 2007 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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