Brazil & Southern Cone - February 2013 (ISSN 1741-4431)

For historic and legal reasons, the Falkland Islands should rightfully be Uruguayan. That at least is the conclusion of a book, entitled ‘¿Las Malvinas: Son uruguayas?’ or ‘The Falkland Islands: Are They Uruguayan?’, published by a Uruguayan architect, Juan Ackermann, and an Argentine engineer, Alfredo Villegas Oromí. They claim that Uruguay, and not Argentina, formally inherited sovereignty over the Falklands from the Spanish Crown.

The book presents documents prior to the British occupation of the Falklands in 1833 in which the British recognise Spanish sovereignty, meaning that they were conscious that their presence there was illegal. Equally, the book claims, texts show that when the Spanish Empire folded, it never ceded sovereignty over the Falklands to Argentina, but awarded it to Uruguay in 1841 in a treaty ceding all of the territories of the Apostadero de Montevideo (Spain’s main naval base for the South Atlantic) to Uruguay. This included authority over the Falklands, and the islands of Annobón and Fernando Po (off the coast of West Africa and now part of Equatorial Guinea). Ackermann argues that Spain did the same with Argentina 17 years later “but it couldn’t give it something it had already given another. That is a very strong argument in favour of Uruguay.”

As such, the book argues, Argentina’s occupation of the Islands between 1820 and 1833 was also illegitimate, taking advantage of the internal strife in the Banda Oriental del Uruguay which was formally annexed by the Brazilian Empire in 1824, before modern Uruguay gained independence in 1828 following an insurrection by the so-called Treinta y Tres Orientales, led by Juan Antonio Lavalleja, and the subsequent Cisplatine war.

Ackermann told the Spanish news agency Efe that the book was not designed to cause controversy but “to tell the truth and to advance a very healthy solution to the problem.” “For me, as an Argentine, it was very difficult to come to terms with this,” Villegas said. The book points out that a 1972 international agreement on the Antarctic, based on the 1841 treaty, actually confirmed Uruguay as the rightful owner of the Falklands and that this was ratified by both the Uruguayan senate and then, remarkably, the Argentine senate, suggesting that not all documents are read with great assiduity by senators.

The authors put forward a number of arguments for action Uruguay could take: 1) Make no claim. 2) Begin talks with Britain and/or the Islanders. 3) Play a role in Anglo-Argentine co-sovereignty. 4) Use the legitimate claims of Uruguayan sovereignty over the Islands to exert diplomatic pressure on Argentina to carry out the long-delayed dredging of the Martín García canal.

The Falkland islanders are due to vote on sovereignty in a referendum on 10 and 11 March. During a visit to London on 6 February Argentina’s foreign minister, Héctor Timerman, said that his country would not recognise the result of the referendum. He said that “the United Nations does not recognise a third party in the conflict” and that as such “the Falkland islanders do not exist”. Ackermann and Villegas would maintain that Uruguay is in fact that third party.

Timerman also snubbed talks with his British counterpart William Hague at the British Foreign Office because he had invited representatives of the Islanders to attend. Timerman also claimed that the Falklands would be Argentine within 20 years and compared the British claim to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. Hague lashed back: “To compare the islands to settlers in the West Bank, which is an occupied land, is absolutely ridiculous…There are families in the Falklands who are in their ninth generation. The Falklands have been there longer than Argentina has had its current boundaries or existed in its current form”.

• Mujica jests

President José Mujica actually joked in the Argentine embassy in Montevideo last May that Uruguay was not a disinterested bystander in the dispute between Britain and Argentina over the Falklands and that after Argentina won this particular sovereignty debate “we will discuss if they are Argentine or Uruguayan”.