There are three ways to anger an Argentine:
1) to give you advice on how to prepare grilled meat;
2) boast football superiority;
3) to say that the Malvinas are English and are called Falkland.
The Malvinas are one of the foggiest, coldest and most barren archipelagos on the planet. Beaten by the waves of the Atlantic, they are reminiscent of the rocks of Scotland. While Scotland is 500 km from London, the Malvinas are 500 km from the Argentine coast. The detail is not exactly secondary, if we think that to close the triangle between London and the archipelago it takes more than two freestyle strokes: about 13.000 km.
We do not know how much geography influences territorial disputes in the world, especially if the English are involved, a people often around the Seven Seas. We should ask ourselves so many things that we prefer not to. However, it remains that a sovereignty dispute has always existed between the United Kingdom and Argentina.
The history of the Falkland Islands or Malvinas, if you prefer, is not particularly long. We can summarize by saying that issues of colonial inheritance between Spain and France, after the independence of Argentina and the arrival of the British, created a problem. In the dispute there are also South Georgia and the Sandwich Islands, so called not to remember a sandwich but an English count of the '700.
Argentines say it's all their stuff; the English as well. In these cases we often end up with hands.
Thus it was that on 2 April 82 the junta militar of Buenos Aires, riding the irredentist wave, he decided to occupy the archipelago.
"Si quieren venir que vengan. Les presentamos batalla ... " General Galtieri shouted at the balcony of the Casa Rosada, provoking the British immediately after the reconquest of the islands. And the British, without having to repeat it twice, came for real.
If Argentina in terms of weapons was not the latest arrival, much less could the United Kingdom be. Especially because in London there was Thatcher, called Iron Lady not because she tended to rust, but because she was particularly tough.
Said and done: the English expedition started, before Italy won the World Cup of which Argentina was the defending champion, the Malvinas were already back under the flag brit. It was the first conventional war between two Western countries since the end of the Second World War. It was also the beginning of the end for the military in power in Argentina and the glory for Thatcher, hated by some, loved by others, but still a woman with big, smoking balls. It is said how angry he was when he saw the photo of Jacinto Eliseo Batista (on the cover) laying his hands up on the Royal Marines. The photo of the non-commissioned officer of Infanteria de Marina went around the world ... It is also said that the English, masters of style, at the end of the war sought the Navy Argentine to pay him homage with a similar photo ...
Iluminados but el fuego is an Argentine film from 2005 (with a pacifist slant) that gives a good idea of how much those days still matter in the popular consciousness today. They matter so much to subsequent, self-styled governments Peronists but often just corrupt, the idea of extending one's hands over the archipelago never passed.
It is a cultural fact. In the Retiro park in Buenos Aires, the railway station area near the port, there is the monument a Los caìdos en Malvinas and is a place where you do not joke. Among mummies with strollers and retired people, there is the daily pilgrimage with cross-respect on every side. Just talk to a taxi driver, a passer-by or an Argentine whatever to make an idea.
After 34 years and 9 world championships (of which only one more won by Argentina) things are exactly as they were then. In Port Stanley, which the Argentines call Puerto Argentino, British reinforcements arrived last year. In addition to the winds of the Atlantic, sometimes those of war return, fueled by the hoaxes of the international press and by the statements of the politician on duty.
However, at the end of March 2016, a United Nations advisory commission expressed its opinion on the continental shelf of the South Atlantic, effectively increasing the territorial waters and the contiguous area of the Argentine Republic. In fact, the Malvinas dispute does not reopen from a legal point of view, but the question of whether it was ever needed is topical again. We will see what it means, also because Argentina and Great Britain are not those of 30 years ago. Today the government in Buenos Aires, although the demagogic-liberal air is over, would have no way of justifying a coup. It would not even have the spirit and the tools after twenty years of demonization of the military world.
Then in 82 there were Reagan (reluctantly) and Pinochet pleading the British cause (not surprisingly, Pinochet had the support of London until his death) and a still formidable fleet. Today London, in addition to the operational limit due to the defense cuts, would have Obama and a widespread Third World climate to row against any Atlantic routes.
Time passes and many things change. The Falklands, or rather the Malvinas, always remain there, ready to rekindle with a retro charm that no one will ever be able to take away from them.
(Photo: ARA)
