From WaPo, BBC News and The Grauniad (distorted by me):
Reporters to Biden: Any plans to revisit the Cuba embargo? It would be a major sign that things were really different under an Obama administration you know...
Biden: No. Obama and I think "that Cuban people should determine their own fate and they should be able to live in freedom." Oh, yeah, also, we need votes in Florida. Oh, yeah, and did I mention that there's a financial crisis going on and a major diplomatic problem with the Middle East and South Asia, so we're going to be damned if we waste any political capital on an issue that, whilst important to Latin Americans, really doesn't make the blindest bit of difference to us in DC? Er, did I say that last bit out loud?
... Meanwhile, in the Southern hemisphere ...
Reporters to Brown: Any plans to talk to Argentina about the Falkland Islands? You wouldn't have to concede the principle of territorial sovereignty, and it would be a major sign that things really were different under a New Labour administration you know...
Brown: No. "The essential principle has always been that the islanders should determine the issue of sovereignty for themselves. Let us be clear, our first priority will always be the needs and the wishes of the islanders." Besides, I'm about to get kicked out of office on the back of a populist backlash which has large swathes of Little Englander sentiment built into its core. Do you really think we'll waste any political capital on an issue that, whilst important to Latin Americans, really doesn't make the blindest bit of difference to us in London? Er, did I say that out loud?
Think Of the Children
1 hour ago
2 comments:
Hmmm . . . I wonder why (or even if) the issue of the sovereignty of the Malvinas is of interest to Latin Americans. If the resident population was sufficiently large for the islands to be viable as an independent country, then I doubt very much that Britain would stand in their way. Britain, after all, seems willing to relinquish its claims to the northern part of Ireland, if that's what the majority of its residents want. No, I suspect that the issue of the sovereignty of the Malvinas is of interest only to certain cirles within Argentina, not even to the majority of Argentines, circles who still cherish claims over the area. Whether this is because they wish its natural resources, or for reasons of national pride (Greater Argentiners), or simple revanchism, we can be certain the reason is not out of respect for the self-determination of the residents of the islands. General Galtieri and his cronies never had much respect for self-determination even for Argentines. Brown is right, quite apart from any domestic considerations, to resist such revanchism.
In my (admittedly limited) experience of visiting Argentina, I'd say that the issue remains a sore spot amongst a very wide circle of Argentines - at all levels, not just elite nationalists, in BA and in the countryside. Like Cuba (or as the Panama Canal used to), the Malvinas have come to symbolise to many Latin Americans the continuing high-handedness of Anglos towards the region.
Rightly or wrongly, to many Latin Americans the justifications based on arguments of self-determination and democracy that have been used to legitimate interventions in the region for at least a hundred years are seen as just a comfortable cover for imperialism: and not of a different order to the justifications used for intervention in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Chile, the Dominican Republic and elsewhere. Few Argentines I've met accept the argument that Thatcher liberated them from dictatorship any more than Mexicans remember President Wilson fondly for invading their country and helping depose the dictator Huerta along the way.
To my mind, negotiation with Argentina about a sensitive issue such as this does not entail abandoning the basic principle of self-determination for the inhabitants any more than negotiating with Sinn Fein did in Northern Ireland. By contrast, rejecting any discussion out of hand in a press conference, whilst serving a certain political purpose, is really not that different to the North Americans rejecting negotiations with the Cuban regime out of hand on the basis that their fundamental goal of popular self-determination cannot be compromised. You don't have to agree with the other side to talk to them, as I seem to remember a certain presidential candidate saying relatively recently...
Post a Comment