For most Argentines, Margaret Thatcher is a controversial figure, to say the least. It was she who, as British Prime Minister, ordered the sinking of the ARA Belgrado, an Argentine cruiser, resulting in the deaths of 323 people on board, almost half of Argentina’s total losses. during the 1982 war against the Falklands (or Malvinas). , as they are called in Spanish). The attack took place outside the exclusion zone that the British government had established around the islands. It is also the only case of a ship sunk in war by a nuclear submarine.
So when Argentina’s fake libertarian president, Javier Milei, called Thatcher “brilliant” in a BBC interview this week, it turned a few heads:
Criticizing someone because of their nationality or race is very intellectually precarious. I have heard many speeches by Margaret Thatcher. She was brilliant. So what is the problem?..
There was a war and we lost. This does not mean that one cannot consider one’s opponents as people who have done their job well.
This isn’t the first time Milei has praised Thatcher in public, but it is, in my opinion, the first time since he became president. The fact that he made the remarks during an interview with Britain’s national broadcaster gave them added significance. During the election campaign, Milei described Thatcher as an idol who played an important role in the fall of the Berlin Wall. It flatly ignores the fact that Thatcher’s legacy of failed privatizations and strict adherence (aka TINA) to monetarism, lax financial regulation and so-called free trade left the British economy in tatters, as Michael Hudson documented extensively following his death in 2013.
“In the history of mankind,” Milei told the BBC interviewer, “there have been great leaders. Mrs. Thatcher was one of them, as was Reagan, Churchill and De Gaulle.”
In this latest interview, not only did Milei reiterate his admiration for the “Iron Lady,” but he also did something that no other post-Falklands War Argentine president has done: he admitted that the Falkland Islands, or Falklands, are, for all intents and purposes, British. Asked if he considered British Foreign Secretary David Cameron’s recent visit to the Falklands a provocation, Milei replied: “No, because this territory is now in the hands of the United Kingdom. In other words, he has every right to (visit the Falklands).
Located 250 miles off the southern tip of Argentina and 8,000 miles from the British coast, the Falklands/Falklands have been the subject of a territorial dispute between the United Kingdom and Argentina since 1833, when a British expedition invaded the islands, expelled their inhabitants and planted the British flag. After the Suez disaster in 1956, the British government began divesting itself of most of its colonial possessions in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean (while, of course, building a vast network of tax havens in their place). . However, London made sure to retain the Falklands, for their obvious geostrategic advantages.
Now classified as a British Overseas Territory, the islands are technically self-governing, with defense matters and foreign affairs managed by the British government. London regularly wheels out the fact that almost 100% of the archipelago’s 2,000 residents approved remaining under British control in a referendum in 2013. During his visit to the islands in February, Cameron said he hoped the territory will want to remain under the administration of the United Kingdom “for a long time, perhaps forever”.
Milei, however, has a cunning plan, the kind Blackadder came up with. Baldrick would be proud to resolve once and for all this centuries-old territorial dispute, which he shared with the BBC during his interview. He and his ministers, he said, would discuss the matter with their British counterparts in an adult and cordial manner until the British finally agreed to return the territory like true gentlemen. Here is a transcription of the brief exchange (the Spanish sections translated by yours truly):
— You promised the Argentines a road map to make the Falklands, known here as Malvinas, Argentinian. What exactly does this roadmap look like? »
— We believe that this must always be done within a framework of peace and as the result of a long-term negotiation in which an adult debate takes place between countries which have a lot in common and which are also a source of discord. And we must try to solve this problem in an adult way. Obviously this won’t be an instant solution, it will take time. So we are not going to give up our sovereignty and we are not going to find ourselves in a conflict situation with the United Kingdom. What we are seeking to do is to initiate a dialogue so that at some point the Falkland Islands become Argentinian.
— What makes you think the UK will agree to this, as they have made it clear they do not want to negotiate?
— It could be that today they don’t want to negotiate, but that they will do so a little later. Many of these positions have changed over time.
— But how are you going to convince them? What tools would you use to convince them?
— I will try to convince them that the territory is Argentinian.
And that’s about it. In other words, Milei will appeal to the better nature of the British establishment without exerting any other form of political or diplomatic pressure, even though the British government insists emphatically that sovereignty over the Falkland Islands “n ‘is not up for debate.’ For her part, Milei doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to broach the subject. Now is not the time, he added, to discuss the territorial conflict, which, he added, could take decades to resolve. It is, for all intents and purposes, the geopolitical equivalent of kicking as far as possible.
“We have many other issues on the agenda that (Argentina and the United Kingdom) can work together on and we are ready to do so. I think it’s the adult (yes, that word again) way of doing things. It makes more sense, he added, to “work with the UK” rather than “discuss and fight” over an issue that will take an enormous amount of time to resolve.
In other words, Argentina, under Milei’s government, will work closely with its long-time adversary on a range of issues, while putting the Falklands conflict on the back burner. This is, to say the least, a radical departure from national policy.
Argentina’s claim to the Falklands remains a major issue for most people. In a survey carried out in 2021 by the consultancy firm Julio Aurelio, more than 80% of the population supported Argentine sovereignty over the islands. I remember crossing the border into Argentina from Bolivia 20 years ago and being confronted by a giant sign proclaiming: “Las Malvinas son Argentinas”.
Even Argentina’s national constitution contains an article affirming the country’s legitimate claims to “sovereignty over the Malvinas, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands and the corresponding maritime and insular spaces, as they are an integral part of the national territory.” The recovery of these territories, he affirms, and their “full exercise of sovereignty… constitute a permanent and inalienable objective of the Argentine people”.
But apparently not for the new Argentine government. Milei’s final words should finally put an end to all baseless speculation, especially in the English-speaking press, that Milei might one day repeat the follies of the Argentine military dictatorship and order the army to reconquer the Falkland Islands. This is very unlikely to happen. Indeed, Milei has aligned his government with the West, particularly the United States and Israel, in almost every way possible, even going so far as to ask to join NATO as a global partner. The idea that his government will ever take any aggressive action against the United Kingdom, America’s Five Eye nation and founding member of NATO, is absurd.
As expected, Milei’s words sparked a backlash from many Argentine veterans of the Falklands War. In a statement, the La Plata Center for Malvinas Islands Veterans warned that “President Milei’s dishonest and shameful words should trigger flashing lights in our political system given that what is ultimately in danger, it is adequate institutional representation for the country”:
The level of irresponsibility evident in each of his statements constitutes an affront to the millions of Argentines who love our country. The conflict with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and the Northern Islands has lasted since 1833, when they appropriated millions of square kilometers of territory on our continental shelf, now in the hands of a powerful neocolonial which occupied it illegally and by force. And this job doesn’t give him any rights!
In disparaging terms, President Milei invites owners of speculative capital from all over the world… to come to our country and do with it what they want, by preparing a big program of investment incentives, all in the name of transfer of our strategic resources.
Since coming to power in mid-December, the Milei government has sign a memorandum of understanding with the United States authorizing members of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to operate along the Paraná-Paraguay waterway, including large portions of the Plata River basin, through which approximately 80% of all Argentinian exports. He agreed to buy 40-year-old second-hand F-16 fighters from Denmark for $300 million. She also announced the creation of a US naval base at Ushuaia, at the southern tip of Tierra del Fuego, often described as the last stop before Antarctica.
Accused of having sold off the sovereignty of his country without anything in return, Milei arguedbluntly, that allowing the installation of an American military base in Usuahia is the greatest act of sovereignty in the last 40 years since it will strengthen Argentina’s territorial claims to Antarctica.
