By Felipe Alvarez de Toledo, Ambassador of Argentina to Romania
Since Argentina became independent from the Kingdom of Spain, it fully exercised sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands, proceeding to the issuance of regulations and the establishment of legal and administrative structures that consolidated the full exercise of its sovereignty, including the promotion of commercial activities and population establishment. Two important milestones in the process of consolidating the exercise of Argentine sovereignty over the South Atlantic Islands were the first raising of the Argentine flag in the Malvinas Islands, which occurred on November 6, 1820, and the creation, on June 10, 1829, by decree of the Governor of the Province of Buenos Aires, Martín Rodríguez, of the Political and Military Command of the Malvinas Islands and adjacent to Cape Horn.
But this full exercise of Argentine sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands was interrupted on January 3, 1833 when the United Kingdom, in full colonial expansion, forcibly evicted the representatives of the Argentine government and established another population, coming from the metropolis itself. Since then, and during the following 188 years, the different Argentine governments have been demanding permanently for the restitution of the full exercise of sovereignty over the Islands.
In this claim, the support of the international community in general has been fundamental. Over the years, and as the international community organized itself in different multilateral forums, support from different regional and multilateral groups was added to the Argentine position. This strong support made it possible to achieve, within the United Nations, the adoption of different resolutions directly or indirectly related to the Question of the Malvinas Islands. In this framework, resolution 1514 (XV) of the United Nations General Assembly (Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples) supports the Argentine position regarding the Question of the Malvinas Islands, enshrining the principle of territorial integrity by maintaining that “Any attempt aimed at totally or partially breaking the national unity and territorial integrity of a country is incompatible with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.” Likewise, it maintains that the populations with rights to self-determination are the peoples subject to foreign subjugation, domination and exploitation and therefore the populations implanted by the colonial power, as is the case of the Malvinas Islands, are not active subjects of such right.
A year later, in 1965, the first specific resolution on the Question of the Malvinas Islands, resolution 2065 (XX), was approved within the United Nations, which constitutes a fundamental milestone for the Argentine claim. Through it, the international community recognizes the territorial sovereignty dispute between Argentina and the United Kingdom and calls on both parties to continue bilateral negotiations without delay as a way to reach a solution to the dispute. In all the opportunities in which the “Question of the Malvinas Islands” was considered by the General Assembly of the United Nations (1965-1988), Romania voted affirmatively. Despite the constant call of the international community, the United Kingdom persists in failing to resume the sovereignty negotiations, hiding behind the principle of self-determination, which is not applicable to the Question of the Malvinas Islands, thus becoming, more and more in evidence, the economic and geopolitical interests that underlie their claim to perpetuate their control in the South Atlantic.
The Argentine Government is firmly convinced that the best way to keep its claim in force is to continue raising it as a State policy and as a regional and global issue. Argentines will always continue to claim through peaceful and diplomatic channels, convinced that their Nation will not be complete until they regain the exercise of sovereignty over the Malvinas, South Georgias, South Sandwich Islands, and the surrounding maritime areas. In this sense, in order to disseminate the Question of the Malvinas Islands in Romania, a Support Group for the Malvinas was created in 2012 coordinated by Dr. Razvan Pantelimon, which had a vast activity and will soon publish his agenda for the year 2022.
