When an Argentine leader makes a statement about the Falklands you can be sure it’ll be self-serving, delusional claptrap. But even by those standards, President Milei’s speech to the United Nations this week was ludicrous. Lambasting the UN for being a “useless organisation whose only purpose is to sustain a cast of faintly arrogant parasites masquerading as well-intentioned bureaucrats”, Milei warned that unless the UN acted on the Falklands, Argentina would “take matters into our own hands”.
A history of humiliation
Really, Mr Milei? Well, be careful what you wish for. Because the last time Argentina tried to take matters into its own hands, by invading the Falklands in 1982 and attempting to subjugate the peace-loving Islanders, it got thoroughly humiliated, with the British task force booting the invader out within two and half months. Oh, and 900 people lost their lives in that conflict, the vast majority of them Argentine soldiers.
The real reason, of course, for Milei’s absurd speech is nothing to do with the Falklands at all, and entirely about his precarious political position, with approval ratings tanking as the country suffers from stubbornly high inflation, rising unemployment and climbing rates of poverty.
As ever with Argentine Presidents, Milei is desperate to distract his voters by getting them all worked up about islands that he knows full well will be British for as long as the people themselves wish. That is to say, forever.
A change of tune
There’s an irony here, too. It’s only earlier this year that Milei said that Argentina would soon be so successful and prosperous that the people of the Falklands would be persuaded to take up Argentine sovereignty of their own free will (don’t laugh at the back). Yet now he says, “we’re not going to sit around” and “the Malvinas are a national cause”.
I guess there are some Argentinians who will once again be fooled by all this, just as they were in 1982 when their newspapers reported “We’re winning” right up to the moment that their exhausted, half-starved soldiers hoisted a white flag over Port Stanley.
Life on the Islands
But it’s difficult for anyone who’s actually visited the Islands to be taken in by his guff. On my most recent visit in May I travelled over to West Falkland, whose windswept, barren, rocky terrain still shows signs of Argentine folly. The rusting wing of a fighter plane, shot down by the British, sticks out of a hillside.
A small museum in Fox Bay shows the pathetic remnants of Argentina’s brief occupation. And in Port Howard, I saw the community hall where hundreds of desperate Argentine soldiers tried to shelter from the freezing Falklands winter.
It must be galling for Milei that, for all his bellicosity, the Falkland Islanders, busily enjoying a standard of living that Argentinians can only dream about, merrily get on with their lives, hardly bothering to roll their eyes. “It’s the greatest hits, but in a poor recording,” is how one leading Islander reacted to Milei’s recent pronouncements.
A one-sided contest
In theory, at least, this is a David versus Goliath scenario, with the tiny Falkland Islands (population fewer than 4,000) facing off against the big Argentine bully (population 46 million). But in this case, David couldn’t care less, safe in the knowledge that if Argentina ever was foolish enough to “take matters into its own hands” the result would be even more devastating than 40 years ago.
Because the British military presence at Mount Pleasant on East Falkland is far too strong. In 1982, it didn’t exist. So, even if a bunch of Argentinians are taken in by Milei’s nonsense, the rest of the world can follow the lead of the Falkland Islanders. It’s simple really. Just ignore him.
