The Teatro Colón , an emblem of Argentine culture, was recently the scene of an act that offends national sovereignty . It was the farewell of British Ambassador Kirsty Hayes, which brought together a notable crowd of officials, business leaders, and, most strikingly, high-ranking Argentine military officers . An event that, beyond diplomatic formality, exposes a painful contradiction at the very heart of Argentine identity in the face of the persistent occupation of the Malvina Islands and the British colonial advance.
Since 1833 , the United Kingdom has held an illegitimate usurpation of the Malvina Islands, South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands and a vast maritime area of 1.6 million square kilometres in the South Atlantic . This resource-rich territory is the scene of a flagrant systematic plundering of 250,000 tonnes of fishery resources annually , in violation of United Nations resolutions. Added to this is the advanced oil exploitation project, the construction of a large deep-water port and the alarming presence of a NATO-operated military base on Mount Pleasant .
These events are not mere items on a diplomatic agenda; they are the pillars of an active colonialism that continues unabated.
The Cynicism of British High Diplomacy
In her speech, Ambassador Hayes evoked a "privileged relationship" between the two countries in the 19th century, praising Argentina's current economic performance. However, behind the rhetoric of prosperity and the opera "Billy Budd" (by British composer Benjamin Britten) heard at the Colón, lies the harsh reality of a power that has historically built its wealth on plunder, destruction, and death across the globe .
The presence of government figures such as Ministers Federico Sturzenegger and Mariano Cúneo Libarona, and the heads of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Brigadier Xavier Isaac, of the Army, Lieutenant General Carlos Presti, and of the Navy, Admiral Carlos Allievi , is incomprehensible to those who understand that sovereignty is not a mere formality, but an inalienable principle.
The attendance of these high-ranking military officers is a blow to the memory of those who fell in 1982 and to the struggle to recover our islands . It is an image that violently clashes with the duty to defend the homeland against those who oppress it. Can an Argentine military officer pay tribute to the representative of a nation that maintains a NATO base on our own usurped territory and illegally exploits our resources? The answer is a resounding no.
The functional role of lackeys of Ex-combatants and their families
In a note published a few days ago by Clarín , the presence and applause of Kirsty Hayes for the Malvinas veteran Julio Aro , creator of the No Me Olvides Foundation, and María Fernanda Araujo , former MP and former president of the Commission of Relatives of the Fallen in Malvinas , are highlighted. While the search for the identification of fallen soldiers is a just and humane cause, the articulation of these figures with British diplomacy in this context is deeply shameful and detestable.
Great Britain was directly responsible for the loss of identity of many Argentine heroes , having removed their remains from the sites where they fell in combat, flagrantly violating the Geneva Conventions , which established that the place of a soldier's fall is his grave. Presenting Great Britain as a "humanist empire" for "resuming joint humanitarian work" and allowing visits to graves after decades of silence and denial is a cynical maneuver seeking to whitewash its image.
The presence and applause for Aro and Araujo at the British ambassador's farewell ceremony serve this strategy , creating in public opinion the dangerous illusion of a relationship where there is no colonizer and colonized, but rather a brotherhood that distorts reality. It is an act of voluntary cultural submission and a worrying vocation for colonialism.
Ambassador Hayes's farewell at the Teatro Colón , attended by high-ranking Argentine officials and military personnel, and with applause for those who reinforce the British narrative, is a painful reminder that colonialism is not only exercised with weapons, but also through diplomatic cynicism and the manipulation of memory . The defense of sovereignty demands consistency and firmness, not gestures that validate oppression and plunder. It is time to wake up from this dangerous fantasy of a "privileged relationship" with an empire that still maintains its boot on our land and our resources today.
