By Daniel Guzmán

Nota publicada este 2 de abril en Ambito

The statement is not intended to elicit emotional impact, but rather to describe a geopolitical reality: the Argentine people of 1982, who upheld territorial integrity even under the dictatorship, have been replaced by successive governments that have overseen the dismantling and surrender of their territory. This policy, 44 years after the conflict, has become a stark illustration of capitulation and disintegration.

The "cursed deed" and the expansion of dispossession

In 1965, Argentina succeeded in getting the United Nations General Assembly to issue Resolution 2065 , recognizing the sovereignty dispute over the Islands as a case of colonialism. However, the failed attempt to recover the islands by force in 1982 became the "cursed event" of our sovereignty. This unplanned act of extreme military irresponsibility gave the United Kingdom the perfect excuse to freeze dialogue and transform the Malvina Islands into an impregnable military enclave and a source of wealth for a monumental theft.

Thus, for the soldiers who fought against the British troops, military defeat morphed into political surrender. The colonial occupation expanded over these 44 years, from 14,800 square kilometers in 1982 to 1.6 million square kilometers in 2026. This resulted in the annual plundering of 250,000 tons of fishing resources under the passive gaze of a state that has abdicated its role as custodian.

Social anesthesia and the de facto British government

The central fact of colonial expansion stems from a lack of awareness of the invasion . Argentine society, and that of Tierra del Fuego in particular, has not internalized that we are a nation usurped and plundered. There is no awareness that Great Britain de facto governs a vast portion of our insular and maritime territory in the South Atlantic. This lack of engagement with the present is the very factor that guarantees the enemy the existence of a nation with a profound disinterest in both today and tomorrow.

Thus, in these 44 years, there exists an Argentina that prefers the comfort of ignorance, so as not to confront either the reality of political surrender or British expansion in the south of the nation. The defense of sovereignty has been reduced to a 24-hour "window of opportunity" every April 2nd. A ritual of honors, medals, and tears, which is hermetically sealed off on April 3rd, returning to indifference.

Colonialism is denounced in public forums, but it is tolerated with a naturalness that is nothing other than complicity with the usurper.

Educational de-Malvinization and institutional abandonment

This lack of awareness is not accidental; it is the result of a state policy aimed at erasing the memory of the Malvinas War. The national education system focuses on the pain of the soldiers' deaths, but avoids analyzing the ongoing plunder. The apathy of the National Interuniversity Council (CIN) is alarming: Argentine universities do not promote in-depth studies on what is happening in the South Atlantic. By not investigating the dispossession, the Malvinas become academically invisible.

The picture is completed by an Argentine Foreign Ministry that maintains a complicit silence regarding British propaganda campaigns targeting Argentine university students with contests like " Why I'd like to meet my neighbors from the Malvina Islands." There are no official explanations about the regular flights to the islands or the presence of British scientific vessels flying the illegitimate Malvina Islands flag in our waters. This strategic abandonment by the Foreign Ministry is a formal and de facto renunciation of the defense of our territory.

The Kelper Constitution vs. the Tierra del Fuego Constitution

While the colony established in the Malvina Islands has enacted a constitution of 100 articles, dedicated exclusively to legislating territorial expansion, establishing plunder and planning its self-determination; the province of Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and the South Atlantic Islands has enacted a constitution in which there is no chapter, no article, no annex, that mentions and legislates State policies on the Malvina Islands, on the South Atlantic and Antarctica.

The point of no return

The capitulation reached its critical point when President Javier Milei, the nation's highest authority, stated in an interview with the British newspaper The Telegraph on December 29th that the recovery of the islands was contingent upon the will of the settlers, saying, " The territory should only return to Argentina through negotiation and when the islanders so desire ." This broke with a 192-year-old doctrine of defense, initiated by Manuel Moreno in 1833. This rupture validates the "self-determination" of an implanted population, bringing the nation to the brink of definitive loss in the diplomatic arena. Now, the only remaining concrete alternative for recovery is to design a military defense plan for the definitive expulsion of the British Empire.

Today, the homeland we went to fight for no longer exists . It has been replaced by an individualistic society, an indifferent academic and university structure, a complicit foreign ministry, and a leadership that admires the usurper.

If sovereignty is not effective occupation, the administration of resources, the defense of the land and the unwavering will not to negotiate the surrender, what remains is a territory in liquidation that in 1982 was watered with the clean blood of 649 Argentinians.

Having lived through these 44 years, witnessing this devastating present, riddled with indifference and governments that have abandoned the Malvinas Cause, it would have been better not to have returned from the war. Because the honor of death in battle is a thousand times preferable to the life of a survivor who now walks through a homeland that no longer exists, a stranger in his own land, watching the present and the future for which his brothers gave their lives crumble.

Daniel Guzmán

Malvinas War Veteran, 25th Infantry Regiment. Journalist. Director of the website www.agendamalvinas.com.ar